Do manufacturers screwing us?

[dha111212129]

This is maybe a good video content, Do software updating make our electronics or gadgets slow and dumb? In order for us to buy their new release models.

Using 3 similar bench setup, first setup will update machine, will get all possible updates, 2nd setup will be control machine, no update at all. 3rd setup will be unused machine. all machines will be go thru initial benchmark for basis. then both 1st and 2nd machines will be use daily. then maybe do comparison of benchmark every month or every 3 months, up to 1 yr all of the machine, if theres any difference.

 

 

PS. 

This will be also a good test for smartphones

[Sprawlie]

this is not a good test and is a conversation we've had in the computer world since... well, computers.

 

Software manufacturers, do not for the most part (though with some exceptions) intentionaly slow down older hardware.

 

What they do, is improve functionality. They add new things. Those new things take up resources. as software gets more complex and does more things (including OSs), those resources are limited and get used up.

 

going to use a couple fictional examples

 

OS v1.0 requires 100 cpu cycles a second and 2gb o ram to run. had 6 features.

OS v2.0 adds 15 new features, but those new features take 300 cpu cycles to run and 4 gb of RAM

 

your computer only has a total of 350 cpu cycles a second and 4gb of ram.

 

did OS v2 intentionaly slow down the machine? No. But adding the features just used more of the limited number of resources. this is the fight that we've all had since day 1 of computers.

 

this was also the biggest problem with Vista for example. When it came out, ti's basic functions just required more resources than the average computer sold with at the time. so it ran like garbage.

[aezakmi]

9 minutes ago, dha111212129 said:

Do software updating make our electronics or gadgets slow

Apple: *heavy breathing* 

[Maxxtraxx]

Yes, google works at times to intentionally hurt other web browsers(edge, firefox, ect) performance through their immense influence over protocols and web traffic.

 

... they also ditched their motto "don't be evil"

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/

[Mira Yurizaki]

For at least Windows you can make a strong case that Microsoft isn't doing this considering various amounts of evidence found on the internet that shows almost no performance difference between major releases (e.g,, Windows 7 to 10) or major updates (e.g., Windows 10 1803 to 1809). Though in Microsoft's case, while they make hardware, they have no interest in forced obsolescence because of their presence in computers in general. So this allows something like a full version of Windows 10 running on a dinky tablet with an Atom SoC and 2GB of RAM.

 

I suppose one could argue they're "forcing" obsolescence by dropping support, but that's par for the course with any software. *The oldest Linux kernel to have support is 4.5 years old. Considering Windows 7's support is on its last year after a now 10 year run, that saying something.

[straight_stewie]

To second @Sprawlie 's reply, the problem with "updates" isn't that software developers are intentionally slowing down computers.

The majority of the problem comes from something called "layers of abstraction". When a new generation of hardware becomes widespread and is more powerful than the previous generation, software developers will target that generation. As a result of the new power, they will be able to meet their performance benchmarks with less optimization, and less development effort. Therefore, as technology becomes more and more powerful, the software that runs on it tends to get more and more bloated, and less and less efficient.

When running generations old hardware, this bloat is very noticeable.

Now, in the short term, as in "I built this computer less than a year ago and it's already running slowly", that's not because software developers are nerfing it. Rather, it's probably because the system administrator, i.e. you, forgot to turn off features like "start with windows" and "auto update", and so the more applications you install, the more background processes get started up when you boot your machine, thus slowing it down severely.