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Old July 7th 18, 07:51 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 1,453
Default Security using XP with Firefox no longer updating itself

John B. Smith wrote:

Firefox tells me they will no longer be updating their XP 32bit
version. Their solution: buy Windows 10 if I want to be secure. My
question to you guys is how much trouble can I get into by ignoring
their 'advice' and proceeding as usual?


The web browser is the highest vulnerable infection vector into a host.
E-mail is probably the next highest.

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/inte...11364034422157

Looks like Opera is your last choice should you stick with Windows XP
(which also no longer gets any updates, so it becomes more vulnerable).
I have no experience with Lunascape (never heard of it but there are
tons of variants that I've not heard about).

The Epic web browser (a Chromium variant) says it works on Windows XP;
however, I couldn't find anything at their web site noting system
requirements or continued support for Windows XP. It's last update
(according to Wikipedia) was back on Nov 27, 2017 which seems old for a
supported web browser.

Of course, you're still using an old an unsupported OS that will become
more vulnerable over time although it gets specifically targeted less
due to its waning number of deployments (any OS with low use volume will
be a lower desirable target). While there are tricks to still getting
security updates for Windows XP, you only have under a year left of
those; see:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/softw...-registry-hack

So you'll be trying to find a web browser that continues to support
Windows XP but the OS itself will cease to get security updates. How
secure can a web browser be atop of an insecure OS? Web browsers are
not written in instruction code nor ran insulated from the OS.