Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet 1010
pkluss noted Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft making the proclamation that "Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today."
I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
That this thread will consist only of positive remarks, and supportive statements towards Microsoft.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Funny)
That this thread will consist only of positive remarks, and supportive statements towards Microsoft.
Well, they make some dandy keyboards and mice, and I've always been a fan of Flight Simulator...
...but that's about all I got here. OS X FTW!
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Informative)
Flight Simulator is now grounded [gizmodo.com].
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
amazing framerates of 1 and maybe 2
Would I be correct in assuming the obvious of 1 to 2 frames per pineapple, or are we dealing with a non standard unit here?
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Informative)
And for those of us who want something usable there's X-Plane. Nothing against Flightgear but last time I checked it still needed a fair bit of work.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they do make peripherals. No, they aren't re-branded.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Chinese manufacturers, not Chinese suppliers. There's a difference. Almost no companies run their own manufacturing or fabrication facilities. They're expensive as hell. We're talking in the range of a billion dollars for a facility that can meet international demands. You need to produce an obscene amount of a product just to meet the operating costs of a facility.
Logitech, a company that you can't seriously suggest just "sells some nice stuff", outsources half of their production to third party contractors. What you're basically saying is that Microsoft's hardware division is somehow different because they outsource 100%? How is this right?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a distinction without a difference. If you need those drivers to run Vista on your PC, then Vista has a problem. Users should not have to care who writes the drivers, unless you have some esoteric and unusual hardware in your PC.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Funny)
He seems to always be spouting drivel and trash.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
Socialism is a form of government not a software license.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that Red Hat's value proposition? Red Hat supplies and supports Linux, yet the components come from multiple sources. If a shitty driver in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is causing problems and I have a support contract, then I expect Red Hat to take ownership of the problem and not just blame it on the author of the device driver.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
When Microsoft controls the "vista capable" logo, the fact that a piece of hardware is branded "vista capable" means Microsoft has reviewed the driver and approved it. So absolutely, they should be responsible.
If they don't want to be responsible for a shitty drivers, they shouldn't hand out the logo to shitty drivers.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are confusing fault with who needs to own the problem. Imagine that I go into a restaurant and the food presented is off. Who is at fault: possibly the supplier of the food, but who am I going to complain to: the manager of the restaurant.
Microsoft continually talks about "experience" -- if a crappy driver spoils my experience, then Microsoft has a problem, even if MS is not at fault.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Informative)
Why is it Vista's fault if the hardware manufacturer releases crappy drivers
It's not. If you buy the machine from - say Dell - and it is flaky due to some hardware or driver issue, then Vista shouldn't be blamed - Dell should.
However, that is a very naive view of human nature. In fact, MS plasters their branding all over the place within Vista - so no wonder you are much more likely to be aware that it is a Windows machine rather than a Dell machine. If they wanted to keep a premium image they needed to pursue a different marketing strategy. Their reputation for instability is a marketing problem, not a technical one.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the olden days, sometimes it was a loose SATA cable
SATA? Olden days? Come on, it's only been what, like 5 years?
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
in the olden days... *snigger*.
In the real olden days it was mislabeled reel tapes
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Informative)
People are always saying this on here (from NT 4.0 onwards) but how does the average user determine whether their hardware is faulty, their drivers are buggy or their OS is just a load of bloated crap? Vista is ok but I don't see any specific advantage over XP Home apart from being able to alter ACLs with a GUI instead of CACLS, and despite what apologists say, it is slower than XP.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Interesting)
And XP is slower than 2k.
And 2k is slower than NT4.
More functionality means less performance. Doesn't matter much. Vista on my i7 is still faster than XP on my old 4 year old Athlon machine.
For a home user, there are currently few advantages in using Vista, even though there are many under-the-hood optimizations that may help them.
As such, i would not recommend a home user to go through the effort of upgrading his existing machine to Vista. At this time, that machine is likely to be over 2 years old.
However, when deciding to buy a new machine, why use an 8-9 year old operating system? There is no reason for a home user to not use Vista on a new machine.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Informative)
And XP is slower than 2k.
And 2k is slower than NT4.
More functionality means less performance. Doesn't matter much
Not to feed the troll, but really? In my experience new, feature-rich releases of OSs tend to be much faster than their predecessor. My experience is mostly with OS X and a bit of Ubuntu. OS X in particular has gotten snappier and more featureful with each point release.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget the upgrade from Mac OS 9 to OS X, and the massive lags when just dragging windows around the screen! OS X has been getting faster because there has been so much room for improvement.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is more free software available for windows then there is for all other operating systems combined.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if it's not, then I suppose you'll claim it's evidence that this site is biased... as opposed to the site the article [microsoft.com] is on, which is completely fair and balanced?
