4 ms·

I still think Windows 10 is several orders of magnitudes worse. Android is a toy OS. Very few does anything serious on it. A desktop OS on the other hand has a

by tjoff 8y ago

I still think Windows 10 is several orders of magnitudes worse. Android is a toy OS. Very few does anything serious on it. A desktop OS on the other hand has access to the very most sensitive information you ever come across. If you can't trust your desktop OS everything is game over. Windows 10 telemetry is the most convincing reason to jump ship that has ever existed in my opinion. That said, android is of course also very bad. Problem is that there is no decent alternative to iOS and android. It is quite frustrating.

cyphar 8y ago
> Android is a toy OS. Aside from the fact that Google also owns a search engine you might've heard of (so it's not like they only make phone operating systems), I think this type of thinking is quite old-fashioned. People put most of their lives into their phones these days. They carry them everywhere, document their lives through photos, call and text their friends wherever they are, read the news, direct them to their destination, play games, etc. To pretend that most people's primary computing device is a "toy OS" is to pretend as though we are still in 2004. That's not the world we live in anymore. I don't personally own a smartphone anymore (precisely because of these sorts of privacy invasions), but I sure as hell wouldn't pretend that the majority of people don't use smartphones as their primary computing device. I agree that Windows is also absolutely immoral, but we shouldn't be debating which is worse here -- they're both reprehensible.
- vezycash 8y ago
  >most people's primary computing device Phones are most people's only computing device. Many who have never used a traditional computer own and use smartphones.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I think a comment like this should be made with a reference to a source as it defies belief.
    - Erik816 8y ago
      I don't have stats, but if you think about the number of phone users in places like India, China, most of Africa who probably had very little access to computers before it makes intuitive sense to me.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        A problem with statements such as yours as that I imagine you would have difficulty even estimating the popularity of smart phones in America, let alone the world. For instance since I can find reliable data for 2015, what percent of Americans do you think had smart phones in 2015? The answer, written backwards, is rouf ytxis. Of course I suspect around your sample of people, it's near 100%. This creates the stage for a very poor level of intuition as you then extrapolate such views outwards where they become even less correct. So for instance smartphone ownership rates in India is 18%. [1] By contrast this article [2] overviews some data in a survey from Dell India which gives various hints on PC usage. Overall 51% of families have somebody that is PC literate, 79% in East India stated they used a PC at cyber cafes, and so on. It's safe to say that your hypothesis is not really supported in India. China has a vastly higher smartphone usage, but they also have a vastly higher PC usage with dirt cheap and constantly filled cyber cafes on seemingly every corner of every street. The only information I could find on PC usage was here [3] but that study is hopelessly outdated. As it mentions, "according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) (2010), the average number of home computers per 100 urban households in China increased steadily from 5.91 in 1999 to 65.74 in 2009, or at an average of 27.24 percent per year." The absurdly rapid growth rate makes it difficult to say anything other than that PC usage is certainly not rare in China. Your hypothesis is going to be, at best, questionable there and exclusively dependent upon the rural population. [1] - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpaces-india-in-internet-access-smartphone-ownership/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpac... [2] - https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/12/what-indian-pc-users-want_n_7551024.html https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/12/what-indian-pc-user... [3] - http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3767/3144 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3767/31...
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > To pretend that most people's primary computing device is a "toy OS" is to pretend as though we are still in 2004. That's not the world we live in anymore. And yet it still is a toy OS, compared to what it could be if it was designed with productivity and empowering end users in mind, as opposed to being a shallow consumption and communications platform. That's orthogonal to the tracking angle, though. GP is wrong in assuming that just because desktop Windows is not a toy OS, it's automatically exposed to more sensitive data. It's not, because - as you noted - most people use smartphones as their primary computation device (for what little it can do). There's also another angle here - desktop PCs may contain most of your work data, but people don't really care about securing that. Privacy of their personal messages and photos, which are mostly accessed via smartphones these days, is of more importance to them.
datalist 8y ago
> Very few does anything serious on it. A desktop OS on the other hand has access to the very most sensitive information Thats why more and more people use it exclusively for everything, including online banking.

by tjoff 8y ago

cyphar 8y ago

> Android is a toy OS. Aside from the fact that Google also owns a search engine you might've heard of (so it's not like they only make phone operating systems), I think this type of thinking is quite old-fashioned. People put most of their lives into their phones these days. They carry them everywhere, document their lives through photos, call and text their friends wherever they are, read the news, direct them to their destination, play games, etc. To pretend that most people's primary computing device is a "toy OS" is to pretend as though we are still in 2004. That's not the world we live in anymore. I don't personally own a smartphone anymore (precisely because of these sorts of privacy invasions), but I sure as hell wouldn't pretend that the majority of people don't use smartphones as their primary computing device. I agree that Windows is also absolutely immoral, but we shouldn't be debating which is worse here -- they're both reprehensible.

vezycash 8y ago
>most people's primary computing device Phones are most people's only computing device. Many who have never used a traditional computer own and use smartphones.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I think a comment like this should be made with a reference to a source as it defies belief.
  - Erik816 8y ago
    I don't have stats, but if you think about the number of phone users in places like India, China, most of Africa who probably had very little access to computers before it makes intuitive sense to me.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      A problem with statements such as yours as that I imagine you would have difficulty even estimating the popularity of smart phones in America, let alone the world. For instance since I can find reliable data for 2015, what percent of Americans do you think had smart phones in 2015? The answer, written backwards, is rouf ytxis. Of course I suspect around your sample of people, it's near 100%. This creates the stage for a very poor level of intuition as you then extrapolate such views outwards where they become even less correct. So for instance smartphone ownership rates in India is 18%. [1] By contrast this article [2] overviews some data in a survey from Dell India which gives various hints on PC usage. Overall 51% of families have somebody that is PC literate, 79% in East India stated they used a PC at cyber cafes, and so on. It's safe to say that your hypothesis is not really supported in India. China has a vastly higher smartphone usage, but they also have a vastly higher PC usage with dirt cheap and constantly filled cyber cafes on seemingly every corner of every street. The only information I could find on PC usage was here [3] but that study is hopelessly outdated. As it mentions, "according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) (2010), the average number of home computers per 100 urban households in China increased steadily from 5.91 in 1999 to 65.74 in 2009, or at an average of 27.24 percent per year." The absurdly rapid growth rate makes it difficult to say anything other than that PC usage is certainly not rare in China. Your hypothesis is going to be, at best, questionable there and exclusively dependent upon the rural population. [1] - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpaces-india-in-internet-access-smartphone-ownership/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpac... [2] - https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/12/what-indian-pc-users-want_n_7551024.html https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/12/what-indian-pc-user... [3] - http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3767/3144 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3767/31...
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> To pretend that most people's primary computing device is a "toy OS" is to pretend as though we are still in 2004. That's not the world we live in anymore. And yet it still is a toy OS, compared to what it could be if it was designed with productivity and empowering end users in mind, as opposed to being a shallow consumption and communications platform. That's orthogonal to the tracking angle, though. GP is wrong in assuming that just because desktop Windows is not a toy OS, it's automatically exposed to more sensitive data. It's not, because - as you noted - most people use smartphones as their primary computation device (for what little it can do). There's also another angle here - desktop PCs may contain most of your work data, but people don't really care about securing that. Privacy of their personal messages and photos, which are mostly accessed via smartphones these days, is of more importance to them.

datalist 8y ago

> Very few does anything serious on it. A desktop OS on the other hand has access to the very most sensitive information Thats why more and more people use it exclusively for everything, including online banking.