I tried to keep it concise, but I realise the wilfully ignorant won't even had read this far lol. This is obviously for those who are interested.
anbello262 :
I'm sorry if I don't respond to everything correctly. It was quite long so I might forget to reply to some parts.
I will clarify that I'm somewhat knowledgeable in computers, although not too much. I've worked fixing computers (mainly software) for about 7 years, but just as a hobby (nowhere near full-time). I've seen a number of cases, very different issues, even some that I wouldn't even have imagined before seeing them. (The most unexpected and surprising for me one was someone with an infected router/modem).
I insist that I agree with you. I'm not saying that you're wrong.
I understand that you agree with me in some ways. I'm just expanding on things that I find to be either wrong, or inconsistent with the research I've seen. Agreed, people typically exercise a high level of ignorance/carelessness when using computers. I think this is the result of the "if I buy it, it isn't allowed to ever break" mentality that runs rampant in many Western societies. That thought aside, I'm kind of surprised most people have computers, phones, and tablets that still are fairly operational after a couple months. I guess that's a little cynical though lol.
anbello262 :
When I said that I'm amazed at how people running the correct protecction software get infected, I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying they get infected because they are running it. I'm saying the exact opposite:
"I'm amazed at how they get infected even when they are so well protected."
I'm amazed by how people fail to follow basic security, most of them out of ignorance. I don't blame them, I just get surprised by how much a basic set of habits can affect your chances of getting infected.
About checking my computer...
I didn't say they get infected because they run the software either; I was getting at the way they handle things. The whole mentality I see goes like this: install AV software, do whatever the hell I want because I'm protected, get infected, bitch about how my AV software doesn't work, and pay someone to fix it. Okay, not exactly like that, but you get the idea
I do blame them, but only because they choose to believe a sales pitch from some twit who's paid to sell software, instead of listening to someone who actually knows a thing or two about computers. Sometimes, I think people live by the words of George Bernard Shaw a little too literally (even without knowing it), "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." I think people avoid educating themselves to a point where they can make a truly educated choice, because they don't think the return is actually worth it.
anbello262 :
About hackers: I never said I don't have anything interesting for them to steal. I said that I don't have anything that I care about having stolen. I believe my personal information is public enough with common advertisements, trackers, google itself, etc.
I know that there exists a risk that I might find some issue years from now. I just believe that risk is small enough to not outweigh my reasons for not putting an extra effort on protecting. It's not about slacking off; it's about a personal, somewhat weighted, choice.
As you said, I don't really care about my information being vulnerable. At the time at least, I believe that the risk, given m y habits and practices, is small enough not to outwheigh the alternative.
I don't care about "personal" information being stolen. I only would care if it was financial information or similar (something with real tangible effects, not just "ads" or "social network account stolen/copied"), which is quite safer (again, given my ways of doing that stuff).
Short and sweet: if you do any banking/financial transactions on an outdated computer, then you are easily risking your financial information, and likely more so than all the information that FB/Google could ever want. As I said before, the days of harmless infections are practically over; viruses and malware are written to get money out of users. Stopping the ads/other exploits that are used for the harmelss activities (like what FB/Google do) will put a substantial damper on the malicious guys, as they have no problems using the same techniques. If they can use those techniques to get to your computer (and they can... and do), then not stopping the most basic exploits is asking for problems.
If you don't use this computer for any financial transactions, then cool. If you do, you'd be better off keeping your computer updated, if you actually want to ensure a decent amount of protection from financial hackers/etc..
anbello262 :
I would care a lot more about the kind of malware/exploit that affects my PC's performance. And I'm quite sure that my performance is as good as it could be given my PC specs. I've not had a noticeable or annoying virus/infection for years. I believe I've not had any infection, as there have been no signs of any infection.
From what I've seen, the most efficient malware at stealing information, and/or finances, is the kind that doesn't impact system performance. The only time you're going to have noticeable performance differences is when the programmer doesn't care about you knowing their malware is on your system, or when they get stupid lazy. You can fit a virus on the microcontroller of flash memory (SD cards, SSD hard drives, or USB flash drives, for example), and the user will never know what happened. What can you do with that virus? Pretty much anything you like, just like all viruses... from harmless to destroying a person's life. The ones that slow down your computer are probably just ransomware, or some other scam that is pretty basic, and made to let the user know they are infected. The ones you need to look out for are silent and deadly.
anbello262 :
I understand what fixing means. As long as hardware is not affected, it's very easy to solve. If quick fixes don't work, just a format and OS reinstallation, and everything is fixed. I do that anyways about once a year, just for maintenance.
