Just got Windows 8, but . . .

[dAnceguy117]

Originally Posted by dragon890x

You're asking me to find a needle in a haystack. I'm not going to assume Microsoft would pay money to cover the incident up, but I remember them having to roll back some updates and people trying to sue them because of this event. This was roughly a decade ago.

Did you know that one of the updates in question gave Microsoft the ability to access your computer remotely without your permission?

haha, I believe you. I apologize if I wasted your time by asking you to provide a link; I shouldn't have assumed you were referring to a specific article. my bad.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

Now, I'd love to get into a huge discussion about which is more important, Windows Security Updates or your anti-virus/firewall software. However, I don't have much time to explain my point of view.

hit me up (or revive this thread) if you have time later on. I plan on having professional-level knowledge of this type of stuff within a year or two. I was never interested enough to do a lot of learning on my own, though, so I honestly have some catch-up work to do. any insights you have would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

First of all, you shouldn't need an anti-virus.

can't hurt though, right? one little "oops" and you could let some pretty nasty stuff onto your machine or local network. keeping an AV handy could save you the hassle of removing stuff yourself, at the cost of taking up a tiny portion of your hard drive. seems reasonable enough to me.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

Being too lazy to manually open/close ports is a poor excuse.

fair enough. the average user won't have much of a clue here, but if you're able and willing to do so, more power to you.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

On top of that, most are closed on default, and those that are open are harmless. I doubt you are running SSH on port 80, unless porn.exe was too hard to resist installing.

it seemed like a good idea at the time...

Originally Posted by dragon890x

The support you are mentioning still seems worthless in my opinion. I would rather have an anti-virus and firewall setup, and only worry about those. Why? Because I can manually check for viruses within a file when needed (there are free websites that'd do this for you), and I'd love to know exactly which ports are being opened and what's using them. In other words, they are tools that the user can control.

again, if you're cool with carefully managing ports, then that's great. if you're willing to keep track of all of your files and constantly check for infections, that can work too. I believe you'd be in the vast minority of people in that regard.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

If being lazy was a quality reason that supports your argument, than I suppose giving complete trust to your local automobile repairman is the smart thing to do. Who has the time to find out if they're ripping you off? As long as your car is up-to-date, right?

I don't see much relevance in this analogy. security updates from microsoft are free. if you're talking about the cost of upgrading from XP to 7 or what have you, note that I never explicitly made such a suggestion. you have plenty of Linux distros to choose from.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

use your brain and you'll find avoiding viruses is actually an easy task.

true in many cases, but not all. new malware, created and propogated in the near future, will circumvent our current practices. that's how the game is played. limiting vulnerabilities will always be a good idea.

Originally Posted by dragon890x

I apologize for speaking in a rude manner, but I can't see your argument winning unless we were talking about a machine on a business or other important live environment.

I'm not trying to win any argument here. I just want to spread the word about XP being a dangerous choice for most users.