You’ve got no shortage of operating systems for your computer. You can buy a Mac and run OSX. If you’ve got a current Windows laptop, you’re running Windows 10 whether you like it or not. Chromebook users basically have a web browser as their OS. But the third most popular operating system right now was hot back when AOL was still a thing and Destiny’s Child was still together.
Yes, Windows XP just will not die, no matter how many IT administrators and angry nerds attempt to pound a stake through it. More people use Windows XP than use the latest version of OS X. Windows XP beats out Windows 8.1. While it’s hardly the juggernaut that is Windows 7, which has more than 50 percent of computers running it, and Windows 10 holds second with nearly 15 percent, still, 10 percent of the world using a version of Windows Microsoft refuses to even update anymore. It’s even trying to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, with limited success.
But why? The short answer is, amazingly, not “senior citizens.” It turns out a number of corporations can’t afford to upgrade to a newer version of Windows, so they’re just running their computers into the ground. Similarly, recycled computers are big business overseas, so your ancient beige dust magnet is probably sitting on some employee’s desk right now. Hope you wiped your files!
This might be a serious security problem. Since Microsoft doesn’t update it, if hackers find a critical security flaw, it won’t be patched and will open millions of computers to serious problems. And if you’re wondering how this would possibly affect you, we’ll point out that as of 2014, 95 percent of ATMs were running on XP. Set up those account alerts.
(Via TechnoBuffalo)