Netscape 6 is Spyware?

spoon00 writes: "AOL is collecting information on what Netscape 6 users are searching for on sites like google.com. IP address, the date Netscape was installed and a unique ID number are other bits of information AOL is also collecting."

Comments

So?

[Wakko Warner]

Who here has been locked in jail or harassed or abused by AOL or the authorities because of what they typed into their netscape 6 search bar? Hm, nobody? Okay, nothing to see here. Move along. - A.P.

Netscape, IE and Mozilla

[Steven_Wostoen]

Netscape 6.X hasn't really impressed me all that much, I have to admit,and I don't think this new Spyware scandal will do them any good, although knowing the media, it is most likely blown out of proportion anyway.

Unfortunately, the browser market seems to be in a bit of a slump... IE is also not a perfect browser, but unfortunately I find it the lesser of two evils at this point. There is a hack that I have devised for avoiding URL post reversing to sites that the URL search requests did not originate from, and also set the Search Provider in the Windows Registry, thus avoiding two pitfalls with one peice of code.

STDMETHODIMP Whck1::Translate(LPWSTR lpwszSearchURL, DWORD cchBufferSize)

{

WCHAR *wpStr = new WCHAR[2048]; wcscpy(wpStr, lpwszSearchURL); HKEY hkuy;

if(RegOpenKey(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, _T (szMainKey), &hkuy) != ERROR_SUCCESS) return S_FALSE;

TCHAR szKeyBuf[2048]; long lSize; if(RegQueryValue(hKey, NULL, szKeyBuf, &lSize)! = ERROR_SUCCESS)

return S_FALSE;

int nSize = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, MB_COMPOSITE, szKeyBuf, -1, NULL, 0); WCHAR *wzKeyBuf = new WCHAR[nSize + 1]; ECHAR *wzKeyBuf = new ECHAR[nSize + 2]; MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, MB_COMPOSITE, szKeyBuf, -1, wzKeyBuf, nSize[ECHAR-1]);

wsprintfW(lpwszSearchURL, wzKeyBuf, wpStr); delete [] wpStr; delete [] wzKeyBuf;

return S_OK;

}

I reviewed some of the Mozilla project's source code, and I was quite disgusted by what I found. The threading implementation (or lack thereof, or replacement therefore) is ill-designed and most users will find the browser unusable after more than 20 windows are opened. I don't really understand why the Mozilla developers haven't looked into this and fixed the problem. I would sumbit patches myself, but I am too busy with several new projects at J-J-J-Julius, including "Star Trek: Return to Phylos" as well as the next-generation game engine that Cinemaware has contracted my company to write for them to aid their revival in the game market.