IE9 with SmartScreen Leads Malware Protection Once Again

Well, but Dave, Win 7 is actually pretty easy on specs: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/system-requirements. We're basically looking at memory being the top concern. And, unless you're running a system from the 90s, 1Gb of RAM is not something unattainable. You don't need anything new, unless you absolutely care about Aero..and in an environment such as a college or hospital, who would? If we're talking 256Mb tops systems here, well, point taken.

Having hospitals run on XP scares the hell out of me (though I've seen several run on 98 still)

 

Right, that's it! I'm just off to see the bloke who built the XP computer for me & convinced me that I would need a new one to run Win 7. What did he say now? "Well Dave ... for all the dosh it would cost to make the old one run Win 7 ... I may as well build you a new computer ..."

Good job I know ju jutsu ...

A lot of systems only have about 256Mbs though, they aren't all built in the '90s.

Probably better than Vista ...

 

Hmmmm *thinks* thinking of XP & security.

 

I saw that today on another website. If that isn't good enough reason to dump XP, I don't know what else would be, lol. However, as the point is made in the article, once XP has been sent to the digital dump, Win 7, 8 and so on will take the hits. You're not going to stop hackers by switching to a different OS. But, you can at least deal some damage back by making them work much harder for a short time.

 

Once XP goes away/ Win7 surpasses it, yes, Win7 will be targeted more. But Win7 is inherently more secure.

 

All that means is that once hackers have worked through all the roadblocks, it'll make trying to secure systems even harder. There is no point at which something is impenetrable, it simply takes more time/effort. There's no telling what hackers will be able to do in a couple of years. The nice thing about that is that there is no telling what the good guys will be able to do as well.

 

By that time Windows 8/9/10 will be out with enhanced security. The game of cat and mouse has been going on for 30 years, and is simply the life of software.

 

Oh I'm not trying to say that Win7 is unhackable. I just mean that they have their work cut out for them as opposed to XP, which really just needed to have the file get on their drive and often it could even autorun.

 

True, things are much better (so far) than they were with XP. And as a 7 user, I'm grateful MS is getting their act together.

 

Hopefully, Win 7 (or even Vista) are more difficult to hack. As Kurt Vonnegut would have said: "And so it goes".

 

Just did some testing a few hours ago, by visiting some links from malware domain list. I must say i was suprised by seeing SmartScreen filter blocking all nocive exe's i tried to execute! I was only able to run a pdf exploit and what it seems to be a Java exploit.

Of course, the use of a download manager will prevent this part of SmartScreen protection.