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Most of those pitches are not important. >Were you ever been concerned about opening your personal email (controlling numerous online accounts) in the same bro

Most of those pitches are not important. >Were you ever been concerned about opening your personal email (controlling numerous online accounts) in the same browser where you go to random websites? Actually, even when the browsers are different it can be a problem on a monolithic OS! Mozilla has containers that people also barely use. >On Qubes OS, you open those things in separate VMs, isolated with hardware, not software. It’s often better 2 than physical (air-gap) isolation. Recommended by Snowden. It runs VM, this is not isolated with hardware. https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2019/03/05/qsb-048/ https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2019/03/05/qsb-048/ >Are you tired of remembering tens of complicated passwords, or using a password manager? On Qubes OS, you can save all your passwords as plain text (in a dedicated offline VM) and copy them into the necessary fields (in other VMs) whenever needed. Password managers are fine, why would someone tire of them? I don't think you are pitching it correctly, if you want to succeed at selling Qubes, remember most people use laptops, the amount of ram required to run Qubes and the battery drain is not worth it for the performance hit. It would be much better to sell it as an OS on a remote computer that uses Xen, there are huge problems like audio quality, slow loading, and I would never recommend it as a mobile device OS. Most of the benefits are done with less resource intense methods, and learning a new OS for most of these features and mainly drawbacks is not a good pitch. I think it would be great on a remote device with your computer as a thin client, but it has very little day to day practical use.

fsflover 5y ago
> It runs VM, this is not isolated with hardware. According to your own link, these XSAs do not affect Qubes 4.0, exactly because it uses PVH (not PV) virtualization. See also: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/standalones-and-hvms https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/standalones-and-hvms. > Mozilla has containers that people also barely use. Does this mean that nobody needs security or privacy? It just means that it's too hard to use (not transparent to users) and probably that most users do not recognize the dangers. > Password managers are fine, why would someone tire of them? Well, at least for me plain text file looks quite a bit easier to manage. Thank you for the feedback, I will try to improve that. The performance hit mostly comes from the lack of GPU acceleration. RAM is getting cheaper and more available with time. My laptop has 32 GB. Battery drain could be worth the added security and organization of the workflows. It is for me. I did not notice any problems with the audio quality. > It would be much better to sell it as an OS on a remote computer that uses Xen I am not sure what you mean here. Could you elaborate the use case? By giving the remote access to dom0 you are practically breaking the whole security model of Qubes. Although it is possible. > Most of the benefits are done with less resource intense methods It's a huge difference. When was the last time someone escaped VT-d virtualization? > and learning a new OS for most of these features and mainly drawbacks is not a good pitch Actually you do not need to learn anything serious unless you need some advanced things. Qubes relies on Linux VMs, and you just use all their apps and stuff. This could probably be another pitch point.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  >According to your own link, these XSAs do not affect Qubes 4.0 Yes its been updated since, but the point is its still PCI linked, which you probably use. >Does this mean that nobody needs security or privacy? It just means that it's too hard to use (not transparent to users) and probably that most users do not recognize the dangers. It means that this is overkill, and even when its easier to use its still not being utilized. >The performance hit mostly comes from the lack of GPU acceleration. RAM is getting cheaper and more available with time. My laptop has 32 GB. Battery drain could be worth the added security and organization of the workflows. It is for me. I did not notice any problems with the audio quality. Needing to buy 32GB of ram to run an OS on a laptop that works fine now isn't a selling point, I had tons of crackling. >I am not sure what you mean here. Could you elaborate the use case? By giving the remote access to dom0 you are practically breaking the whole security model of Qubes. Although it is possible. It would be better as a server OS you VNC into. >It's a huge difference. When was the last time someone escaped VT-d virtualization? In the real world, it doesn't matter, its a nuclear bomb shelter, I would rather build a house with a fancy kitchen for cheaper. >Actually you do not need to learn anything serious unless you need some advanced things. Qubes relies on Linux VMs, and you just use all their apps and stuff. This could probably be another pitch point. It isn't easy to get used to the isolation of all instances especially if you use more than one computer, and other people's computers. The pitch is that your computer is more secure (from what real world threats?) at the cost of huge battery drain, going from needing 8GB comfortably to 32GB, slower from PVH that gives problems like no GPU acceleration, while its still running insecure backdoors like Intel ME, or AMD PSP, which are far more dangerous.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > while its still running insecure backdoors like Intel ME, or AMD PSP, which are far more dangerous My computer has disabled and neutralized Intel ME. Qubes PVH virtualization has no practical effect on performance. Qubes works great for me for everything that a non-sophisticated user would want, except games. RAM is cheap. > (from what real world threats?) Any serious privilege escalation which happen every month on all other systems.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I use Firefox containers every day and they're amazing :) Moving the feature into a plug-in was a really dumb move though. It totally killed discoverability of this unique selling point of Firefox. I wish they'd realise they'll never beat Chrome at their own game and try to focus again on what makes them special.
- lub 5y ago
  > Moving the feature into a plug-in was a really dumb move though. It totally killed discoverability of this unique selling point of Firefox. It's actually usable now without extra addons. Just right click the "+"/new tab button or go to about:preferences#containers diretly.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Oh did they put it back in the mainline? I still have the addon installed. I'll give it a try, thanks for the heads up.

