Win XP is fine for most normal folk - if geeks wish to line Microsoft's pockets every time another shiny toy is released, then fine. But contaminating websites with advertising junk which freezes and crashes the site on legacy browsers is hardly acceptable.

Does anyone take the slightest note of these embedded adverts?

BEagle, things move on so legacy starts becoming a problem, but replacing WinXP with Win7 (or something else) is hardly a "shiny toy" approach. The fact is it's old and approaching the end, and as SD says, Win7 is considerably better than XP.

I've been blocking most ads for years, back when they first stared using animated content because it was annoying, so I don't disagree with your views there.

Ads
 

I've been running Win 7, with Firefox, and Adblock Plus on here for a number of years, and not seen an Ad on here since. :)

No, no and no.

Windows XP is now officially EOL (end of line).

In certain circumstances it is in "Extended Support" until April 2014, but this does not apply to "Consumer, Consumer Hardware, Multimedia products or Microsoft Online Services", so for example XP Home won't be covered.

Running a version of Windows that no longer has access to security updates is a big no no if it is connected to the internet. I don't care what security software you are running.... you still need the core OS to be kept up to date.

There is nothing wrong with Windows 7, and Windows 8 isn't that bad.

Couldn't disagree with you more, mixture.

You are suggesting that XP is dead and should not be used because of lack of support from M$. I have never accepted any of the security updates on my XP SP2 (as supplied) machine and, amazingly, it's still running OK.

Did you stick religiously to things like "Use only Shell Oil in this car" ?

"I have never accepted any of the security updates on my XP SP2 (as supplied) machine"

Then you're a bloody fool and a liability to the security of the rest of us.
People like you are the saps who allow the modern plethora of malware to exist.

mixture, all versions of WinXP are included in the extended support phase and there is no differentiation based on consumer or business deployment:

Microsoft Support Lifecycle

Aside from that I entirely agree.

No need for name-calling here, as we are all in this together. Debate ideas, not the person.

Thank you CleebIB :D

Wheee, an inappropriate car analogy!

A far better one is ignoring OS security updates is like ignoring the safety recall on your car brakes. You might be lucky and get away with it, you might crash and harm only yourself or you might crash and take other people with you. Not a smart thing to do.

Slowly but surely, IE on my WIN XP SP3 was grinding to a halt, taking ages to load pages, dithering, freezing, etc.

I did various scans for nasties, deleted unnecessaries, defragged, and everything else suggested on these pages, but the answer was (of course) another browser, in my case Google Chrome, and it works just fine.

Incidently has anyone here used Google Chrome on their Android device, if so why and does it work (and is it worth using) ?