(And I know that there are some malware/exploits that might damage hardware. I believe that the chances of getting that are small enough for it to be irrelevant).
If the programmer does things properly, you could, in theory, infect the BIOS (with the right set of circumstances). Also, there are many types of viruses that can disable the software fail safes, and kill hardware by running them hard. There are also viruses that kill the software fan controllers. Hardware can easily be infected/affected. Also, consider hardware to not only include your computer tower, but also any digital media you burn/write, all storage devices, flash memory devices
and storage (flash memory isn't always limited to storage), as well as any hardware that has a potential for software hacks (pretty difficult to find a device that isn't vulnerable to this). Your chances of this happening on an outdated computer are fairly high, by comparison to an updated computer; updated computers have a negligible risk, not outdated ones.
Formatting your computer, won't actually solve a virus problem, just like how it doesn't make previous data unrecoverable (common misconception). If your BIOS became infected, or any hardware becomes compromised, then reformatting doesn't really help you. If you reformat, and don't know exactly how to prevent the infection from returning (usually the reason why a person reformats their system), then your risk of having the exact same issue again is fairly high. I don't see how that helps a user. And, while reinstallation can help improve performance, a person shouldn't need to do that every year to for "maintenance" reasons. It really doesn't take much effort to keep your computer running very close to new for over 2 years; maybe an hour a week of effort, if you run extremely slow hardware, and combine the time into a lump sum. I don't spend much more than ten minutes (total) per day, to keep myself from getting an infection; with or without AV software. Only this last week have I ever had a positive result that I cannot confirm is a false positive. How long do I spend on my computer each day? Upwards of six hours; and yet I only need to take about ten minutes of my day to make sure I'm secure. I don't know how that's such an inconvenience to people. But I digress.
anbello262 :
I agree with you that "fixing" a known issue isn't doing exactly the same. So, when I find that kind of issue, I change my habits enough to avoid that particular problem. Not more than that, since the effort of protecting all those unknown fronts is quite heavier than the effort of fixing my PC if something would happen.
Again, for some reason I don't understand, I've not had any kind of noticeable infection for years.
The logic I find is that, simply put, the effort of preventing is quite more than the effort of fixing, in this case.
Actually, taking preventative action will save you more time than it takes to fix everything. If you're starting from square one, with a copy of Windows 7, at the original retail level, yes... it will take more time to get it running up to date than to fix your computer ONCE. If you have to fix your computer multiple times, the way you would compare initial efforts, to the time spent fixing, is by combining the amount of time you spend fixing your computer into a lump sum. For example, If you spent 12 hours to get your computer updated, and ready to go, but you spend 4 hours every year to fix problems that you wouldn't need to fix if you simply would stay up to date, you are effectively even in work time after three years. Here's another way to look at it: I can spend upwards of six hours to fix a person's computer, but it takes me only
1 hour to get their computer up to my level of security (after getting them updated), and I may spend another hour to educate them on what tools I gave them. I'm really only spending a maximum of three hours giving them the tools needed keep their computer from ever needing another 6 hour repair job. Is the initial effort more time than fixing it? No; in fact, it's half the repair time. And, of course, that's repairing the problem, instead of doing everything the cheater way (wiping, and reinstalling everything). If all I did was reinstall everything, I could easily charge people about $30/computer "fix", and make about $120/day, on a bad day. While it's profitable, it also ensures the people who use these computers have no idea what the problem was, or how to avoid having it again. Make sense now?
Maybe you see it differently? I don't need to take too much time to get someone's computer on a comparable level of security as mine; although, I spend MORE time tweaking my own computer to test various things, and to see where I can cut back on excess junk, to see if I can improve the Windows experience overall. I wouldn't call that "security time," or even consider it as time spent doing anything more than simply fiddling around in my spare time.
anbello262 :
I don't personally find it annoying to have to spend 4-5 hours fixing a PC, especially if it's my own PC. I find it interesting, as every new issue I find is something new I learn.
I don't see how you say "running an outdated OS" is not "working". If performance (for the purpose the PC is used for) is the same as it would be with an updated OS, then it's working... I just want it to run my programs, visit my websites, play my games, and it's working perfectly fine for that purpose. When it does not, I will fix it. And if that fix includes updating, I will update.
