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My petty gripe: forced software updates just make everything worse (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 60 points 1 year ago (30 children)

No one remembers how vulnerable windows server and windows desktop OS’s were before they revamped updates?

Forced updates are great. The internet is safer.

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  • [–] 90 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This is a good point, but the issue is that vendors have abused this need by not just pushing security updates, but also regular rewrites that make the products more invasive/full of language model shit - Exhibit A being anything at all from Microsoft

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You can’t maintain security and feature changes separately long term.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    Security packed and system updates is one thing.

    The constant reorganization of functions and apps and layouts and compatibility is a very different one.

    It is a problem that the operating system is controlled by the largest apps and service company that make money from user data in various forms and keep pushing their business model in every device core operations.

    And fuck fuck fuck that Google keeps trying to force Gemeni in every update. Let me keep using Google Assistant and stop making it worse by stripping out functionality or replacing shortcuts to Gemeni. Gemeni can still not do the very few things I want my voice assistant to do, namely set alarms and play music on whatever music streaming service I prefer to use.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    No one remembers how vulnerable windows server and windows desktop OS’s were before they revamped updates?

    I remember how much it sucked when ignorant users ignored updates forever and MS didn't really seem to give much of a shit about security anyway, yes.

    Nowadays MS is a great choice if you want to borrow a computer that someone else controls. Less so if you want a computer that is actually yours.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    For most people it won't matter, they just want something that works.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    Thanks, been reading those words from various commenters, in various contexts, in a browser window on my Linux desktop, for longer than some people at Lemmy have probably been alive. But it's always nice to hear familiar phrases again.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I remember, now we still have Windows being vulnerable, but in addition we also have untested changes pushed automatically to paying customers.

    Forced updates are great!

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Why did they write such shit software in the first place? No, they don't get off the hook.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Processors change, libraries become deprecated or vulnerable, design paradigms shift, and new integrations become possible that weren't there when the application first launched. Should we blame old house builders for using asbestos when they didn't know how poorly that would end up?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Processors change? Non-sequitur. Spectre an its ilk arrived on the scene at least a decade after MS had developed a reputation for shipping shit code.

    Libraries become deprecated or vulnerable? Non-sequitur. Whose libraries? Who deprecated them? Remember, this is a company that personified Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. If they picked shitty vendors for libraries and did no due diligence on that source code, why are the externalities foisted upon users? Also, libraries don't "become vulnerable" through some magical process. Either the bug was there from the beginning, or a shitty change was introduced and not caught.

    Design paradigms shift? And this is an excuse for writing shitty code? I don't buy it.

    New integrations require new code and that means taking into consideration the new shape of the system. Sounds like they did a really shitty job of that and they make it the user's problem.

    Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos? Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don't believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623

    Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.

    So, no, MS still does not get a pass.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos?

    Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don’t believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623

    Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.

    I suppose he was referring to the ones that used it before it was understood.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    We should blame a shitty company for not being able to maintain their code.

    Seriously if the world depends on some dumb company with some tiny number of people relative to the planet, then the world is dumb and fucked.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    All software is either shit to begin with or becomes shit when it gets big enough. If a Linux distro were forced to maintain as much legacy cruft as Windows it would be shit too.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I see you have yet to meetmy old friend Debian, who was supporting i386 until 2 weeks ago, and includes a much broader library of softwate than Microsoft has ever maintained.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    includes a much broader library of softwate than Microsoft has ever maintained.

    This is true, but isn't what I was referring to. The problem MS are facing is not what they themselves have built, but the huge number of apps that other businesses have built over the years which prevent MS from rewriting or deprecating many parts of the bloated zombie that is now Windows.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Except for the fact that linux is even better at running those old apps from other vendors by now. Try running Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 software under linux with wine.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm sure all those enterprise clients are positively champing at the bit to switch to Linux 🙄 Can I have a conversation about computers here without it being about Linux? And I say this as somebody who uses Linux full-time on all their computers.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Let’s look at your code from 20+ years ago?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Go ahead, bro. It's on CPAN.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ok whatever dude, you need to provide more details than “go ahead.” 😏

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I think I'll continue to enjoy my pseudonymity for the time being. Besides, I could link you to some rando's modules, claim to be that person, and you'd have no way of verifying anyhow since this nick has no resemblance to the handle I used. But let's just say, I shipped well-tested, thoroughly documented modules with very high "kwalitee" used by fortune 100 companies.

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