4 ms·

Many times have I lost hours, days, or functionality that was never regained to an update/"upgrade." Never have I had my personal computer owned by some exploi

Many times have I lost hours, days, or functionality that was never regained to an update/"upgrade." Never have I had my personal computer owned by some exploit that resulted in data loss/breach. Thus, undesired upgrades are a greater risk for personal computing than security. Simple as.

bakugo 4y ago
Corporations like Microsoft have successfully hammered this idea into people's heads that the evil hacker known as Anonymous will hack into your fridge and make it explode and burn your house down if you forget to update it for two weeks. Almost nobody who makes a big deal out of this has ever actually been affected by it, they're just parroting what they're told.
- samplatt 4y ago
  >Almost nobody who makes a big deal out of this has ever actually been affected by it, they're just parroting what they're told. Either that or they're paid to come and clean up the mess after a company has been hacked due to one or two random servers not being updated in the last few years.
  - bakugo 4y ago
    Servers (especially corporate ones) are an entirely different matter. This post is specifically about personal devices that probably aren't running any server software and are almost definitely behind a firewall.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I mean, I used to say that updating was important when updates were painless and worked. Now that we've successfully convinced everyone to always update, corporations use it to push fresh malware/ads.
  - dizhn 4y ago
    Not only that they made updates they really really want to make automatic and compulsory.
PostOnce 4y ago
That's not sound logic. Your point may or may not be true, but it doesn't follow from your logic. I've had more e-ink devices fail by being knocked into the river while fishing than I have from any other cause of accident, does that mean fishing is the most common cause of e-ink device death because it's my personal anecdotal experience? I doubt it.
- Karunamon 4y ago
  That's a bad analogy. It would be more applicable if there were a nebulous group of people dedicated to killing the largest number of e-ink devices by any means necessary so they focus on the most popular ones because it is easier to do so. From a personal end user standpoint, most people will never be the direct target of a attack (and if you are, you are probably in a situation where being 100% up to date won't save you). If they get owned, it will be by a drive-by exploit or because they directly executed malware. Drive-by exploits tend to target the most popular systems.
wkat4242 4y ago
Really? Isn't that a thing of the past? In the last 10 years all my updates on Mac and Windows alike have been a matter of clicking OK and waiting 30-60 minutes. On Linux and BSD I've had some more issues at times but that's been more because of my own messing around.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Windows, and more generally Microsoft, updates regularly break things. Each time I see the update notification I kind of shudder. A notable one from 2018 was literally deleting user files. [1] Whenever there's an update for e.g. Visual Studio, I think most have learned that it's smart to wait for the update to the update. And see if there's an update for the update to the update, before finally risking going through with it. And I'm talking about the release channel! It gets even better there as well, until somewhat recently after Microsoft would release a Visual Studio update, older versions would be removed from their site, and there was no way to roll back. So if you chose to update, and it broke stuff, then you were in a fun spot. Fortunately that is no longer the case, but ugh - bad memories. This is one of the big reasons I'd like to move over to Linux, but games + work make it difficult to pack up and move. For all my bitching about Microsoft's practices in general, I don't see myself moving away from Visual Studio any time soon, and it's Windows only. [1] - https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/bug-in-windows-10s-latest-update-might-be-deleting-files-back-up-your-data-now/ https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/bug-in-windows-10s-latest-upda...
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Ok I don't really use the 'full' Visual Studio much. Only the community edition inside Unity. But also there I have not had any issues. I don't like the way VS went from a package to software as a service though :( But Microsoft just love their subscriptions.
- weberer 4y ago
  In Ubuntu, there is a setting to have all security updates happen automatically every day in the background without ever having to bother the user. And its been that way for over a decade. You don't have to be alerted, wait, and restart your whole computer for every little thing. I'm surprised how Mac/Windows still never bothered to catch up. The user should not be bothered by trivial maintenance tasks that the OS should handle. Hell, I'd do this for all updates if Firefox didn't require an immediate browser restart every time its upgraded.
rkagerer 4y ago
Wish I could upvote this a hundred times. Once upon a time updates were something I'd get excited for. Now it's a dread of what will break next, what new advertising will assault my eyeballs and waste my attention, and what telemetry will subvert my privacy or deteriorate my control over my device. This is why I've "just said no" to Windows ≥ 10. I really want it, but these anti-features need a reliable off switch.
- jbstack 4y ago
  To be fair, most of those are uniquely Windows problems. If you pick a halfway decent Linux distribution, you will never see advertising, telemetry, or lack of control, and updates are a mostly positive experience. I switched from Windows 7 to Linux around 10 years ago and it's been an improvement in ~99% of my use cases. The only thing Windows really does better is games and the occasional (rare) piece of software which doesn't have a good equivalent for Linux. In those 10 years I've only found myself running a Windows VM a handful of times to get at some critical functionality I needed from Windows-only software. Switching was one of the best IT decisions I ever made.

