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noobermin

Perhaps in 2018 it's a good reminder how having a monopoly is often not great for consumers.

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This is for Windows 7 which is like 10 years old - give them a break.

How long ago was Windows 7 released? How long should they continue supporting it at no extra cost?

I’m sure blackhats will be rubbing their hands in glee when this day comes.

I was going to make some snide comment about black hats being excited to pwn 1% of computers or whatever W7's current market share is. Then I went and looked it up. netmarketshare.com thinks it's still above 40%, with minimal movement over the last two years. Shows what I know.

FWIW I've done some limited consulting work with senior citizens. Two observations: A) they like their systems the way they are, so changes of any kind (especially to the UI) are upsetting/unpleasant experiences, B) they are on fixed incomes so hardware/software upgrades that cost more than some de minimis amount are put off / ignored. My prediction - this cohort is going to get slammed at that EOL date.

The people who don't replace their Windows 7 probably don't care about security. Furthermore I don't don't know any Linux distributions to guarantee support for more than 10 years without cost. And Apple/Google seem to take an even worse stance.

chromeos in particular is a mixed bag. Great for security (not privacy though) while supported, but only supported for about 5 years. This is for x86 hardware, where traditional distros will support them almost infinitely. Only 32-bit hardware is slowly getting deprecated, but any x86-64 hardware that you can get your hands on is still supported by all linux distros.

But the people hit by the huge botnets of unpatched Win 7 machines care.

If they cared they will pay for support or switch to Win 10 or switch to another OS (but which one gives >10 years of free updates?)

Companies who don't want to get DDOS'd should pay randos on the Internet to update their computers?

They have many choices including paying randos.

It's rather problematic that they decide to end the updates at the same time they decided to make updating windows 10 not free and windows 8 no longer available. They're essentially forcing people to upgrade, and of course, customers are forced to buy a product or be subjected to security risk. And of course, there is no competition that can take advantage of this decision.

That tidbit was at the end of the article, but I don't expect employees of microsoft to care.

Microsoft OS were never free to start with is it shocking that this update also costs money like almost every new version of windows ever?

They did the same thing when XP went EOL why would you expect it to be any different for Win 7

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