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Is it safe to use Windows 9x on the modern web?


Jody Thornton

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22 hours ago, Nomen said:

> Yieks! That can't be too secure.

I have an older relative that I set up a win-7 system for (Zotac Zbox).  Created a win-7 install image using RT7 and rolled in a bunch of MS updates.  So it was a pretty tweaked system.  Office 2010 (has gmail account which is accessed via outlook 2010).  I forget which version of FF.  A few days ago she was doing on-line banking (TD I think) and got an on-screen message claiming to be from Microsoft, saying something about her computer, wanting her to dial a certain phone number.  She freaked and pulled the power-bar cord out of the wall (which naturally shut down everything, cable modem, VOIP adapter, router, PC, monitor, etc).  So when you tell me that doing on-line banking with Opera 12.02 on a win-98 system is risky, I think about stuff like this that my poor old aunt gets from time to time and I would LOVE to get this on my win-98 PC so I can have a detailed look at the browser cache files, use cctask to see if anything new is running, and just generally figure out what URL triggered what server to put up this or that message.   Truth is, I think for any win-7, win-8 or win-10 PC, using any of those to do on-line banking is more risky vs win-98.  Those stupid browser exploits that are being discovered every day just plain fall flat on their face if they hit a win-98 box with an old browser.
 

She could have easily clicked on a similar link and infected herself in a Win9x system.  Come on now, I remember people infecting their systems all the time in the late 90s and early half of the 2000s.

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3 hours ago, JodyT said:

Sorry that seems a bit tin-foil hat-ish to me.  For all of the security holes there may be, Windows 9x is basically a house of cards structurally.  Security by obscurity first off isn't a strategy in my mind.  But running a partially protected mode environment on top of MS-DOS is flimsy.  Besides what devices do I no longer have access to in Windows 8?

And I'll tell you, Windows 8 runs WAY MORE stable than 9x ever ever did.

:)

3 hours ago, JodyT said:

She could have easily clicked on a similar link and infected herself in a Win9x system.  Come on now, I remember people infecting their systems all the time in the late 90s and early half of the 2000s.

Ridiculous. Windows 9x is no more a house of cards than any other version of Windows. Success or failure with the security of any operating system ultimately comes down to the end user and their level of knowledge.

Security through obscurity? Well, maybe it isn't a "strategy" per se but in reality there is logic to it. As Nomen pointed out, what malware designed to target the popular operating systems of the day will even run under Windows 9x? Not much. Sure, there existed plenty of malware that could infect Windows 9x back when it was mainstream, but how likely is it to encounter such malware in the wild these days? Two factors at work here - 1) malware designed to target today's systems can't run under 9x, and 2) malware designed to attack Windows 9x is practically non existent in the wild because it has long been recognized as such and hunted to virtual extinction. So the reality of the situation still applies - whether one calls it a "strategy" or not, the two vectors at work inevitably lead to a safer situation on an obscure OS.

And finally, if your Windows 9x was unstable, then you had some other issue at work as well. I'm very glad you're happy with Windows 8, but if you have any more 9x bashing to do, you can take it somewhere else. :P

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Secunia.org (don't know if they're still around) kept track of security advisories on dozens if not hundreds of hardware and software products.  They would rank the advisories in terms of critical (or not) and vendor-patched (or not).  For win-98, they listed something like 37 advisories up until EOL in 2006, with none of them rising to the top-critical level, and I think maybe 1 of them un-patched.  For XP, by the same time in 2006, it was well over 200 advisories, many were critical, and some of those were unpatched.   Remember that many win-98 systems were still in-use and on-line in 2006, and it would have been a common OS during for home and soho use during the early years of the mainstream internet (1999 - 2004) and more importantly with direct IP connectivity (very little NAT-routing being used during those years).   But it wasn't until XP began to replace 98/ME in home and SOHO situations that trojanized XP machines is what enabled spam to take off during 2004 - because win-98 systems were far less vulnerable to being trojanized (not because they were "obscure" during those years).   Win-2k machines were also a favorite (and easy) target between 2000 - 2004, regardless that again there were probably far more win-9x/me systems still in use and on-line during that time.   Microsoft would inflate the tendency for people to think that win-9x/me was equally vulnerable as 2K or XP to a given CVE or exploit because they would often list 9x/me in their security bulletin as being one of the affected platforms but when you drill down into the bulletin details you'd find no mention at all of 9x/me.

Win98/me got the rap for being unstable because of the pathetic systems they were being installed on at the time.  When having 128 mb of ram was a big deal, and they spent most of the time thrashing the hard drive with virtual memory access and dealing with buggy video drivers for the new AGP bus.


