I get that there won’t be any security updates. So any problem found can be exploited. But how high is the chance for problems for an average user if you say, only browse some safe websites? If you have a pc you don’t really care much about, without any personal information? It feels like the danger is more theoretical than what will actually happen.

Or… are there any examples of people (not corpos) getting wrecked in the past by an eol OS?

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
    28·
    5 months ago

    Ransomware usually doesn’t care whether it’s hitting a corporation or a real user. Even a “safe” website might serve unsafe ads. I have seen that a thousand times. It was just harmless history stealing in my case. But depending on what bugs will be found in the future it could be desastrous. And nobody at the ad network would see it because they would be using updated software.

    So, it is only theoretical until it is not. Then it is too late.

    • limerod@reddthat.com
      2·
      5 months ago

      Can you elaborate more about this “harmless history stealing” bit and how did you find it? Also, was the OS outdated in your case?

      Like a sane person I use a system wide adblocker (Adguard) and unlock-origin in firefox. I also disable 3rd party iframes by default to reduce the crap being loaded by default on all my devices.