“Microsoft ended its support of Windows 98 and Millennium Edition (Me) this week, leaving millions of computers that are online right now vulnerable to hackers,” John Bowman reports for CBC News.
MacDailyNews Take: Those (and other) Windows users were never invulnerable to hackers even with full Microsoft “support.”
Bowman continues, “Analysts estimate that there are between 40 million and 70 million computers currently running Windows 98 or Me.”
MacDailyNews Note: For reference, there are approximately 18-20 million Mac OS X users currently.
Bowman continues, “If the choice is between continuing to use an unsafe computer and buying a new one, some users may make the switch to Mac. Computer security company Sophos recently suggested that home users should get a Mac if they wish to avoid infection by malicious software.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This could be a big deal for Apple. For example, if 10% of Win98/Me users get a Mac for their next computer instead of an OS-limited Dell or HP, then Apple will see 4-7 million new Mac OS X users. That would be an increase of 22-39% in the Mac OS X install base alone.
Mac OS X, virus-free for over five years and counting.
By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, there were 850 new threats detected against Windows. Zero for Mac. While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its clean bill of health with a superior UNIX foundation and security features that go above and beyond the norm for PCs. When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious. – Click here to find out more.
Life’s too short. Get a Mac.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
New invisible rootkit hits Windows including Vista – July 17, 2006
Symantec researcher: At this time, there are no file-infecting viruses that can infect Mac OS X – July 13, 2006
Sophos: Apple Mac OS X’s security record unscathed; Windows Vista malware just a matter of time – July 07, 2006
Sophos Security: Dump Windows, Get a Mac – July 05, 2006
Security company Sophos: Apple Mac the best route for security for the masses – December 06, 2005
I connect to the internet with 10.4.7, but I still use a 98 box that is not connected to the web. This is not news to me, and I don’t care anyway.
I love the idea that as soon as Microsoft (or indeed any company) announce they’ve stopped support that a particular version of software becomes vulnerable to more stuff than it was before. When in reality (rolling number of Microsoft vulnerabilities aside) it just means that there won’t be any future fixes of any kind. To be fair, it’s not as if Microsoft have thrown a switch and just turned off what little protection the system did have. Even if 98/ME had been relatively secure the problem would still be the same – just as it potentially would be for any product. It’s just poor journalism.
It just bugs me that little discrepancies like that sneak in so often in tech journalism.
Win98? WinME? These aren’t upgraders, nor are they switchers. They are content with something that is 6 years old and slower than frozen poop.
10%? Get real. I’d be surprised if 10% bought a new computer in the next 12 months, let alone a Mac. More likely 1% will buy a Mac.
They won’t. They have a few dollars invested in 10 year old software that they wish to protect. They will buy a $400 Dell, get baited and switched to a $1000 Dell and think they have saved a pile of money.
MS-DOS is still widely used here in Indonesia.. for WordStar and Lotus123..
not much change, huh?
Magic word: expected
This is just a thought…but wouldn’t this be an excellent opportunity for some Apple land-grab? Apple could run a trade-in promotion for people with old Windows 98/ME computer. Bring your old box out-of-date box in to your local Apple Store and walk out with a brand new Mac.
Jay – me too. In the fall of 2004, I decided to upgrade from a self-built Windows 98 box to a new computer. I ended up purchasing my first Mac (and no – it had nothing to do with the iPod). What made it “safe” to even consider a Mac was I learned there was a version of MS Office for the Mac – MS Office for Windows is our standard at work.
Now I’m hooked on the Mac and my wife really likes the Mac too. We are going to each purchase a Mac laptop sometime in the near future. A “bonus” for us will be to set up a video conference when I travel for business. She wants a white MacBook. (I on the other hand can not stand those screens. Too bad Apple doesn’t offer the option of getting a matte screen on the MacBooks.) I’ll therefore probably will end up with a low-end MacBook Pro. (I’m an investingating the idea of putting a privacy filter on the MacBook screen to see if that reduces glare to an acceptable level.)
I still have and use the Windows 98 box for older games.
Peace.
If they are not informed enough to have upgraded to XP, then they are certainly not informed enough to know about OS X. I mean, people are using ME? Blecch…
Lurker-Except fot the wife part (I’m not married), your future plans, and use of 98, sound just like mine. I’ve said it before that OS X is great, but like any tool, sometimes there are, out of necessity, other tools needed to accomplish a task.
