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Official support has ended. Is anyone reporting any problem with attacks?
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No. And I would be surprised by anything else.
Using XP on two machines every day. -
No problems here thanks to Avast Free Home, MalwareBytes SuperAntiSpyware, SpywareBlaster and CCleaner.
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Decent firewall + web browser with few plugins - sufficient protection without antivirus.
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MS dropping support for XP would probably not change the protection level. I've had quite a few PCs with Windows Firewall and Windows Defender and both have a perfect record. They have yet to have stopped or prevented a single piece of malware.
I don't think you'll miss their security updates as long as you use decent antimalware and firewall programs.
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XP on two PCs here, both running 24/7 most of the time. They're behind a router but neither have had any antivirus/antimalware/antianything software installed for years or even run the Windows Firewall (except for an antivirus scan around once per year before restoring the previous image of the C partition and updating it). I haven't run Windows Update in over a year. Neither PC has ever been infected with anything.
In contrast, a few years ago when XP support was in full swing and there'd be a fresh batch of patches and updates to install each month, I still had to clear malware/viruses off the PCs belonging to a few friends and family members. One PC was cleaned twice before a third infection did enough damage to require a reformat. Those PCs all had anti-virus software installed. Impatience probably causes more infections than anything else. If something requires installing, why think about it? Just install it. If it's in the way and clicking on it stops it being in the way, then click on it..... it's the only rational explanation I've been able to come up with. -
The big fear before support stopped was speculation that the bad guys might be sitting 0 day exploits for XP that they were waiting to use after support stopped. Right now it seems that this fear was unfounded.Originally Posted by redwudz
MS dropping support for XP would probably not change the protection level. I've had quite a few PCs with Windows Firewall and Windows Defender and both have a perfect record. They have yet to have stopped or prevented a single piece of malware. I don't think you'll miss their security updates as long as you use decent antimalware and firewall programs.
I too use Windows Firewall and consider it fine for home use, which is high praise given that I by nature don't really trust Microsoft and I'm an IT worker. I'm sure that Windows Defender is also good enough for many people although I personally don't use it. I have nothing against it, just was less willing to trust it over a 3rd party product as a hunch more than anything else. I read a lot of good reviews of Windows Firewall so I decided to try it and I've had no problems. -
I haven't kept up with Windows firewall updates, but my early objections was that it did little or nothing to stop outgoing packets, the kind that some malware uses to 'phone home' and send out valued information from the PC. Nothing really to back up that except some long lost articles.
Most all my PCs still have Defender running on them, but aftermarket software like Avast, Malware Bytes, and earlier, AVG and even Norton seemed to find malware that Defender missed.
And I do confess some distrust of MS. My car has a little plaque on the dash that says 'Powered by Microsoft'. Kind of a scary thought for me.
(It's the touch screen system.}
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The firewall built into XP doesn't block any outgoing packets. I'm not sure but if I remember correctly the Vista/Win7 firewall can, but outgoing monitoring is disabled by default. I think.....
One of the problems with software Firewalls is they can "leak". A basic example might be a nasty trying to send out information, but the Firewall would block it or alert you to the attempt, so instead it attaches the info it wants to send to an email which the Firewall happily lets through. That's a very simplistic example but it means Firewalls need to be a bit clever.
Back in my "have a firewall installed" days, Comodo was one of the best in respect to not leaking. Whether they're all good or bad these days, I have no idea, but it's probably still a compromise between a firewall bugging the hell out of you, asking questions many users won't know the answer to, or coming pre-configured, less annoying and I'd assume, more likely to leak.
Some sites that provide firewall leak tests, if anyone's interested.
This was one of the first, it's very old, and if there's a firewall which doesn't pass all it's tests these days, there's probably something seriously wrong.
https://www.grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm
Some others. I've not tried them all myself.
http://www.pcflank.com/pcflankleaktest.htm
http://www.matousec.com/info/articles/introduction-firewall-leak-testing.php#descripti...-test-software
I assume Comodo would pass it's own leak test.
https://personalfirewall.comodo.com/cltinfo.html -
I've still got one of the machines on my home network running XP 24/7 (for some old hardware I like to keep active), and both the feared "0 day" and months of lack of MS support have gone by with any apprehensions I may have had proven unfounded. Still humming along just dandy.
Last edited by p_l; 4th Nov 2014 at 23:49.
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Hardly being unique, I, too, have several WinXP machines, and each one works very well. Honestly, I cannot think of any significant difficulties I have with any of them besides some of the limitations built in (or perhaps just never fixed by MS) to the operating system itself.
For example, WinXP has always been a bit stodgy when it comes to intranet network communication (at least for me), and it does seem to slow down a bit after you've had it going for a day or three (no matter how much I don't wish to believe that). However, I'm not so impatient as to forbid the OS those few extra seconds or even a full minute it requires sometimes, and a quick reboot takes care of the other problem rather easily.
The "attacks" everyone seemed to anticipate following end of support seemed to mainly be concerned with browsers, browser plugins, and the lack of a prudent eye on both firewall activity and intrusion detection. Keeping XP running well seems to involve much the same behavior as conducting oneself with proper dignity in real life: properly safeguard those things important to you, keep your skills and your equipment sharp and up-to-date, and be certain you know very well how to defend and protect yourself should you encounter harm or danger.
Above all, whether using Windows XP or Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 or linux or OSX, stay out of the internet equivalent of the sewer, and your life will be much easier. I don't even run antivirus programs on my Windows installs anymore, but I have redundant programs and experience to protect me from degenerate internet denizens and their weapons.
The only problem I have with my XP machines is from Comcast--they just can't seem to stop screwing around with my connection (according to PeerGuardian and Peerblock) and, eventually, they will crash my TCP-IP stack. Before anyone say otherwise, yes, I am positively certain it is Comcast doing this. I mean, I get tons of TCP and UDP traffic but the only disruptive kind can be positively traced to Comcast. But I should emphasize it is disruptive and not intrusive. It causes me no problem besides the inconvenience of their meddling.
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