Chennai: More than half of PC applications installed worldwide, 55 per cent to be precise are out-of-date, making data of users vulnerable to security risks, a report stated.
Digital security products major Avast has revealed the above in its PC Trends Report 2019 and stated that it found that users are making themselves vulnerable to hackers by not implementing security patches and keeping outdated versions of popular applications on their PCs.
Applications where updates are most frequently neglected include Adobe Shockwave (96 per cent), VLC Media Player (94 per cent) and Skype (94 per cent), the report stated.
The report, which uses anonymized and aggregated data from 163 million devices across the globe, also found that Windows 10 is now installed on 40 per cent of all PCs globally, which is fast approaching the 43 per cent share held by Windows 7.
However, almost one in six (15 per cent) of all Windows 7 users and one in ten (nine per cent) of all Windows 10 users worldwide are running older and no longer supported versions of their product, which puts them at risk from vulnerabilities and other significant security issues, the report said.
More people than ever are opting for laptops, tablets, and two-in-one PCs running Windows, the report said and added that 67 per cent of users are choosing laptops and tablets.
The report said, the shift to mobile PCs is also reflected in the most installed applications. Google Chrome jumped to the top of the list in 2018, increasing its share of installs from 79 per cent to 91 per cent in the last 12 months. Adobe Acrobat Reader (60 per cent) came in as the second most popular, followed by WinRAR (48 per cent), Microsoft Office (45 per cent), and Mozilla Firefox (42 per cent).
“Most of us replace our smartphone regularly, but the same cannot be said for our PCs. With the average age of a PC now reaching six years old, we need to be doing more to ensure our devices are not putting us at unnecessary risk,” said president, Avast, Ondrej Vlcek.
“With the right amount of care, such as cleaning our hardware’s insides using cleaners, optimization and security products, PCs will be safe and reliable for even longer.”
| Most Popular |
| * The report states that top five PC brands are – HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo and Dell. * Most CPUs are still dual-core, with 74 per cent running on two physical cores and only 20 per cent own a quad-core system. * The most popular RAM size is four GB. * Only 15 per cent of users own a fast SSD, the rest of users remain on either HDD or a HDD/SSD combo solution. |
| Methodology |
| The core data used in the report is collected through the Automatic Software Updater feature, a functionality included in Avast and AVG security software and consists of anonymized datasets from a total of 163 million devices. Using a combination of real-world data and global statistics from Statista and other sources, this report is able to paint a picture of the state of the PC in 2018. Avast Cleanup helps users maintain their PCs to keep them running like new for longer. |