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Ah yes, the incredibly narrow minded viewpoint of checks notes being open to new things. > To show the enjoyable garlic festival fact, a crucial component of t

Ah yes, the incredibly narrow minded viewpoint of checks notes being open to new things. > To show the enjoyable garlic festival fact, a crucial component of the operating system's user interface must either actively poll for content or receive pushes automatically. Why would I want such a significant security risk? If this is a "significant security risk" in your threat model for your gaming machine, I hope you're not multiplayer gaming, or using Steam.

nicbou 4y ago
This is not the right community to adopt such a tone.
- fphhotchips 4y ago
  Fair enough, mea culpa. I can't edit out the swipe, so I'll make the argument more substantive instead. The long version is that - while it is true that loading a small image is a strictly speaking unnecessary risk - it is such a small risk as to be negligible to most security postures. In particular, OP mentioned that they use Windows only for gaming, so we have to take into account that: 1. They probably use Steam, or another launcher. All such launchers download a bunch of stuff on startup - in particular, Steam loads like 8 pages of ads for new games on startup. As Steam sometimes/often requires admin privileges, this is at least as much of a risk as the garlic image. 2. They probably play multiplayer games, which semi-frequently have RCE exploits. I think it's also fair to say that they're also generally subjected to less-rigorous analysis than the Microsoft Windows kernel. There's no reasonable security posture in the world that sees those two things as acceptable risks on one hand, but sees a small image in the taskbar as unacceptable on the other. So, to argue that a small icon in the search bar represents "significant security risk" and that the people running Windows have "lost their minds" is hyperbolic at best. At worst, you're kind of just looking for things to not like. (Minor edit: I just noticed that it was two different users that said those things, but I think the point still stands) Sure, it's not a necessary part of the operating system, but it's just a nice little thing that occasionally brightens my day, and costs me nothing when it doesn't. I don't think that's narrow-minded, is it?
  - eur0pa 4y ago
    Steam is not my operating system, and neither it shall ever be. Windows is one of my operating systems, and I expect it to behave as such. As far as the other assumptions are concerned, they are, in fact, assumptions.

nicbou 4y ago

This is not the right community to adopt such a tone.

fphhotchips 4y ago
Fair enough, mea culpa. I can't edit out the swipe, so I'll make the argument more substantive instead. The long version is that - while it is true that loading a small image is a strictly speaking unnecessary risk - it is such a small risk as to be negligible to most security postures. In particular, OP mentioned that they use Windows only for gaming, so we have to take into account that: 1. They probably use Steam, or another launcher. All such launchers download a bunch of stuff on startup - in particular, Steam loads like 8 pages of ads for new games on startup. As Steam sometimes/often requires admin privileges, this is at least as much of a risk as the garlic image. 2. They probably play multiplayer games, which semi-frequently have RCE exploits. I think it's also fair to say that they're also generally subjected to less-rigorous analysis than the Microsoft Windows kernel. There's no reasonable security posture in the world that sees those two things as acceptable risks on one hand, but sees a small image in the taskbar as unacceptable on the other. So, to argue that a small icon in the search bar represents "significant security risk" and that the people running Windows have "lost their minds" is hyperbolic at best. At worst, you're kind of just looking for things to not like. (Minor edit: I just noticed that it was two different users that said those things, but I think the point still stands) Sure, it's not a necessary part of the operating system, but it's just a nice little thing that occasionally brightens my day, and costs me nothing when it doesn't. I don't think that's narrow-minded, is it?
- eur0pa 4y ago
  Steam is not my operating system, and neither it shall ever be. Windows is one of my operating systems, and I expect it to behave as such. As far as the other assumptions are concerned, they are, in fact, assumptions.