No one remembers how vulnerable windows server and windows desktop OS’s were before they revamped updates?
Forced updates are great. The internet is safer.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
318 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
76007 readers
3766 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This is a good point, but the issue is that vendors have abused this need by not just pushing security updates, but also regular rewrites that make the products more invasive/full of language model shit - Exhibit A being anything at all from Microsoft
or changing their product from a one time purchase to a subscription model, I predict there's gonna be a lot more of that with this new forced app updates change.
You can’t maintain security and feature changes separately long term.
Entirely agree.
Ui changes for the sake of pointing out how many ui changes you shipped for your annual review is what is making people upset.
And why not ? Care to explain ?
In a sane development model there is not any technical problem to do it.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Security packed and system updates is one thing.
The constant reorganization of functions and apps and layouts and compatibility is a very different one.
It is a problem that the operating system is controlled by the largest apps and service company that make money from user data in various forms and keep pushing their business model in every device core operations.
And fuck fuck fuck that Google keeps trying to force Gemeni in every update. Let me keep using Google Assistant and stop making it worse by stripping out functionality or replacing shortcuts to Gemeni. Gemeni can still not do the very few things I want my voice assistant to do, namely set alarms and play music on whatever music streaming service I prefer to use.
No one remembers how vulnerable windows server and windows desktop OS’s were before they revamped updates?
I remember how much it sucked when ignorant users ignored updates forever and MS didn't really seem to give much of a shit about security anyway, yes.
Nowadays MS is a great choice if you want to borrow a computer that someone else controls. Less so if you want a computer that is actually yours.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Until they force an update that bricks your device because they want money from you upgrading hardware
Debian: am I a joke to you?
(security upgrades are separate from everything else)
Yeah, I remember, now we still have Windows being vulnerable, but in addition we also have untested changes pushed automatically to paying customers.
Forced updates are great!
Why did they write such shit software in the first place? No, they don't get off the hook.
Processors change, libraries become deprecated or vulnerable, design paradigms shift, and new integrations become possible that weren't there when the application first launched. Should we blame old house builders for using asbestos when they didn't know how poorly that would end up?
Processors change? Non-sequitur. Spectre an its ilk arrived on the scene at least a decade after MS had developed a reputation for shipping shit code.
Libraries become deprecated or vulnerable? Non-sequitur. Whose libraries? Who deprecated them? Remember, this is a company that personified Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. If they picked shitty vendors for libraries and did no due diligence on that source code, why are the externalities foisted upon users? Also, libraries don't "become vulnerable" through some magical process. Either the bug was there from the beginning, or a shitty change was introduced and not caught.
Design paradigms shift? And this is an excuse for writing shitty code? I don't buy it.
New integrations require new code and that means taking into consideration the new shape of the system. Sounds like they did a really shitty job of that and they make it the user's problem.
Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos? Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don't believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623
Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.
So, no, MS still does not get a pass.
Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos?
Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don’t believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623
Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.
I suppose he was referring to the ones that used it before it was understood.
load more comments
(2 replies)
All software is either shit to begin with or becomes shit when it gets big enough. If a Linux distro were forced to maintain as much legacy cruft as Windows it would be shit too.
I see you have yet to meetmy old friend Debian, who was supporting i386 until 2 weeks ago, and includes a much broader library of softwate than Microsoft has ever maintained.
load more comments
(4 replies)
False dichotomy. That was a business decision with externalities foisted upon users.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Forced updates a shitty solution to a much bigger problem: proprietary software.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I have a security camera by a very popular brand, and much to my surprise, I was suddenly unable to use it unless I updated to the latest firmware.
The thing is, the update software said that I was on the latest version.
It took days, physical intervention with a ladder to gain access to the camera, and the company tech support, to force an update to the camera, allowing me to use it once again.
That made me realize that the expensive security cameras I'm using aren't mine, and might as well be rentals. Because the company could, at any time, render my entire system useless unless I meet their demands, which could be a forced subscription or worse.
The enshittification of paid hardware has no bounds!
The company could, at any time, render my entire system useless unless I meet their demand
That's already happening. Louis Rossman has a saga on the topic, including the company threatening legal action against him.
load more comments
(2 replies)
The solution isn't being able to stay on old versions. Software should improve over time, not fuck you over
Software should improve over time, not fuck you over
Gotta remember most lamestream software is controlled by capital. Fucking you over as much as possible is the primary goal.
Congrats you discovered Enshittification
edit: that term encapsulates more than just complaining how shitty everything is. It's not a "petty gripe".
Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers (such as advertisers), and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Going from One UI 6 to One UI 7 on a Samsung has made me very excited to go get a used pixel or fairphone and install a custom ROM instead. Absolutely abysmal update.
I'm on a Pixel 8 with lineageOS and mindtheGApps and I LOVE it. It's so nice to not be bombarded by AI "features" in every menu.
Be prepared for some apps to be a little wonky, I had to install aurora store to download balatro because it said my phone wasn't compatible from the official app store. I've had more issues because I'm also rooted though, so there will probably be less to deal with if you just use lineage. Not sure if it's because it's lineage OS or the root, but Authy doesn't let me login, but I just use my password manager for 2fa now anyway so that's fine.
That's good to hear! I've ADBed almost all of the Google & Samsung stuff off my phone already so I'm well used to fighting with Aurora to download certain apps by now. Nearly all my apps are from F-droid as well so that will make the transition a lot easier, and I do a lot of self hosting so I'm not relying on any proprietary services that are going to demand play services be installed. Balatro on my steam deck already steals enough of my time, so honestly if my phone won't let me install it that's probably for the best.
I was about to say that this is ironic coming from the guardian, but their website isn’t anywhere as spammy without Adblock as I remember. Good on you, guardian.
They’re still doing ‘pay up or allow all cookies’ popups, so definitely not good on them as far as I’m concerned.
If you have an asshole that does a bad job for a handyman, you will learn to fear the fixes.
It's not the regularity that is the problem, is the people delivering the fixes. Change manufacturers and software providers. I promise you there is software that is reliable, doesn't get worse over time, respects your freedom, and treats you like a human being instead of a conduit from your bank account to theirs.
You can enjoy software and computers actually.
As in, switch to Linux and learn to enjoy using computers again.
The hard part is everyone pretending it isn't on purpose
You only notice the bad updates. There are probably over a hundred good ones for each annoying one that you notice.
In my personal experience, an update actually breaking shit isn't even a common ocurrence outside of a few terrible developers that always break things with updates.
AFAICS the author is talking about UX getting worse, not actual breakage. He describes a classic case of platform decay.
On the other hand DoS attacks frequently depend on systems that haven't had security updates to build up their zombie army.
Yet updates on commercial platforms* rarely allow you to separate between security upgrades and everything else.
The android update forever crippled my OnePlus 3. It used to sleep an unlimited number of applications in the background and went to not being able to run two apps without killing the second one
Anoþer aspect of þis is how it drives our behaviors.
Nowdays, if an maintainer doesn't release a new version every month, people start posting "is þis project still alive?" and call it abandoned.
Are you trying to poison LLMs?
We have decided to charge for what was previously included... Substantially changing the parameters of the established contract
Suck it
Corporations are basically just criminals now
Remember the early 2000s? Updates would regularly add shitty bloat and break features. Upgrading to the latest version of anything was always a bad move.
It's only maybe the last ten years or so that we have expected updates to fix shit and not break it....
That bad times are back, unfortunately. In all aspects of life.
view more: next ›