So let me get this straight – PC apologists say that the only reason that the Mac doesn’t get viruses is because it represents a small target. This ‘small target’ is 20 million Mac users.
But wait a minute – by their definition, Windows 98 & ME represent a small target also (40 million users), so why are virus writers continuing to write viruses for these platforms?
Could it be maybe, that the security is more to do with secure foundations and not ‘security through obscurity’?
The Mac has secure foundations, and Windows? Well, it’s propped up by piles of bricks, that crumble at the slightest hiccup, and need an army of software & IT support to keep from collapsing.
PC Zombies, please explain your way out of that one.
Upgrading to Windows XP/Vista on an existing computer would slow things down too much. A new machine is in order.
It’s funny how each successive version of OS X runs faster, even on old hardware, while each successive version of Windows runs slower.
Apple is not even on the radar map of considering for 99% of Windows type users.
If they have liked 98 & ME this long then they are going to looooooove Vista.
This is marketing event by Windows to get people primed to buy a new Windows Vista computer.
Apple is not even on the radar map of considering for 99% of Windows type users.
If they have liked 98 & ME this long then they are going to looooooove Vista.
This is marketing event by Windows to get people primed to buy a new Windows Vista computer.
The problem is most consumers are complete idiotic schmucks who couldn’t tell the difference between a virus and a pop-up ad. None of them read Sophos’ website. The mainstream media needs to get on the Mac Bandwagon before we see any real exodus.
OH NOEZZZ!!!11 Win98 is no longer supported! Now Microsoft will no longer release the patches that users weren’t applying anyway! TEH HORRAR!!
But wait a minute – by their definition, Windows 98 & ME represent a small target also (40 million users), so why are virus writers continuing to write viruses for these platforms?
For the most part people don’t write viruses for these platforms anymore. In my office we ran 98 until last summer and as the big virus es broke we didn’t worry about them because most required 2000/xp. There are a lot of apps that require 2000 or xp and that includes viruses. For our office running 98 was more painless than running XP is now.
Security through obscurity doesn’t explain the complete lack of viruses on OS X. It’s good security architecture helps but if you think having a small market share doesn’t help keep you’re fooling yourself. Virus writers write for the newest version of windows because its the biggest target. It may be easier than targetting the mac and hopeuflly the mac will never get as bad as windows currently is but if the market was switched and macs had 90% marketshare there would be more attacks.
does this mean that you’ll no longer be able to download updates (even simple things like directx) for win98/me on the MS website? if so, that’s really lame. i can understand them no longer making new updates but if they axe currently available stuff, that would really suck for the poor saps stuck with old pentium ii machines.
apple, on the other hand, still offers software for its apple ii computers, if you can believe that. you can download a copy of gs/os 6.0.4 for your apple iigs, free of charge! how cool is that? =)
I have a small network, here at our office, of 4 workstations and a file server. The workstations are running Windows 98SE and the file server nos is Novell 4.11. I made the decision to not upgrade to XP because when XP first came out I recognized it as the steaming pile of crap that it is. Granted, SP2 was released some months later but at the time everyone was expecting SP’s 3 through infinity. I hated XP then and I hate it now. The fact that MS has hoisted this vile os on the world is one of the great crimes against humanity that will go unpunished. Now, my netwrok runs fine if you don’t include the (almost) daily reboots that are part and parcel of the Windows experience. We are now being forced (kicking and screaming) by our software companies to upgrade to XP, which was inevitable but still non-the-less painful. I’m hoping that I can integrate Macs running Parallels to solve my angst but it’s a pricey solution and one that has to have obvious benefits to the man writing the checks around here. The point of this rambling post is that I’m the type of guy that the author of this article is talking about. I know I can’t be the only schmuck looking down this barrel…
My household switched from two Win98 PCs from 1998 to two iMacs in the past few months. I like to stretch maximum value out of my purchases. I never upgraded to XP due to its massive virus problems plus it wasn’t enough of an improvement to be worth it.
Now that I have tried Macs I will never, ever go back to Windows.
Windows free for almost 7 years and LOVING IT!!!!
A few years back, I switched from Win 98 to OS 9. For me, it was a sheer desperation manuever. I didn’t know much about Macs, but I figured that they had to be better than Windows — and yes, I had fooled around with Linux, and I knew that my time was much more valuable than that. So the concept of folks going from Win98 to a Mac isn’t that crazy.
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