fsflover 5y ago

> It runs VM, this is not isolated with hardware. According to your own link, these XSAs do not affect Qubes 4.0, exactly because it uses PVH (not PV) virtualization. See also: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/standalones-and-hvms https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/standalones-and-hvms. > Mozilla has containers that people also barely use. Does this mean that nobody needs security or privacy? It just means that it's too hard to use (not transparent to users) and probably that most users do not recognize the dangers. > Password managers are fine, why would someone tire of them? Well, at least for me plain text file looks quite a bit easier to manage. Thank you for the feedback, I will try to improve that. The performance hit mostly comes from the lack of GPU acceleration. RAM is getting cheaper and more available with time. My laptop has 32 GB. Battery drain could be worth the added security and organization of the workflows. It is for me. I did not notice any problems with the audio quality. > It would be much better to sell it as an OS on a remote computer that uses Xen I am not sure what you mean here. Could you elaborate the use case? By giving the remote access to dom0 you are practically breaking the whole security model of Qubes. Although it is possible. > Most of the benefits are done with less resource intense methods It's a huge difference. When was the last time someone escaped VT-d virtualization? > and learning a new OS for most of these features and mainly drawbacks is not a good pitch Actually you do not need to learn anything serious unless you need some advanced things. Qubes relies on Linux VMs, and you just use all their apps and stuff. This could probably be another pitch point.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
>According to your own link, these XSAs do not affect Qubes 4.0 Yes its been updated since, but the point is its still PCI linked, which you probably use. >Does this mean that nobody needs security or privacy? It just means that it's too hard to use (not transparent to users) and probably that most users do not recognize the dangers. It means that this is overkill, and even when its easier to use its still not being utilized. >The performance hit mostly comes from the lack of GPU acceleration. RAM is getting cheaper and more available with time. My laptop has 32 GB. Battery drain could be worth the added security and organization of the workflows. It is for me. I did not notice any problems with the audio quality. Needing to buy 32GB of ram to run an OS on a laptop that works fine now isn't a selling point, I had tons of crackling. >I am not sure what you mean here. Could you elaborate the use case? By giving the remote access to dom0 you are practically breaking the whole security model of Qubes. Although it is possible. It would be better as a server OS you VNC into. >It's a huge difference. When was the last time someone escaped VT-d virtualization? In the real world, it doesn't matter, its a nuclear bomb shelter, I would rather build a house with a fancy kitchen for cheaper. >Actually you do not need to learn anything serious unless you need some advanced things. Qubes relies on Linux VMs, and you just use all their apps and stuff. This could probably be another pitch point. It isn't easy to get used to the isolation of all instances especially if you use more than one computer, and other people's computers. The pitch is that your computer is more secure (from what real world threats?) at the cost of huge battery drain, going from needing 8GB comfortably to 32GB, slower from PVH that gives problems like no GPU acceleration, while its still running insecure backdoors like Intel ME, or AMD PSP, which are far more dangerous.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > while its still running insecure backdoors like Intel ME, or AMD PSP, which are far more dangerous My computer has disabled and neutralized Intel ME. Qubes PVH virtualization has no practical effect on performance. Qubes works great for me for everything that a non-sophisticated user would want, except games. RAM is cheap. > (from what real world threats?) Any serious privilege escalation which happen every month on all other systems.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I use Firefox containers every day and they're amazing :) Moving the feature into a plug-in was a really dumb move though. It totally killed discoverability of this unique selling point of Firefox. I wish they'd realise they'll never beat Chrome at their own game and try to focus again on what makes them special.

lub 5y ago
> Moving the feature into a plug-in was a really dumb move though. It totally killed discoverability of this unique selling point of Firefox. It's actually usable now without extra addons. Just right click the "+"/new tab button or go to about:preferences#containers diretly.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Oh did they put it back in the mainline? I still have the addon installed. I'll give it a try, thanks for the heads up.