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think securing any OS is a good thing but I'm strangely reminded of the win2k security certification. Win2k was certified secure as long as it wasn't networked. As the saying goes, microsoft are now 4/5 of the way to reinventing unix... badly. Any OS security can be easily subverted by an administrator, but Myopicsoft make it a necessity. In my case I run Fax and Scan as administrator on some client machines as I refuse to set up an AD domain for 3 clients. Endless examples of this kind of braindamage... runas isn't a patch on SxID and they didn't even get sudo right.
Hopefully Microsoft will have a usable secure OS some time soon. In the mean time, there's unix.
Funny that the tags mention OpenBSD (Score:4, Insightful)
... and not only because the article isn't about OpenBSD at all.
Anyway, yes, OpenBSD as an OS is probably pretty secure, but so are many others to, but the more crap you pile on top of it the more risk.
Anyway, the OpenBSD people count their "security" (marketing vise atleast) in years since the last remote root(?) exploit.
How likely is a remote root/administrator exploit vs Vista with a software firewall, no extra services and a user which don't do anything? ...
When it comes to exploits vs browsers, mail clients, IM clients, document viewers and such the OS isn't the issue.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well they may have been right, but only in the short term.
It takes some time for the bugs and exploits to be found. Even the best OS's will have them. And if not fixed the safest OS one year will be the wide open security hole the next.
That said I seriously doubt they did any real checking to see if what they were saying was true.
The best way to make a computer safe from hackers is to remove the power cord. The second best is to remove all network connections. But both of those are only if you are measuring purely from a safety from hackers and malicious use, as both also remove most all other use of the computer as well.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe that the GP was modded insightful.
The problematic truth (Score:5, Insightful)
(Then there is the fun bit where MS counts every Vista license purchased as a downgrade to XP as a "Vista sale".)
Re:The problematic truth (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be really curious to see some actual statistics re: downgrading. I doubt it'd be as high as Slashdot seems to think.
Re:The problematic truth (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The problematic truth (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure I can't speak for everyone here, but I have Vista simply because it works. No, it's not perfect. Yes, Microsoft always seems to fall a bit short when polishing their GUIs. But even though Vista annoys me, it annoys me less than XP did and far less than any Linux distro I've ever tried.
Seriously, if all the major Linux distro groups would just quit their bitching and work together, it could be amazing. But there is just way too much fragmentation right now. I really wish Red Hat would have absorbed Suse instead of Novell.
Re:I have a feeling.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Meaningless Anecdote 1: One of my colleagues went to upgrade to VISTA a few days back. I'm only surprised it took him so long, as he has been dutifully following the MS upgrade treadmill since before WIN95, a Windows-lover's Windows-lover. VISTA refused to install on a 2.2GHz AMD64 with 2GB RAM. He is such a happy camper he started asking me about Linux. He is also tired of viruses, spyware worms etc. I burned the 5.3 LiveDVD of Scientific Linux for him, so he can see if he likes it and wants to install it.
Meaningless Anecdote 2 I installed Zenwalk Linux on my 79 year old Mom's compromised (by malware) XP computer two weeks ago. She does have an occasional question, however, she's enjoying the use of her computer again.
Have a nice day.
Hah! Beat tat Windows suckers (Score:4, Funny)
I installed Zenwalk Linux on my 79 year old Mom's compromised (by malware) XP computer two weeks ago.
Linux can run on 79 year old hardware.
And one more thing ... (Score:4, Insightful)
is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he is probably right.
MacOS X isn't all that secure. Professional hackers have said that the implementation of ASLR/NX on Vista is far superior to Apples.
And as for Linux? Well, it wasn't that long ago that a certain high profile distribution accidentally disabled the pRNG in its core crypto libraries ... for two years. And then another high profile distro let attackers actually sign some rogue packages with their private key. I don't think anybody should be making smart comments about the security of Li
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
That leaves Vista
...and all the security-designed systems. Do you really think Windows is safer than OpenBSD, let alone OpenVMS? Or whatever the NSA uses on their hardest systems? His quote is like saying that "the Ford Mustang is the fastest car on the planet".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Does BSD do everything that Vista does? Those systems are so locked down that it affects their capabilities. I'm not saying it's bad, but I don't think you can compare BSD to Vista without starting by saying that BSD doesn't do alot of the important things that Vista users take for granted.
