Tyler_1000 wrote:

You said stop using internet explorer though and that worries me.......?

You did not need to, it was just meant as warning because the Internet Explorer is the most vulnerable (most of people use it - so most of hackers/virus authors concentrate on it). But it is not so bad as it is often presented by people liking other browsers (personally I use IE and Opera, but I have seen the recent favourite Firefox as well).
If you want to use an alternative browser, there are e.g. those I mentioned above: Mozilla Firefox or Opera.
Use the browser you like the best (I hope this thread will not change in a "browse war" thread - browser fans are usually 100% persuaded that their favourite browser is the best and other browser are just rubbish). Look on internet which one suits you best.

Mirek

Use whatever browser you like but use a good firewall too.

No, don't use whatever browser you like. Use whatever browse you like that isn't Internet Explorer. 😀

Thanks for all of the advice people, shall go and mull it over!! I think in the first instance I shall have to get a good firewall.
For a programmer I really know nothing about computers in general!!! 😊
Thanks again!

Ugh, NO. The first thing you need to do is change your Web browser. http://secunia.com/product/11 lists the current open vulnerabilities for IE. Compare to Firefox and Opera, who both have links at the top of the page, and decide which browser you want to be going to untrusted places with.

Snover wrote:

Ugh, NO. The first thing you need to do is change your Web browser....

This is complete nonsense. I use Internet Explorer for quite a few years without any problems on my workplace (and I do surf Internet there).
There may be better alternatives (i use mainly Opera at home).
However I do not see any point in almost religious campaing against MS products (Firefox supporters collected money for advertisements in some American newspapers...).
95% of people uses IE. There may be better alternatives (and people have different preferences), but that campaing against IE is nonsense. I am not MS fanboy, but neither MS hater.

@snover: I did not want to start this discussion. I understand from your avatar that Firefox is the best for you, but do not mislead newbies in saying how bad or dangerous is IE.

Mirek

mirekluza, I am not misleading anyone. There was a recent episode where a major banner advertisement company (Falk AG) was deploying banner advertisements that had a viral payload that used exploits in Internet Explorer to distribute itself to anyone that visited a site that had banners from Falk AG. All I do, all day, every day, is clean up spyware on computers. 90% of these computers have at least 1 Download.*, Downloader.*, MHTMLRedir.Exploit, or some other virus exclusive to Internet Explorer. Microsoft has said that they will not rollback their XP Service Pack 2 security updates for Internet Explorer, and even their SP2 security is horribly lacking (more about this below). They have not fixed all the horrific bugs and omissions in their browser and have said that they will not release any improvements until Windows Longhorn ships in 2006. The most recent 'critical' security vulnerability for Internet Explorer allowed ANY Web site to execute ANY code on a user's system INCLUDING PEOPLE USING WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2 without the user doing ANYTHING MORE THAN VISIT THE PAGE. And that exploit was around for THREE MONTHS before Microsoft patched it. In addition, their box model is completely broken, there are random horrible rendering bugs in the engine, it supports almost none of CSS2 and an extremely crippled subset of CSS1 and cannot render PNGs without routing through a propietary extension that causes the gamma to be incorrect. I am tired of trying to use BASIC FUNCTIONALITY (:hover pseudo-element) and have it not work. I am tired of my job consisting of NOTHING BUT SPYWARE CLEANUP, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. I am tired of people whitewashing how insanely TERRIBLE Internet Explorer is. IE makes my life fucking suck and I'm tired of needing to support a browser that itself is barely maintained by its own creators, despite its glaring problems in standards support and in security.

I'm with Snover on this one (as well as any sane individual should be...) but perhaps we should create a new topic for this?

I forked the posts after I made my rant 😀

Sorry, couldn't resist: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67127 . Note the date the bug was reported.

- NK

Wow, too bad that isn't a critical security issue. 😀
I'm not saying that any browser is perfect, but I know for certain of one that isn't!
Please also note how I did not say 'Mozilla is the best modern browser in the world', only that 'Internet Explorer is the worst `modern' browser in the world'.

I work with computers for quite a few years (I am a programmer). I use IE at work (I cannot install another browser there) and I follow situation with various bugs/viruses (though not in details). I know many other people using it (and it is not that they would limit itself to "legal" webs).
I already said my opinion about this "IE is bad and dangerous campaing" (I am using Opera at the moment - so I am not any fan of IE). IE has security bugs as any other program, but it is no good to overdo the scare.
Free software is in general good (Firefox/Linux/Apache etc.), the only thing I do not like is the fact that it advocates often feel need to paint the opposite side (usually MS) as devils making crappy and dangerous software. I wonder why there are still so many people using Windows/internet Explorer instead of Linux/Firefox when it is so ...
I do not think that the way to spread good free soft like Firefox is to spread scares concerning its competition...

