was Patch Tuesday,” he said. “There were 57 vulnerabilities, 6 of which have already been abused by criminals before the fixes were available. There were also 57 in February and 159 in January. Windows 10 and Windows 11 largely have a shared codebase, meaning most, if not all, vulnerabilities each month are exploitable on both OSs. These will be actively turned into digital weapons by criminals and nation-states alike and Windows 10 users will be somewhat defenseless against them.”
So, in short, even though Windows 10 has been around since 2015, there are still massive security holes being patched. Even within the past few weeks, dozens of vulnerabilities were fixed by Microsoft. So what’s a charity to do when these updates are running out and clients will be left vulnerable?
“What we decided to do is one year ahead of the cutoff, we discontinued Windows 10,” said Casey Sorensen, CEO of PCs for People, one of the U.S.’s largest non-profit computer refurbishers. “We will distribute Linux laptops that are 6th or 7th gen. If we distribute a Windows laptop, it will be 8th gen or newer.”
Sorensen said that any PC that’s fifth gen or older will be sent to an ewaste recycler.
PCs for People has refurbishing centers in 11 states and distributes computers throughout the United States. The company sells refurbished computers at very affordable prices, both through its websites and some brick and mortar locations. As of this writing, the website has a ThinkPad T490 with Windows 11 and 8GB of RAM for just $125. Sorensen also said that low-income individuals can qualify for a completely free laptop and others can buy low-cost Internet connectivity so they can get online.
Every year, the company refurbishes 140,000 PCs, most of which are donated by corporations. PCs for people then wipes the drives, puts on a fresh OS and even replaces laptop batteries if they don’t hold a significant amount of their original charge. However, the company also has to send 7 million pounds of ewaste from outdated or unfixable gear to recyclers.
Sorensen, who founded the company in 1998, told us that he’s comfortable giving clients computers that run Linux Mint, a free OS that’s based on Ubuntu. The latest version of Mint, version 22.1, will be supported until 2029.
“Ten years ago if we distributed Linux, they would be like what is it,” he said. But today, he notes that many view their computers as windows to the Internet and, for that, a user-friendly version of Linux is acceptable.
To see what some of Sorensen’s clients experience, I installed Linux Mint 22.1 into a virtual machine on my desktop. The process took more than 30 minutes and while the user interface was very Windows-like, complete with a Start menu button in the lower left corner, it wasn’t Windows. Instead of the Microsoft Store, there’s Software Manager, which lacked a lot of key titles.
Google Chrome browser isn’t in the store, but open-source Chromium is. Instead Firefox was the default browser. You can install Google Chrome if you go to Google’s site and know that you need to download the installer for Ubuntu Linux (I was using Mint, but Mint is based on Ubuntu).
Some of the apps I use most commonly aren’t available for Linux at all, including Microsoft Office, Slack (there’s a beta but no final version) and Notepad++. Instead of the easy-to-use Photoshop Elements, there’s GIMP. Sure, there are alternatives out there, but sometimes you just want the software you’re comfortable with.
While it was easy for me to feel at home on Mint’s “Cinnamon” UI, I wouldn’t hand a computer with this interface to my mother. I’d be getting tons of calls asking me why her fifteen-year-old copy of Print Shop doesn’t work or wondering about how to change settings.
So which choice is right for recyclers with PCs that can’t support Windows 11? Give users a soon-to-be-insecure Windows 10, make them learn Linux or just throw the computer out? Whatever charities choose, there’s sure to be a lot of people running Windows 10 after October and a lot of laptops turning into unnecessary ewaste.