Your comment is like saying that an Abrams Tank is more secure than a Mustang.
True, but can a tank get on the freeway without causing a traffic jam?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, it can. It just has to run over a few cars first. :)
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment is like saying that an Abrams Tank is more secure than a Mustang.
True, but can a tank get on the freeway without causing a traffic jam?
If the internet was a warzone, would you take the tank which is impervious to nearly everything they'll shoot at you with, or would you take the Mustang, paint a target on the back of your head, and relax, knowing you can have air conditioning while trying to dodge the bullets?
See all those wrecked Mustangs on the side of the road? They too can cause a traffic jam. It's called a botnet.
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux have fewer exploits is simple. Windows XP is easier to exploit.
Just remember that the security of the newer OSes is only one factor in the availability of the exploits.
If you want to visualize a flawed analogy; when you're being chased by a hungry lion, it doesn't matter how fast you run as long as you run faster than the guy beside you.
In this analogy XP is the slowest runner who is still plentiful. When the XP prey dwindles away, the hungry blackhat lions will look for the next slowest runner.
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:4, Insightful)
"And as for Linux? Well, it wasn't that long ago that a certain high profile distribution accidentally disabled the pRNG in its core crypto libraries ... for two years. And then another high profile distro let attackers actually sign some rogue packages with their private key. I don't think anybody should be making smart comments about the security of Linux."
Let's get this straight. You think *all* Linux distributions are unsafe because of TWO vendors. Do you believe in eugenics as well?
You do realize that your comment glosses over the hundreds(thousands?) of holes and exploits that M$ is responsible for it every OS up to and including this one you're waxing poetically about, right?
I wonder why I haven't ever had a rootkit on my Linux installations but I fix M$ installations all the time(Vista included) that have been rootkitted. Once a week at least.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, together Debian Ubuntu and Red Hat probably compromise the majority of Linux installs these days. If two large and well respected distros can fail in such basic ways, then it's reasonable to extrapolate that smaller and presumably less professional outfits will be even more flaky. Of course you can always find some Linux distro that has a perfect track record, but like I said above, usage counts. At some point if you want the word "Linux" to be meaningful you have to start talking about the bits actua
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista is arguably the most secure OS suitable for desktop use.
It is not the safest OS suitable for desktop use however.
What's the difference?
The President of the United States is arguably the most secured individual on the planet.
However, due to the large number of threats against him and his need to travel and be in the public eye often, he is not the safest individual on the planet.
Operating systems are the same. Vista has added many good defenses, but is still the OS with the target on its back.
I'm ok with Microsoft claiming to be the most secure OS for desktop use. OpenBSD and some hardened Linux distros might wish to disagree, but most people don't run hardened systems on desktops, they want more functional systems that are easier to support.
However, I'm not going to let MS get away with calling Vista the safest OS out there, because it just isn't.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
it wasn't that long ago that a certain high profile distribution accidentally disabled the pRNG in its core crypto libraries ... for two years.
Umm, no.
A certain high-profile distro accidentally disabled the pRNG in it's sshd initialization scripts.
another high profile distro let attackers actually sign some rogue packages with their private key.
again, no. The key was suspected to have been compromised, and as soon as it was discovered, the key was revoked, they performed a complete audit of all packages, and everything checked out.
I don't think anybody should be making smart comments about the security of Linux.
Least of all you... of course the fact that the only two incidents that you could come up with are entirely in your head actually speaks volumes.
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Informative)
The pRNG was disabled in the openssl library, thus compromising any system using keys generated by that library. That is a major, major hole and has nothing to do with sshd initialization scripts (where did you get that from anyway?)
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Update does not use IE and hasn't since XP. You need to get information that isn't many years out of date.
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:4, Informative)
Windows Update does not use IE and hasn't since XP. You need to get information that isn't many years out of date.
Where are my mod points when I need them? Mod parent up informative please!
He is correct.. Vista and beyond use an interface in the Control Panel which is vastly superior to the IE Windows Update. Read up here: Windows Update [wikipedia.org]
Re:is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever buil (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, "since XP," because man, that was freakin' eons ago. Like back before marketshare fell from 63.76% to 63.67% [tgdaily.com].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IE is only used for Windows 2003/XP and earlier systems. Vista/2008 has its own separate updating program.
what? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today."
See any serious problems with this story?
Do I see any serious problems with this story? Uh, yeah, maybe one or two...
I'm not sure why this is news - MS says this about every OS release they put out...