 

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9 hours ago, LoneCrusader said:

Ridiculous. Windows 9x is no more a house of cards than any other version of Windows. Success or failure with the security of any operating system ultimately comes down to the end user and their level of knowledge.

Security through obscurity? Well, maybe it isn't a "strategy" per se but in reality there is logic to it. As Nomen pointed out, what malware designed to target the popular operating systems of the day will even run under Windows 9x? Not much. Sure, there existed plenty of malware that could infect Windows 9x back when it was mainstream, but how likely is it to encounter such malware in the wild these days? Two factors at work here - 1) malware designed to target today's systems can't run under 9x, and 2) malware designed to attack Windows 9x is practically non existent in the wild because it has long been recognized as such and hunted to virtual extinction. So the reality of the situation still applies - whether one calls it a "strategy" or not, the two vectors at work inevitably lead to a safer situation on an obscure OS.

And finally, if your Windows 9x was unstable, then you had some other issue at work as well. I'm very glad you're happy with Windows 8, but if you have any more 9x bashing to do, you can take it somewhere else. :P

I'm not bashing.  We're having a discussion, and we're allowed to disagree.  My Win9x was very stable thank you very much, but even Windows NT 4x and Windows 200o were WORLD'S BETTER.

I see anyone as spouting Win9x as being current and usable (by a 2017 definition) to not be truthful or honest.  There are people (like me now) that think no one should run 9x on the Internet because it can be a threat to all of us.  So what, I have to keep quiet about that?  I don't think so.

I will leave it at that though because you're signature graphic says "Windows 9x Diehard", so there's no room to enlighten :P

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43 minutes ago, JodyT said:

I'm not bashing.  We're having a discussion, and we're allowed to disagree.  My Win9x was very stable thank you very much, but even Windows NT 4x and Windows 200o were WORLD'S BETTER.

I see anyone as spouting Win9x as being current and usable (by a 2017 definition) to not be truthful or honest.  There are people (like me now) that think no one should run 9x on the Internet because it can be a threat to all of us.  So what, I have to keep quiet about that?  I don't think so.

I will leave it at that though because you're signature graphic says "Windows 9x Diehard", so there's no room to enlighten :P

come on

99.99% virus and exploit kit does not work with 9x

Edited by Dibya
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9 hours ago, LoneCrusader said:

Ridiculous. Windows 9x is no more a house of cards than any other version of Windows. Success or failure with the security of any operating system ultimately comes down to the end user and their level of knowledge.

Security through obscurity? Well, maybe it isn't a "strategy" per se but in reality there is logic to it. As Nomen pointed out, what malware designed to target the popular operating systems of the day will even run under Windows 9x? Not much. Sure, there existed plenty of malware that could infect Windows 9x back when it was mainstream, but how likely is it to encounter such malware in the wild these days? Two factors at work here - 1) malware designed to target today's systems can't run under 9x, and 2) malware designed to attack Windows 9x is practically non existent in the wild because it has long been recognized as such and hunted to virtual extinction. So the reality of the situation still applies - whether one calls it a "strategy" or not, the two vectors at work inevitably lead to a safer situation on an obscure OS.

And finally, if your Windows 9x was unstable, then you had some other issue at work as well. I'm very glad you're happy with Windows 8, but if you have any more 9x bashing to do, you can take it somewhere else. :P

Windows 8 do nothing but crash Auto desk maya in middle of my render . System run out of RAM . how much should i put ram ? isnt 16Gigs of DRR3 are enough?

On those cases XP with pae patch never take more than 8gigs

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1 hour ago, JodyT said:

There are people (like me now) that think no one should run 9x on the Internet because it can be a threat to all of us.

Better check your own tinfoil hat for leaks! ;)
 

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XP is fairly decent, but 7, 8 and 10 are nothing but trouble.
The IE browsers on my 7 and 8 stopped working properly months ago.
Windows 10 appears to cause corruption in FAT Partitions and immediately corrupts Floppy Disks.

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13 hours ago, JodyT said:

I'm not bashing.  We're having a discussion, and we're allowed to disagree.  My Win9x was very stable thank you very much, but even Windows NT 4x and Windows 200o were WORLD'S BETTER.

I see anyone as spouting Win9x as being current and usable (by a 2017 definition) to not be truthful or honest.  There are people (like me now) that think no one should run 9x on the Internet because it can be a threat to all of us.  So what, I have to keep quiet about that?  I don't think so.