I will move this to Milliways.

Mirek

I want to give you my opinion. The reason why any alternative browser isn't commonly used is that 90% of users are quite lazy, you know, and most of them are even scared to tinker with their PCs software. Don't fix it if ain't broken, you know. It's a proven fact that Microsoft has always treated their customers/users as "stupid", in the way that they make you feel like "hush, do not touch there, you may break it. Leave things as "they are". It's better for you; besides we made everything perfectly suitable for everyone. No need to further investigation or replacing anything.", regarding software in general. I am exaggerating a bit, but you get the point.
I have a friend who every now and then got his shareload of spyware/malware/viruses (he uses IE) and it even was a hard time for me convincing him to install a firewall on his PC. Now he won't install any other browser (you know, you can have several of them installed at the same time), until I WILL GO TO HIS HOME AND INSTALL IT FOR HIM. That's what I was saying: LAZINESS.
The sad part of this story is that he isn't a newbie. He has been using PC for almost a decade now. 😵

And regarding IE itself. It is also a proven fact that it hasn't been upgraded in ages and that it's beginning to take a toll on it. Some pages are starting to feel it (New CSS1 and CSS2, bad XHTML support). Besides it's the browser with less options. It's not the fastest, either. And I am not saying is inherently bad, it's just IT'S OLD.
Lots of security issues remain unfixed. Hell, all browsers and software in general may have issues but as soon as some critical vulnerability are discovered on FireFox or Opera, just a few days are needed before a patch is released.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

And regarding IE itself. It is also a proven fact that it hasn't been upgraded in ages and that it's beginning to take a toll on it. Some pages are starting to feel it (New CSS1 and CSS2, bad XHTML support).

I guess we get nowhere in that discussion about IE security (everybody having our own fixed opinions), so to change the topic a bit: I do not mind the above mentioned fact much (being just a lazy programmer 😀 ).
The product I am working on uses web gui. And it is sometimes pain to make it work on all browsers (because every browser must have its differences). Our primary target plaform is IE, but there are often request that it must work elsewhere. The biggest pain was Netscape 4.x (still having nightmares from it, fortunately I think we no longer support it). But even recently I had to change something for Firefox 1.0 compatibility (it did not support one syntax of addressing frames which IE did).
From my point of view of a lazy programmer, I like to see some standard functionality available regardless of a browser in all details (the small differences are the biggest problems). This is more important for me than any new features. And Firefox only features are therefore quite useless to me. 🙁 Unless I could do the same in other browsers, my boss would kick me out with any new features relying on a browser specific extensions.

Mirek

mirekluza wrote:

I already said my opinion about this "IE is bad and dangerous campaing" (I am using Opera at the moment - so I am not any fan of IE). [...] I wonder why there are still so many people using Windows/internet Explorer instead of Linux/Firefox when it is so ...

Since you mention devils, here's the devil's advocate: Microsoft persistently spends its time defending its software by trying to denigrate the competition, usually by means of campaigns of misinformation. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and at the end of the day, however much people "campaign" against MS and IE, it's still sticks in the craw far less than what MS themselves get up to.

I'm far from an outspoken zealot on this topic - quite the opposite, in fact; one of the principle reasons I don't use Linux (although I have it installed) is because of the association with the fanbhois that run it and the way they comport themselves online - but stating outright that something is the case and letting the information speak for itself is a world apart from the sort of "campaigning" that involves press releases and business tours propogating fallacious information to further sales.

mirekluza wrote:

IE has security bugs as any other program, but it is no good to overdo the scare.

Snover already addressed the "overdo the scare" point quite adequately, it is in no way overdoing anything.

Ok, everybody's against me. 🙁 🙁 Going to hide myself and think how alone I am... Perhaps I should go to ask MS to pay me for defending them (no, they did not pay me yet, bastards!) 😀 (these were jokes) 😀 😀

Mirek

It's really tough to support a company who after they won the previous browser war have done NOTHING to improve their browser. Shows you the importance of competition doesn't it? I like Firefox for more reasons than just hating MS. We finally have a better choice. I hope MS responds to this threat. Both browsers will become better and the envelope will finally once again be pushed.

The latest WIRED magazine has an article on FireFox. Pretty good, although not very in-depth.

I welcome our Firefox Spamming Overlords! 😉 Stupid /. has me doing it now. 😁

Interesting bit of news: http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/24/228204. … tid=217&tid=154

😳

Those rumours about a Google browser based on FireFox seem to be getting stronger....