See a problem? Check Vista SP2's release date (Score:5, Interesting)
"Do I see any serious problems with this story? Uh, yeah, maybe one or two..."
How about the fact tha Vista SP2 is not "in the marketplace" at all.
It hasn't been released yet and is still an RC candidate [windowsteamblog.com]in beta testing!
If Microsoft wants to compare imaginary not yet released software to actual software, I set let them and Google play games with beta releases. The rest of us have actual work to do.
Re:See a problem? Check Vista SP2's release date (Score:5, Funny)
You are missing the point. SP2 is secure because no one can hack it. No one can hack it, because it hasn't been released. Microsoft has finially discovered how to ensure their products are invunerable to hackers, simply never release anything.
I pray they will only roll this technology forward to all future product lines...
Fail (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
today.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today
Until tomorrow when all those pesky exploits come out
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
5 bucks says some exploits launch just to poke holes in their statement.
Next major worm will only target Vista and will spam MS addresses with
EPIC FAIL
This spam was sent from a compromised Vista machine.
Safest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if it is, it's too late. Vista is already perceived as the new Windows ME. With Windows 7 coming up soon, I doubt there will be much sales increase for MS.
Re:Safest? (Score:5, Insightful)
People worship XP, even though it was released just after WinME.
Re:Safest? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows XP was not a continuation of the 95-98-98SE-ME hybrid 16/32bit product line. It is a continuation of Windows NT->2K line, which was 32-bit pure and already very stable in comparison. Apples and oranges.
Please don't (Score:5, Funny)
In the history of man there have been several cases of fatal hilarity(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Hilarity) and this article might inflict this seemingly comical effect on technically concious people.
Posting an article like this without thinking about the consequences might actually hurt and kill people. Please don't.
ORLY? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also the most secure OS on the planet
Trusted Solaris would like to have a word with you.
Waving red in front of the bull. (Score:5, Insightful)
Waving red in front of the bull. Always a good idea.
Pity that it will be MicroSofts' customers, not MS that will suffer when the hackers, script kiddies and miscellaneous ne'er-do-wells inevitably trash the security for their latest offering.
Fools? (Score:3, Funny)
Checks date on the article. No, still not the 1st (though eight days different).
Well, somebody's a fool.
Re:Fools? (Score:5, Funny)
Only 8 days late? For M$, that's better than their normal delivery.
post SP2? (Score:5, Funny)
Did he mention that Vista post SP2, there is no network stack? Fwoppies FTW!
The winner of Pwn2Own seems to agree (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pwn2own-mac-hack,2254-4.html [tomshardware.com]
'The NX bit is very powerful.When used properly, it ensures that user-supplied code cannot be executed in the process during exploitation. Researchers (and hackers) have struggled with ways around this protection. ASLR is also very tough to defeat. This is the way the process randomizes the location of code in a process. Between these two hurdles, no one knows how to execute arbitrary code in Firefox or IE 8 in Vista right now. For the record, Leopard has neither of these features, at least implemented effectively. In the exploit I won Pwn2Own with, I knew right where my shellcode was located and I knew it would execute on the heap for me.'
And this was with Vista SP1. No one knows how to exploit Firefox or IE on Vista due to NX and ASLR.
This seems to be a pretty powerful statement, from someone who would stand a chance of knowing.
My only question is, where is Vista SP2? Last I checked, it was not yet released.
Re:The winner of Pwn2Own seems to agree (Score:5, Informative)
Linux, and the BSDs have, at least optionally, had them for some years now. I'm not sure about OSX.
There is a very large difference between saying "most secure MS OS ever" and "most secure OS".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about you read the link and then post again?
Charlie (the winner) says due to ASLR and NX, no one knows how to inject code into a Vista SP1 machine. That seems pretty good to me.
If you take his comment "safest OS" (not most secure) as an absolute, he's surely wrong. But the most secure OS is also probably not nearly as useful for getting actual work done as many other OSes that present a compromise, like various forms of Linux or Vista.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What I've heared is, the people who do that work, like any hobbiest or professional for that matter, doesn't want to use Vista.
Re:The winner of Pwn2Own seems to agree (Score:4, Informative)
And this was with Vista SP1. No one knows how to exploit Firefox or IE on Vista due to NX and ASLR.
Wow with Vista SP1?!??!?! Gee that totally beats out the fact that the Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD kernels had support for that back in 2004 with OpenBSD having support in 2003 and Solaris having NX support as early as 1997 in Solaris 2.6, right?
