It is time for the annual Winners and Losers Poll. If you agree they were winners in 2016, give them a tick. If you do not tick them as a winner, means you have determined them a loser in 2016. This year I separated the users category from the companies-only category. Why? it is possible that the user was a loser and the company was a winner or vice versa. I also expanded the security category. OS security separated from 3rd party vendor security. New this year: I added a Privacy/users and a Cloud/user category - look at these two from the user perspective only. Also Security/Business e.g. how did they fair this year protecting the user data they collect and store ? Please feel free to expand on your choices by posting a comment.
i voted as winners: OS Security/Microsoft - winner : Because the OS built-in security is way better than previous versions. Social Media (companies) - winners : bcause more people are willing to share their whole life on the net , even sexual-oriented "prowesses/advantages" in videos; which attract in return more subscribers. Not mentioning the twitting American president ^^ Security/3rd party vendors - winners: because new threats get a huge rise (Ransomwares especially) , so more people are buying things like anti-exploits/anti-ransomwares , which were not as present before than now.
OS Security/Apple - winner OS Security/Android - winner Security is the big winner in the mobile sphere.. IOS is still the most secure eco-system and platform out there and with Android Nougat Google has improved the security 10 fold. The sucess can be measured in the price companies are buying zero day's. $1.5 million for IOS 10 zero day and $250,00 for a Andoird Nougat zero day.
I gave Linux users a winners tick primarily because of Chrome OS. Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the first quarter of this year, and according to Google, US schools buy more Chromebooks than all other devices combined. It makes Linux more friendly for kids, seniors and users wanting ease of use and fewer complications. Chrome OS is not on junk level laptops either (ref: 2016) - affordable too. What I was not aware of until recently was that businesses are buying them too (@Krusty is not the only one learning new stuff). I also felt that MS Browsers were big losers this year. MS should have rewritten Edge from scratch rather than stripping down IE and slapping the Edge label on it. Securing W10 has been jeopardized by IE and Edge.
Windows 10 and Vivaldi are both losers to me. Win 10 because of the privacy fiasco, and Vivaldi because it's still too heavy and still has annoying bugs.