I think that says more about what the Linux and OS X teams were able to achieve 10 years ago than it does anything about XP.
Yes, if the primary objective of your OS is to avoid exploits by script kiddies than you should probably choose something like OpenBSD, or Linux SE with a very hardened profile. XP probably isn't a good choice of OS if your primary objective is protection from script kiddies. As long as you aren't pissing people off on 4chan, or dealing in sensitive data you should be fine with XP.
However, if your needs include surfing the web, email, using an Office productivity suite, and playing a triple A game title, and are willing to install something like Microsoft Security Essentials then you'll be reasonably protected from viruses, and have the ability to complete your day-to-day tasks and goof off at the end of the day.
Personally, I find that Win7 + VMWare + Ubuntu 10 suite my needs best unless I'm doing iOS development in which case I use OS X + VMWare + Win7 + Ubuntu. I've had issues running OS X inside VMWare so I just use another machine for iOS dev.
Could I do the same thing I use Win 7 for with XP? Definitely, I suspect it may be tight on RAM as I don't think VMWare supports PAE, but other than the 32-bit memory limitation it would work perfectly fine. I bet I could meet all my needs with XP 64-bit edition.
Mozilla, Google and Apple are actually doing about 42% of computer users a favor by support the OS they have chosen to run. It's not up to you to dictate what people should prioritize in their choice of computer software and hardware. They could be more secure upgrading to Win 7 or Linux but I bet they feel it's not worth the trade off.
or dealing in sensitive data you should be fine with XP.
That's a pretty broad statement. Most people using a computer are dealing with data that is sensitive to them.
In any case though if you're doing dev work it does matter less. Although there are some things I like a lot more post-XP:
1) Video driver in user mode. Nothing beats watching your video driver die, you get a two second pause, and then its back. In XP you were down for the count.
2) Reliability monitor.
3) Much improved RDP support. Including WPF support and streaming video/audio. This allows me to work anywhere against my main dev box and it feels almost exactly like I'm on the actual machine.
4) Libraries allow me to have a different logical view than the physical structure of files.
This just a subset of the types of things that when I go back to an XP machine I realize I miss.
It's about attack surface. Microsoft can't go on supporting security updates and patches for all its operating systems forever. People need to move on so a modern platform can be provided with a minimized attack surface that the security team can concentrate on. If I were tasked with maintaining patches for XP SP4.9 2017 I would probably just shoot myself.
Yes, if the primary objective of your OS is to avoid exploits by script kiddies than you should probably choose something like OpenBSD, or Linux SE with a very hardened profile. XP probably isn't a good choice of OS if your primary objective is protection from script kiddies. As long as you aren't pissing people off on 4chan, or dealing in sensitive data you should be fine with XP.
However, if your needs include surfing the web, email, using an Office productivity suite, and playing a triple A game title, and are willing to install something like Microsoft Security Essentials then you'll be reasonably protected from viruses, and have the ability to complete your day-to-day tasks and goof off at the end of the day.
Personally, I find that Win7 + VMWare + Ubuntu 10 suite my needs best unless I'm doing iOS development in which case I use OS X + VMWare + Win7 + Ubuntu. I've had issues running OS X inside VMWare so I just use another machine for iOS dev.
Could I do the same thing I use Win 7 for with XP? Definitely, I suspect it may be tight on RAM as I don't think VMWare supports PAE, but other than the 32-bit memory limitation it would work perfectly fine. I bet I could meet all my needs with XP 64-bit edition.
Mozilla, Google and Apple are actually doing about 42% of computer users a favor by support the OS they have chosen to run. It's not up to you to dictate what people should prioritize in their choice of computer software and hardware. They could be more secure upgrading to Win 7 or Linux but I bet they feel it's not worth the trade off.