I just came across another account of how painful computing is for users of IE and Outlook express with all of these pieces of ad-ware and spy-ware targeting those systems. After deailing with similar problems on my in-laws' machines, I have decided to perform an experiment.
I'm going to install a clean copy Windows98SE on one of my spare machines at home and try to use it for various of my regular personal surfing and email activities to see how long it takes for the system to deteriorate. I suspect that I won't put enough hours on that system to see it go south as quickly as it does for full-time windows/ie/outlook users, but the experiment should be interesting.
I don't plan on running any windows updates because, from my admittedly limited experience (see the two links above), regular users don't do it either. At the end of each week, probably on Saturday or Sunday, I'll run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy, but I won't actually, clean anything. I'll just record what they find.
Based on my conversations with Deanna's father, and how long it took his new laptop user experience to degrade, I'm predicting that it will take less than 6 months for things to become painful. I'll post updates to the blog as things progress.
Posted by asa at April 8, 2004 10:24 AMThis sounds like a fascinating experiment.
You do know about Windows half-life right?
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/08/04/xp
Posted by: pete on April 8, 2004 10:58 AMWhy would you do this experiment with Windows 98? You might as well install Win3.1 if you want to have that kind of fun.
If you're going to do a fair comparison, at least install 2k or XP, which are actual modern operating systems.
Is Windows Update for Win98 still even supported? I thought they canned that OS last year.
I wonder how long a linux system from 1998 without a single patch to it would last?
You'll probably find that without patches, the machines will vulnerable to many of the nearly-dead worms out there. Without at least some of the service packs, it would be lucky to last a week.
I still think your experiment is a valid one (and will yield suprising results). I just think you should make a bit more fair and do it with something approaching a real operating system.
Posted by: Jason on April 8, 2004 11:08 AMPete, thanks for the link.
Jason, because at least two of the three cases of massive scumware infestations I've run into in the last week were windows 98 systems (one was ME, but I don't have a copy of that) and because windows 98 is the second most popular OS on the web (according to google) and has more users than all non-XP windows operating systems combined.
Maybe win2K is better, though without windows updates, including updates for IE and OE, I doubt it's much better and as I said above, I'd wager that most novice computer users don't make any significant changes to the computer they bought, including windows updates.
You can deride it as a not-real operating system, but my experiment is designed to see what about 165 million web users are experiencing (rough guess based on google and global reach stats). Maybe next time I'll try win2K but I'll need another license.
Also, I'm not about to let my win2K or winXP systems, which I use for work, be destroyed :-)
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on April 8, 2004 11:55 AMIf you live behind a hardware firewall and you don't open email attachments or install Kazaa or such, why do you think you'll be infected?
Or are you planning to change your good computer use behaviors?
Dan
Posted by: Dan Bodoh on April 8, 2004 12:02 PM"He also took IE away from me (apparently it's evil) and gave me Mozilla Firefox, took Outlook Express away (which I hated anyway) and gave me Mozilla Thunderbird (which I already love)..."
best quote ever! :)
Posted by: berkut on April 8, 2004 12:46 PM6 months, are you kidding? In my experience, non-savvy users need only about a week to get the first load of ad/spam-ware on a computer (and that was actually Win 2k with all the updates). After that, it just goes down the drain. Especially with Win 98, I expect under 2 months of usable system.
Posted by: Manuzhai on April 8, 2004 03:27 PMManuzhai, I'll only be using this for some of my non-work related browser and email activities. I wouldn't be surprised to see problems creeping in sooner than six months, though. We'll see. That's part of the fun of this experiment.
Dan Bodoh, I'm not planning on changing my browsing or email habbits. If my habits are the difference, and not the software I'm using then I shouldn't have any problems. If that's the case, then I'll report back with a clean machine in six months. Note for comparison that using Mozilla and Firefox/Thunderbird for the last 5 years (about 80% windows, 15% linux, and 5% mac) I haven't contracted a single virus and haven't had a single piece of adware or spyware detected on my primary machines by any of the various Virus protection packages, Ad-Aware or SS&D (other than Alexa which seems to ship with IE and a few tracking cookies I gathered testing the occasional website in IE). If those same surfing habits lead me to have no viruses, no ad-ware, and no spy-ware on my system after six months of casual use, that's what you'll read here at the blog when the experiment concludes. Now, I'm not going to be any more careful than I am in Mozilla or Firefox/Thunderbird (which means things like not hesitating to open every email that comes into my inbox and surf any web page that I would normally visit in Mozilla/Firefox.)
We'll see :-)
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on April 8, 2004 04:34 PMAsa, you mention that you gathered a few tracking cookies while you were using IE, but that implies that you can avoid or have avoided them with Mozilla browsers. I'd really like to know how. Until now, I've thought the P3P support in IE was way better than in other browsers.
Posted by: James on April 8, 2004 05:47 PMHere is another similar experiment you may want to read about:
http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5187106.html
All best!
Posted by: TNTaangela on April 9, 2004 10:21 PMGod, Asa, go with WinXP Home at least. 98 was HORRIBLE.
Posted by: James Russell on April 10, 2004 12:01 PM