bakugo 4y ago

Corporations like Microsoft have successfully hammered this idea into people's heads that the evil hacker known as Anonymous will hack into your fridge and make it explode and burn your house down if you forget to update it for two weeks. Almost nobody who makes a big deal out of this has ever actually been affected by it, they're just parroting what they're told.

samplatt 4y ago
>Almost nobody who makes a big deal out of this has ever actually been affected by it, they're just parroting what they're told. Either that or they're paid to come and clean up the mess after a company has been hacked due to one or two random servers not being updated in the last few years.
- bakugo 4y ago
  Servers (especially corporate ones) are an entirely different matter. This post is specifically about personal devices that probably aren't running any server software and are almost definitely behind a firewall.
Aeolun 4y ago
I mean, I used to say that updating was important when updates were painless and worked. Now that we've successfully convinced everyone to always update, corporations use it to push fresh malware/ads.
- dizhn 4y ago
  Not only that they made updates they really really want to make automatic and compulsory.

PostOnce 4y ago

That's not sound logic. Your point may or may not be true, but it doesn't follow from your logic. I've had more e-ink devices fail by being knocked into the river while fishing than I have from any other cause of accident, does that mean fishing is the most common cause of e-ink device death because it's my personal anecdotal experience? I doubt it.

Karunamon 4y ago
That's a bad analogy. It would be more applicable if there were a nebulous group of people dedicated to killing the largest number of e-ink devices by any means necessary so they focus on the most popular ones because it is easier to do so. From a personal end user standpoint, most people will never be the direct target of a attack (and if you are, you are probably in a situation where being 100% up to date won't save you). If they get owned, it will be by a drive-by exploit or because they directly executed malware. Drive-by exploits tend to target the most popular systems.

wkat4242 4y ago

Really? Isn't that a thing of the past? In the last 10 years all my updates on Mac and Windows alike have been a matter of clicking OK and waiting 30-60 minutes. On Linux and BSD I've had some more issues at times but that's been more because of my own messing around.

somenameforme 4y ago
Windows, and more generally Microsoft, updates regularly break things. Each time I see the update notification I kind of shudder. A notable one from 2018 was literally deleting user files. [1] Whenever there's an update for e.g. Visual Studio, I think most have learned that it's smart to wait for the update to the update. And see if there's an update for the update to the update, before finally risking going through with it. And I'm talking about the release channel! It gets even better there as well, until somewhat recently after Microsoft would release a Visual Studio update, older versions would be removed from their site, and there was no way to roll back. So if you chose to update, and it broke stuff, then you were in a fun spot. Fortunately that is no longer the case, but ugh - bad memories. This is one of the big reasons I'd like to move over to Linux, but games + work make it difficult to pack up and move. For all my bitching about Microsoft's practices in general, I don't see myself moving away from Visual Studio any time soon, and it's Windows only. [1] - https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/bug-in-windows-10s-latest-update-might-be-deleting-files-back-up-your-data-now/ https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/bug-in-windows-10s-latest-upda...
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Ok I don't really use the 'full' Visual Studio much. Only the community edition inside Unity. But also there I have not had any issues. I don't like the way VS went from a package to software as a service though :( But Microsoft just love their subscriptions.
weberer 4y ago
In Ubuntu, there is a setting to have all security updates happen automatically every day in the background without ever having to bother the user. And its been that way for over a decade. You don't have to be alerted, wait, and restart your whole computer for every little thing. I'm surprised how Mac/Windows still never bothered to catch up. The user should not be bothered by trivial maintenance tasks that the OS should handle. Hell, I'd do this for all updates if Firefox didn't require an immediate browser restart every time its upgraded.

rkagerer 4y ago

Wish I could upvote this a hundred times. Once upon a time updates were something I'd get excited for. Now it's a dread of what will break next, what new advertising will assault my eyeballs and waste my attention, and what telemetry will subvert my privacy or deteriorate my control over my device. This is why I've "just said no" to Windows ≥ 10. I really want it, but these anti-features need a reliable off switch.

jbstack 4y ago
To be fair, most of those are uniquely Windows problems. If you pick a halfway decent Linux distribution, you will never see advertising, telemetry, or lack of control, and updates are a mostly positive experience. I switched from Windows 7 to Linux around 10 years ago and it's been an improvement in ~99% of my use cases. The only thing Windows really does better is games and the occasional (rare) piece of software which doesn't have a good equivalent for Linux. In those 10 years I've only found myself running a Windows VM a handful of times to get at some critical functionality I needed from Windows-only software. Switching was one of the best IT decisions I ever made.