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Some people would disagree with you. Unix's security model can make it inherently more secure.
Google ditches Windows on security concerns
- Thread starter philip2009
- Start date
Some people would disagree with you. Unix's security model can make it inherently more secure.
I think there is an element of everyone on a [computer] forum thinking themselves top of the food chain in [computer] knowledge
It overtook Mobile OSX sales a couple of months ago in the US actually.
I don't think they are. It sounds much like a marketing ploy and a move towards Linux (and eventually Chrome OS) however as the article states due to the Apple love there is no way they can get rid of OSX without an uproar from the Apple faithful...
As most laptops provided by companies probably cost more/the same as macbooks it doesn't make too much sense either.
As the OP said this almost certainly has nothing to do with security (at least with regards to OSX) as it is widely seen as the least secure of the trio.
I don't think it did.
IT overtook it in the First Quarter sales but that doesn't account for all the existing Mobile OSX handsets from the past few years. I haven't heard anything stating Android is now on more handsets worldwide than Mobile OSX is. With the iphone 4g (or whatever it will be called) I guess their sales will spike again.
I could be wrong and don't care either way who has more
This.
They got hacked because they were running IE 6.0 on an unpatched XP box. Big whoop. If their sysadmins leave their Linux or OSX machines in a similar state for years then the Chinese will just hack those as well.
Google are a very confused company. They have a lot to learn about software.
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The key word there being "can". Just like Windows "can" be just as secure. That's the whole point.
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Oh well, I ditched Google due to their virus like updating system that ran as a service without asking.
What, for Chrome you mean?
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I meant that Google updater service - for all Google products. Not sure if they have allowed more control over it, but it used to install and go about it's business without ever asking or giving an option to disable. It is a compulsory install along with Google software.
It would just sit there uploading and downloading info for their apps in the background 24/7.
It would just sit there uploading and downloading info for their apps in the background 24/7.
Apple diverge somewhat from the BSD model though. It would be an astonishing achievement if they have managed to make it so much more user friendly without relaxing the security rules. Quite a lot of Apple's code is written in house, whether you feel this is better or worse than open source it's certainly not the same.
A lot of people seem to leave windows on the grounds that it's full of viruses, ending up with OSX or Ubuntu. They rejoice at no longer needing an antivirus, or firewall, and proceed to pay security no attention whatsoever. They're probably better off than they would be using XP without any 3rd party software, but I suspect that OSX + ignoring security is less secure than windows + obsessing about security.
Desktop computing appears to be a trade off between ease of use and security. Getting the balance right is difficult, but I do feel Apple are closer to it than Microsoft. No idea where Google will fall on this scale.
Oh, regarding the article, if Google want to release an OS then smearing the windows brand in the mud shortly beforehand is not a terribly subtle trick. Probably effective though.
The thing with OSX is that it is very, very, very forgiving of users doing stupid things. You could dig out any 5 year old Mac, not get any software updates or bother enabling the firewall, click every malicious link you could find and throw in a few random apps and 99.99% of the time you'd be fine. And in a way, this is how computers should work - patches, reboots, av signatures etc. are just boring and tedious to all but a few.
I actually think the world of Windows is a little too much about security for the average user and I can quite see the attraction of an alternative based on those grounds, the problem is it breeds complacency and in some cases downright ignorance. If you browse some of the Mac forums in the wake of this OSX/OpinionSpy trojan you see comments like "apple will patch this" or "it requires admin credentials to run so this is not a self-replicating virus" - both missing the point in different ways. No more or less ignorant than a lot of Windows users I might add, but how often have we said that the problem usually lies between the chair and the keyboard? And that's platform independent! OSX forgives these people. Windows does not.
If you're talking about ChromeOS on the desktop, I don't know. I'm not even sure it will ever happen, at least in its current form. The current model is "the browser is the OS" which will work for netbooks but not for anyone wishing to push their PC any further. From what I've read about ChromeOS it looks very secure - the advantage of having a clean slate - but at the cost of reduced functionality (or at least limited to the functions the web can offer you). It wouldn't suprise me if Google's desktop offering was a thin client running ChromeOS. What they will do about more meaty computing needs remains to be seen. An official Google linux distro would have been nice to get away from Windows rather than having a mixed alternative, but maybe the timing isn't right and this is a stop-gap. Google will be considering life after Windows XP like the rest of us so if they were planning on ditching it anyway then no time like the present.
The grim irony is that when Chrome OS finally emerges it'll probably take over your webcam without your consent and send Google footage of your knackers, as well as sending back every stroke you make......
Fixed
They are a large organisation and employ a few idiots - any big organisation is likely to have its share of *****... one of these ***** presumably worked in China. That doesn't mean the company as a whole is confused or has a lot to learn about software. You don't get to be as big as google currently is if that were the case.
Realistically they only use windows on company laptops anyway, scrapping these and giving employees macbook pros etc.. isn't exactly a massive task for them - laptops get replaced regularly anyway in any organisation. Any cost is probably going to be justified by the marketing/PR associated with them ditching windows prior to bringing out their own OS.
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blame someone else for your problems - real mature
Reading in the other thread that they are going to be aggresively adopting their new OS on mobile devices suggests to me they're getting rid of Windows entirely for PR reasons.
Hard to push an amazing new OS if most of your company machines are Windows!
There is nothing wrong with switching to OSX/Linux but to say it is on the basis of security is bit daft. The argument that any company has a few ***** is also daft. You are saying Google are ditching Windows because of the risk of their own employees?
Hard to push an amazing new OS if most of your company machines are Windows!
There is nothing wrong with switching to OSX/Linux but to say it is on the basis of security is bit daft. The argument that any company has a few ***** is also daft. You are saying Google are ditching Windows because of the risk of their own employees?