I'm not blindly "not updating because I hate updates". I do so because I believe that in my particular case, effort outwheighs benefits.
As I have implied, I do have a realistic idea of what to expect.
I don't know if you've actually ran a properly updated PC... but it's significantly faster, more efficient, and typically has a lot of excess trimmed down from the original release; as well, patches/updates help improve the efficiency/effectiveness of the original running processes to help improve performance. I really do not believe you have a realistic idea of what to expect from updates, because you seem to be basing your expectations on faulty evidence. I don't know what your internet connection is like, or what hardware you are running; however, if you're running older/dated hardware, updating will always benefit you. If you're running a newer gaming rig, and you're streaming video games, then you really don't have to worry so much about update times, or bandwidth. I don't see where it's actually detrimental to you; and that's mostly because it isn't. Even if your internet connection is super slow, you could likely find someone to help you update your computer with the use of a flash drive, and do so every couple weeks. There are ways of speeding everything up, as long as you care about doing it to begin with.
If you really don't care about keeping your computer up to date, just leave it at that. Your reasoning for it just doesn't make any sense, and is either based on faulty information, or faulty perception. I've yet to hear a single good reason for not updating, from anyone, other than "I just don't want to take the time." If that's your real reason, then there's no need to make other excuses that can be proven wrong.
anbello262 :
I know that my case is far from what is recommended. I myself recommend other people the correct ways to protect their systems. I don't follow those guidelines, but I do so knowingly, and informed of the risks.
So, basically, I know my risks and I knowingly choose this behavior.
I'm not denying that there might come a time when I decide to start updating. When that time comes, I will most likely do just one manual big update very few months instead of leaving it to auto-update. At this specific moment, I don't do it, and don't feel the need to.
Again, I think you're choosing this route based on faulty assumptions, evidence, and a lack of understanding exactly what you gain from putting in a few hours of work into the initial installations, as well as with the continuous updating of your computer. Talk to any computer expert, and they will tell you something similar to this, "If you do not update, your computer will be far less secure, and it will be significantly slower than it should be." They may add a little, or change that a bit, but that's a known
fact. I cannot stress this enough. Will it make your computer magically 10x faster? No, you need hardware upgrades for that. Will it make your computer perform in the best possible way, with what it has? Absolutely.
I just returned a co-worker's laptop to him (housing the old Turion x2), and here's what his problems were: outdated Windows Vista since 2009, all the original crapware installed by HP, about a dozen pieces of malicious malware, and roughly 50+ PUPs. After removing all of the malicious crap, only updating to roughly the year 2010's status, removing all the junk that was weighing it down (doing thorough removals), and even doing your basic routine maintenance (running registry cleaners, and the like), his computer didn't benefit very much. His startup times went from 6-7 minutes to about 5 minutes, and shut down times were still too long for me to bother with. After updating all of his drivers (originals), and updating him to the latest version of Vista, he's now able to use his computer within 2-3 minutes of pushing the power button, and shut down takes about a minute. Also, his computer can actually function at a speed that a speed freak (like myself) can use without getting too frustrated. The biggest problem here is that he's running Vista; however, Vista is a nice example of just how effective updates really are to performance.
Originally, Vista was so bad, there was a parody calling it "Windows CEMENT" (after combining Windows CE, ME, and NT). After a year or so of fixing mistakes, computers didn't have too much problem running them, and it currently is just a little more demanding than an updated Windows 7 computer. Windows 7, without updates is significantly less efficient, and substantially slower overall; although, to notice the real difference, you need to have a true side by side comparison.
Like I've said, do what you like; I just think you're really misinformed. Talk to security guys, hackers, whomever you prefer that knows a fair amount about security; and maybe talk to a few programmers while you're at it. Updates are not only great for security, but they also help your computer perform better. There's no real reason to avoid updates. If you're running stupid slow internet speeds, then ask someone to help you update your computer with a flash drive; it can be done relatively easily, and without taking too long, if you care to bother with it.
I know there are many people out there who agree with you wholeheartedly, and believe that updates are not worth the effort; but I think this giant post should help put to rest these misconceptions. Hopefully this also helps the OP, and other people who stumble on this thread. I've seen plenty of people run outdated computers, and use AV software to compensate for it, and the OP's question is pretty much the exact question asked. Just trying to help educate; that's why I'm here.
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