I will leave it at that though because you're signature graphic says "Windows 9x Diehard", so there's no room to enlighten :P

"WORLD'S BETTER" in your opinion. This along with the rest of your argument is entirely subjective.

I'm not trying to be offensive to you Jody but I'll be perfectly honest - most of us 9x'ers don't care one iota about your (or anyone else's) opinion of 9x. If you don't even run it or care to use it, then why are you bothering to participate in this thread? You have nothing constructive to add here. All you are doing here is insinuating that someone who chooses to run Windows 9x is somehow "ignorant" or "unenlightened." We are not interested in hearing about Windows 8 or any other cause you are proselytizing for. We do not come to the Windows 8 forum and tell you how worthless, ugly, slow, and bloated it is and how much we hate it. So unless you can give us the same respect here, then yes, you can be quiet about it. If you have nothing constructive to say, then you can say it somewhere else.

Again, I am not trying to be rude, but I am sick and tired of this type of attitude (perfectly exemplified by your arrogant assumption that an individual's choice of operating system is somehow a threat to others - this sounds like some kind of fascism...) that I see now everywhere around the internet, and I'll be d@mned if I'll see that type of stuff get started here.

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13 hours ago, Dibya said:

Windows 8 do nothing but crash Auto desk maya in middle of my render . System run out of RAM . how much should i put ram ? isnt 16Gigs of DRR3 are enough?

On those cases XP with pae patch never take more than 8gigs

No it doesn't.  Have you actually left your XP cave long enough to try Windows 8 Dibya?  It's been flawless and I've ran it for a year and a half now.  Stable as anything.

Edited by JodyT
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2 minutes ago, LoneCrusader said:

"Again, I am not trying to be rude, but I am sick and tired of this type of attitude (perfectly exemplified by your arrogant assumption that an individual's choice of operating system is somehow a threat to others - this sounds like some kind of fascism...) that I see now everywhere around the internet, and I'll be d@mned if I'll see that type of stuff get started here.

That's not being fascist.  That's what I (and many others who are WAY MORE informed than me believe).  Hey, at any time, we all smoked around each other care free and drove without seat belts.  We don't do that anymore.  Why?  Because we know better and it can affect others.

So if I want to belittle Windows 9x because I truly think it's obsolete and dangerous to run online, you won't stop me from saying so.  This is a Windows forum for everyone; it's not your private club, so you shouldn't be able to say, "I won't have any of that around here".  You don't censor this forum.  Good AND Bad should be allowed on this forum when it comes to Windows 9x.

Besides, plenty of commentary deriding Windows NT 6x class stuff here, so I'll go right ahead with my opinions about Win9x.  Thank you.  And now, I will leave it at that. :)

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33 minutes ago, JodyT said:

...left your XP cave...

Arrogant presumption at it's finest.

27 minutes ago, JodyT said:

That's not being fascist.  That's what I (and many others who are WAY MORE informed than me believe).  Hey, at any time, we all smoked around each other care free and drove without seat belts.  We don't do that anymore.  Why?  Because we know better and it can affect others.

So if I want to belittle Windows 9x because I truly think it's obsolete and dangerous to run online, you won't stop me from saying so.  This is a Windows forum for everyone; it's not your private club, so you shouldn't be able to say, "I won't have any of that around here".  You don't censor this forum.  Good AND Bad should be allowed on this forum when it comes to Windows 9x.

Besides, plenty of commentary deriding Windows NT 6x class stuff here, so I'll go right ahead with my opinions about Win9x.  Thank you.  And now, I will leave it at that. :)

If a million people believe a stupid idea, it is still a stupid idea. Might (or weight of numbers) does not make right. When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. All great and very applicable quotes here.

Thank you for admitting that you wish to "belittle" Windows 9x. As far as I am concerned now, anything more you have to say on the subject could clearly be construed as trolling or flame baiting.

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2 hours ago, JodyT said:

No it doesn't.  Have you actually left your XP cave long enough to try Windows 8 Dibya?  It's been flawless and I've ran it for a year and a half now.  Stable as anything.

I regularly used windows 8 back in 2015  from October 2014 to September 2015 . That time i am not a die-hard XP fan .  

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@Dibya: Stop. Right now. :crazy:

3 hours ago, LoneCrusader said:

If a million people believe a stupid idea, it is still a stupid idea. Might (or weight of numbers) does not make right. When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. All great and very applicable quotes here.

Lord Acton (back in 1877)  said:
"It is bad to be oppressed by a minority; but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority."

3 hours ago, JodyT said:

I said I won't.  I promised to leave it at that. :)

Good.

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