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XP or Vista user — take the poll!
moerl:
Unless of course an app you use hasn't converted yet...there really isn't any reason not to.
-wreckedcarzz
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Give me a reason in favor of upgrading? I don't see any reason to. Vista or Linux or Mac OS X? dunno if one disease is better than the others.
-f0dder (August 05, 2007, 03:41 PM)
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If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security. Vista is MS' most secure OS ever. I don't use AV or a software firewall on my Vista box so far. I know I'm asking for trouble, but I know what I'm doing, for one, and secondly I trust Vista to protect me sufficiently. I don't see where I could get a virus from. All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC. The only thing is that I don't have any real software firewall protection, but I'm also behind a router... dunno. I feel safe :)
moerl:
Unlike many noobs out there, btw, I also leave UAC on. Everybody comlains about how annoying it is, but frankly, you get used to it. It's not like you have to deal with it often.. and it makes sense to have it. It's a smart security measure, and something both OS X and Linux have had in place for years, albeit in different ways. When you make changes that affect the system, both Linux and Mac OS will ask for your password. Vista takes that concept further and asks you to confirm certain sensitive actions on the system by giving your ok. Nothing wrong with that and it provides added security.
It's a feature everybody loves to complain about. What everybody fails to see is that security isn't all fun and rainbows. If you want solid security, you might have to pay for it a bit in the currency of convenience. I'm up for the deal and can't say I'm bothered.
Carol Haynes:
If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security. Vista is MS' most secure OS ever. I don't use AV or a software firewall on my Vista box so far. I know I'm asking for trouble, but I know what I'm doing, for one, and secondly I trust Vista to protect me sufficiently. I don't see where I could get a virus from. All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC. The only thing is that I don't have any real software firewall protection, but I'm also behind a router... dunno. I feel safe :)
-moerl (August 05, 2007, 10:12 PM)
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Presumably you are using the Vista Firewall which is reasonable ?
No AV seems a bit dangerous to me - you may know what you are doing but mistakes happen! What if you download sofware that has been accidentally infected at the developers end (it has happened before even in big companies who have sent out infected CDROMs). If you do get infected how will you know?
As for Vista is the most secure version of Windows yet ... may be true but it sounds like MS hype to me ... after all that is precisely the reason they gave for upgrading to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both of which were found (after they had been running for a while) to leak like sieves. Sorry but the initial evidence with Vista is that it doesn't look like it will be much better than previous versions. The "most secure" tag merely acts as a challenge to malicious code writers.
By the way I am not saying other systems (Linux and Mac) don't leak but they are less of a problem simply because of the tiny user base. Vista is the current big target. Short of not connecting to the internet and not installing software there is no such thing as a truly secure system.
f0dder:
If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security.
-moerl
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That's what the kool-aid drinkers say, anyway.
All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC.
-moerl
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All it takes is one unpatched IE/FF exploit, one compromised banner server... *boom*. That's not vista-specific though, same problem with 2k/xp.
Unlike many noobs out there, btw, I also leave UAC on. Everybody comlains about how annoying it is, but frankly, you get used to it.
-moerl
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I absolutely hate it. It pops up way too often, and frankly I'd rather use a 2k/XP system with a non-administrative account, and either switch to an administrative account or use RunAs. That's more secure anyway, I feel very certain that UAC is going to get exploited.
I mean, come on, it just wants you to press "okay", doesn't even prompt for a password. And most sheep/people will click yes without knowing anyway. Besides, if the point is reached where UAC has to "defend" against something, it's already too late.
Sorry, I'm not buying the "better security" argument, and it wouldn't be reason enough to downgrade to that resource hog of an operating system.
Josh:
UAC Actually does prompt you for a password when running as a standard user. Its just that Vista still defaults to an admin account running in "Admin approval mode" as opposed to a user account running in approval mode.
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