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With Spectre and Meltdown, Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Computer?


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I know that manufacturers have in recent weeks released software patches to fix these things up, or are about to, but if I understood correctly, there still remains some sort of a chance of something going wrong by someone using these flaws, since they are at a hardware level.

 

Has someone followed this? If you have, do you perhaps know if the next generation of chips will have this fixed and how much might the performance of these chips be affected? I guess we won't know until some testing is done?

 

I was considering buying this laptop

 

http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-laptop-17t-best-value-2rx66av-1

 

but choosing the Performance set-up in Recommended Configurations, and even then changing some small bits in components and software.

 

Perhaps there's something better in the same class? This just happened to be a touch-screen laptop, something I don't care much about. I only saw it some time after bumping onto this computer.

 

Is now a time as any other when considering buying a new computer? Or is it better to wait a little?

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​There's no need to wait. You just need to install a reputable security software package like Norton / Symantec on your computer, and keep it up to date.

 

Hacks and exploits are more limited these days than ever before because of the engineers tightening up computer design. Even so there are still ways an experienced hacker can get into your computer, but even then there's not much that they can do unless you give them your information.

 

Usually the minute a hack or a virus is out on the web there's a fix for it, and companies like Norton stay on top of them so regular guys like us don't have to manually do it. And if all you're doing is editing with your lap top, then I think over most wifi networks your media is safe because of the sheer bulk and size of your average media file.

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Yeah, it did seem silly to delay a purchase because of this. I just had a small bypassing thought "But what if the new, 2018, chips get released without this flaw? Perhaps I could wait a little more. I'm not in a hurry." They'd probably come with another flaw, so it's quite unhelpful to think about these things.

 

I just might send an e-mail to HP to see what they have to say.

 

In the meantime, if someone knows of a better laptop, do tell. :D

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