Re:The winner of Pwn2Own seems to agree (Score:5, Informative)
NX alone doesn't do it. Ask Linus.
As mentioned in the article, without adding stuff to the kernel that is not in the default on distros, you aren't getting the same protection as Vista has.
Vista had NX and ASLR before SP1, but it was a weak form (much like Linux has a weak form by default).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization [wikipedia.org]
You don't believe me? I provided a link from a security expert. He seems to be somewhat impressed.
Before you try to throw it in my face, I think Linux survived pwn2own unscathed, but Charlie says that's because the equipment you get if you pwn Linux (remember, it's pwn to own) wasn't worth the effort.
"Cancel or Allow" (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, most secure, indeed!
In further news... (Score:5, Funny)
Richard Stallman announced in a press conference today that Emacs is the safest operating system on the planet. According to Stallman Emacs is safer than Linux, Windows Vista, or Apple's Mac OS X.
Re:In further news... (Score:5, Funny)
Richard Stallman announced in a press conference today that Emacs is the safest operating system on the planet. According to Stallman Emacs is safer than Linux, Windows Vista, or Apple's Mac OS X.
Yes, but it's missing a decent text editor.
There's always a get-out clause (Score:5, Funny)
oops (Score:4, Funny)
"..It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today.... oh...uh.... i mean NOT including.. NOT including, sorry i misread that part, it actually says NOT including so.... can i start again please?"
Awesome! (Score:4, Funny)
Security through obscurity?
Brilliant!
The most secure OS would be... (Score:5, Insightful)
one that allows the user to decide not to install potentially insecure software during the initial OS install. This is the biggest problem with Microsoft Windows when it comes to security, the huge amount of crap that gets installed automatically without the ability to decide DURING the install what features you want or do not want.
Linux as a whole does provide the ability to make a very minimal install with only those applications that you want on the machine. Solaris used to have this ability as well, though I am not sure if you can go package by package during the initial install to decide what you want or do not want on the machine.
You hear about Linux problems, but then it only applies to a specific Apache version that comes with a "typical" RedHat install, or some other issue which only applies to a certain software package. When a problem can be traced to the kernel or some other core component, that is when it applies to the OS as a whole.
So, saying that Vista is the most secure after SP2 means nothing if garbage like Internet Explorer is still open to all the exploits that Microsoft doesn't like to talk about.
In other NON-News... (Score:5, Funny)
Also, Tom Long, CEO of Miller Brewing Company announced, "Our beer is the best tasting beer in the world!"
Here's a template: [Insert Person's Name Here], [insert title here] of [insert company name here] [announced|proclaimed|stated|declared|quothed] "[insert company's product here] is the [insert positive attribute here] in the entire [world|planet|universe]."
Repeat, ad infinitum.
Aahh I Needed a Laugh (Score:3, Interesting)
No... (Score:4, Insightful)
IE will NOT fill your computer with child porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft is reeling from the vicious and unwarranted slanders [today.com] of security companies and the US government's Computer Emergency Response Team that its Internet Explorer web browser has alleged "security holes" or is in any way less than the finest software known to mankind and excellent value for your money.
The festering paedophiles of CERT have gone so outrageously far as to make the ludicrous claim that just viewing a malicious webpage in IE could leave your computer open to being hacked and turned into a Russian Mafia spam server. "We don't know what could have triggered such vindictiveness," sobbed Microsoft marketing marketer's marketer Steve Ballmer. "Do they hate free enterprise that much?"
There are things you can do to make your computing experience even more secure. Microsoft's official suggestion -- make sure your anti-virus software is up to date and using an entire CPU doing nothing much, click through five screens to run IE in "protected mode," click through four screens to set zone security to "high," click "JUST BLOODY DO IT WILL YOU" when the User Access Control asks if you really want to do this, enable automatic updates with the minor side-effect of installing Microsoft DRM on your system or Windows Genuine Advantage randomly turning your computer into a paperweight, and sacrifice a goat to Microsoft at midnight on a moonless night -- is simple and straightforward. "It's the quality you're paying for."
On no account should you consider that there might be other web browsers out there, as researchers have demonstrated that all of them automatically download the cover of Virgin Killer. "I saw a report," said marketing marketer John Curran of Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, Inc., "that another browser had more vulnerabilities than ours! People would be very foolish indeed to move from the latest IE to Netscape 4.01."
"These CERT wankers are Mactards and trolls," said Guardian marketing marketer Jack Schofield. "They just want to take IE users out, brutally sodomise them, gas them in concentration camps and" [This comment has been removed by a Guardian moderator. Replies may also be deleted.]
