Archives for Windows XP

Google Offers a Life Line to XP Users: Chrome OS

Google Offers a Life Line to XP Users: Chrome OS

May 18, 2014 | Comments Off on Google Offers a Life Line to XP Users: Chrome OS

An interesting support option for XP users  Oct 16, 2013

Well, give them credit for an interesting ploy: Google announced today that it would extend support for its Chrome browser on Windows XP through at least April 2015. That’s a full year after Microsoft plans to end support of the operating system, opening up the remaining tens of millions of users to potential new security threats.

This is a big deal because IT is collectively scrambling now to meet the April 2014 deadline. According to the latest usage share figures, there are still 400-500 million Windows XP users out there, mostly in corporations. And while that number is dropping rapidly each month, it’s pretty clear that April 2014 is going to come and go and leave many of those users—and the companies that control their PCs—in the lurch.

What does the Google support offer mean?

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Microsoft warns Windows XP users risk 'zero day forever' | ZDNet

Microsoft warns Windows XP users risk 'zero day forever' | ZDNet

August 16, 2013 | Comments Off on Microsoft warns Windows XP users risk 'zero day forever' | ZDNet

“But after April 8, 2014, organizations that continue to run Windows XP won’t have this advantage over attackers any longer. The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities. If it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP.”

Because a security update will never become available for XP after April 8, “Windows XP will essentially have a ‘zero day’ vulnerability forever,” Rains said.

How likely is this scenario, realistically? Between July 2012 and July 2013 Windows XP was an affected product in 45 Microsoft security bulletins, of which 30 also affected Windows 7 and Windows 8, Rains said.

Windows XP still had more than 37 percent desktop OS share as of June 2013, according to NetMarketshare.com. Despite that fact, Microsoft officials have said they have no plans to extend yet again the cut-off date for support for XP. …


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