When a windows update destroys your install, is it really any different from actual malware? I consider it one and protect myself accordingly.
At least you can be careful about the rest with adblocking, sandboxing and being irrelevant enough to not make your machine a target for anyone competent, which gives you a pretty great chance at avoiding them. If you keep built-in malware (and in recent versions, also spyware) running, then getting screwed by it is a certainty. Personally, I'll take my chances and I think the average HN user would not have any problems doing this, but I wouldn't really recommend this approach to someone that's not tech savvy. I'd give them a Chromebook instead.
> At least you can be careful about the rest with adblocking, sandboxing and being irrelevant enough to not make your machine a target for anyone competent, which gives you a pretty great chance at avoiding them.
That maybe used to be a thing, but isn't anymore really: There only needs to be a single, unpatched vulnerability in your network stack, the multitude of devices around you, whether at home, work, or in a cafe, none of which you control, might exploit.
And one more little piece of trivia; high levels of expertise usually come with increased negligence on the basics, because you're less careful. This affects pilots and nerds alike; just think of Ross Ulbricht.
Windows updates are too dangerous to trust automatically. I've been burned to various degrees too many times to think otherwise. If Windows is too dangerous to use without automatic updates, then it's just too dangerous to use, period.
Yeah all it takes for to drop dead is a single blood vessel bursting in one's head, one careless driver, one wrong thing eaten, one wrong step and you fall and break your neck.
It's always one unlikely thing. I don't think living in such paranoia is a life worth living tbh. Some small risks you just accept to live normally, and 99.9% of the time it'll be alright. With 2FA and other multi device safeguards the risk is acceptable. Frankly authentication for things has gotten so bloated that even the actual user has a hard time logging into things these days.
Frankly I'm more worried about losing or damaging my phone, if that happens then I'm far more screwed and it's a risk we all accept every day. I keep it in aluminium armour to de-risk :)
At least you can be careful about the rest with adblocking, sandboxing and being irrelevant enough to not make your machine a target for anyone competent, which gives you a pretty great chance at avoiding them. If you keep built-in malware (and in recent versions, also spyware) running, then getting screwed by it is a certainty. Personally, I'll take my chances and I think the average HN user would not have any problems doing this, but I wouldn't really recommend this approach to someone that's not tech savvy. I'd give them a Chromebook instead.