2008 (Score:4, Interesting)
So they're saying that their client OS vista is more secure than windows 2008?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it'll be because they, just like nearly every other piece of malware out there, are only capable of running on a single platform -- regardless of the actual security of that platform.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes.
Windows Vista has many features that utilize RAM to its fullest extent. Any free RAM on my system is RAM that is sitting on its lazy ass doing nothing. Windows Vista is actually smart enough to user it (Super Prefetch comes to mind) when my applications are not.
And what happens is that it determines that it wants to swap my actual program memory to disk to make room for these advanced features? And those features may save me 10 minutes a day, but
Re:That's great... (Score:5, Informative)
However, note that the SuperFetch service runs at a very low priority, and will yield system resources to effectively any other process that requests system resources. Further, in the event of a program requesting memory that isn't available, SuperFetch will just dump from its cache a large enough portion of memory to accomodate the program. By your own admission, and correctly, RAM is _FAST_. The process of re-allocating a segment of memory from SuperFetch to your new program is negligible. SuperFetch will also never page to disk memory in use by an actually running program in order to fill the cache. I'm not saying that running programs won't be cached to disk, but it isn't SuperFetch that is the culprit. There are many other mechanisms in place that can result in this occuring, and SuperFetch isn't the only code on the system that plays around with the cache.
Suffice to say, if you dislike SuperFetch, it's easy to disable it. Just go into Windows Services and change the SuperFetch service startup from Automatic to Disabled, and stop the service. You've now disabled the aggressive pre-caching, no harder than any other tweak for any other operating system.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you rather that RAM sit there doing nothing? Windows Vista has many features that utilize RAM to its fullest extent. Any free RAM on my system is RAM that is sitting on its lazy ass doing nothing. Windows Vista is actually smart enough to user it (Super Prefetch comes to mind) when my applications are not.
I'm actually typing this in Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Vista Business SP1 32-bit on a Pentium M 1.4 GHz with 1 GB RAM, and it's actually quite snappy.
Any RAM on my system that's doing nothing on my System is at my beck and call anytime I want it. The OS never knows when I want to start up Eclipse and JBoss to do some development, or maybe digiKam and convert a couple of hundred RAW images to jpegs. And while that batch is running, I probably want to start doing some image post processing with Gimp.
Re:That's great... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't understand. Which is normal: You're about the sixtieth person I've had to correct on this issue.
In synopsis: you're wrong.
Here's why:
RAM that is sitting there holding stuff you might need, sometime (ala Superfetch) is just as ready to be utilized as RAM which is doing nothing at all. Superfetch is a read caching system, and any RAM it has in use for itself can be used by other programs IMMEDIATELY if they need it instead. Nothing has to wait buffers to get pushed out to disk, there's no longstanding delay. It just gets repurposed, and overwritten with other stuff. It doesn't need zeroed first. It's RAM, ie Random Access Memory, ferfuck'ssake.
In other words:
A system with a gigabyte of free RAM is a system with a gigabyte of RAM that it's failed to use. An optimized system does not have unused RAM.
Linux systems also eventually use all available RAM for caching. Your UID is low enough that you've probably even seen discussions of this "problem" in *nix years and years ago, and you should understand by now that it's not a problem at all, for all of the same reasons (listed above) that it's not a problem with Windows.
Re:That's great... (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the RAM used for prefetch isn't paged out, ever. If an application needs it, it's immediately released to the application. All modern OS's that I know of do this, including Linux, OS X, and Windows. Don't talk about things that you don't understand.
Re:That's great... (Score:5, Interesting)
Testing isn't security (Score:4, Interesting)
Security has to be designed in.
When Microsoft deployed ActiveX installation and launch over HTTP and email with Active Desktop in 1997 they made Windows inherently insecure in a way that nobody had ever imagined anyone would be stupid enought to do. In fact it used to be a joke, the "Good Times" virus... a virus so effective it would run without you even opening the email message it was contained in. EVERYONE knew it was a joke, because EVERYONE knew nobody would be so stupid as to deliberately allow untrusted content to automatically run.
Nobody but Microsoft was that stupid, anyway.
Jesus Christ, man, the fundamental desing of Internet Explorer is so f-ing bad that over 10 years later I am STILL aghast that ANYONE would defend it, or any OS that depends on it. What the HELL are you smoking? DO you honestly not understand just how amazingly stupid this is? Honestly? By the bowels of Christ, consider that you might be mistaken.