Microsoft Urges Users to Shut Down Windows Gadgets or Risk Attack

The "Cloud" is "concentrated evil".

I see this as just another dodgy explanation/justification designed to trick people into buying W8.
It's just like "Nobody uses the Start Button".

Well, I only have three gadgets enabled (one being the Seven Forums digital clock), but I am not giving them up...lol.

chev65 said:

Exactly and all those useful gadgets are from trusted sources, believe it or not Microsoft we users aren't quite as stupid as you seem to think.

Msoft please stop trying to tell us what to do. We aren't dummies like you seem to think.
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lol, I don't know man - there are plenty of users who really have no business being anywhere near a PC

We may not be stupid, but they do have to cater to all users which unfortunately includes the lowest denominators.

I'm keeping my clock though - flap 'em.


However I'm more alarmed at one of the links which claims that they are going to 'remove aero' from 8 and make it more 'Metro', whatever the hell that means - the feck??? I love my eye candy.

Since I do not store anything on the Desktop (no icons at all), have a few apps on the Taskbar but mostly have all the apps I use most (more than thirty) in the AppLauncher gadget together with a number of other gadgets giving me all the information I need at a glance and access to all the functions I need, what exactly could replace all these functions please MS? Have been using them long enough to have had problems - none so far. If forced to stop using them what would others suggest as a replacement system?

smarteyeball said:

However I'm more alarmed at one of the links which claims that they are going to 'remove aero' from 8 and make it more 'Metro', whatever the hell that means - the feck??? I love my eye candy.

To be fair, Aero with it's tranparencies and transluscent settings is an energy hog and a drain when you're factoring in mobile computing on tablets, which IS what Microsoft's gunning for with Windows 8, ergo the return to boring,plain ol' looking surfaces...

They were already killing off Windows Gadgets, and I don't know anyone who uses them - people already use things like Rainmeter that have way more functionality and easier to customize, or simply avoid cluttering their desktops altogether.

Not sure I'm getting what you're trying to say here.

Petey7 said:

I'm some what confused about what all I have read. Is it really urgent to disable Gadgets or is it just a matter of not installing 3rd party Gadgets (which I have never done)?

According to the Black Hat researchers Mickey Shkatov and Toby Kohlenberg

"Gadgets are comprised of JS, CSS and HTML and are application that the Windows operating system has embedded by default. As a result there are a number of interesting attack vectors that are interesting to explore and take advantage of. We will be talking about our research into creating malicious gadgets, misappropriating legitimate gadgets and the sorts of flaws we have found in published gadgets"

According to MS

"An attacker who successfully exploited a Gadget vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take complete control of the affected system,"

The Attacker doesn't have to be a 3rd party gadget, but could be anything (virus, trojan, ......). Its just that the platform itself is insecure and vulnerable.

Trucidation said:

They were already killing off Windows Gadgets, and I don't know anyone who uses them - people already use things like Rainmeter that have way more functionality and easier to customize, or simply avoid cluttering their desktops altogether.

Not sure I'm getting what you're trying to say here.

Hum well I have used the weather gadget for some time now - not much else and I was just voicing my own personal concerns on what is actually happening security wise with whatever applications are out there.

Just seems to me at least that everything and anything is being attacked by malware of one sort or another, and that I personally find the constant warnings of net - web (whatever you want to call it) attacks unnerving.
I certainly wasn't out to prove any point if I gave that impression I must apologise to you.

I have only just recently found out Rainmeter and haven't had time to get around to using it, as I work shiftwork and most of my of duty time is spent fixing or build gear for people I work with.

Perhaps I should just not say anything that I think others might be interested in.