MSIE Security Updates

AnamanFan writes "Microsoft has released version 5.2.1 of Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. The only notes I have been able to find on the update is that it 'provides all the latest security and performance enhancements for Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS X.' Be warned that the installer forces all other running applications to quit, but does not require a reboot and (seems) to not change your Internet browser settings, in case you're using another browser." Also released was MSIE 5.1.5 for Mac OS, which "resolves all security vulnerabilities in previous versions of Internet Explorer 5." Heh.

Comments

first post

[brsmith4]

All security issues? I guarantee that there are already holes to be found.

All of them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are any of IE's 18 known vulnerabilities patched in this update?

Re:All of them?

[Gogo Dodo]

MSIE for Macintosh and Windows do not share the same codebase so many of the vulnerabilities reported for IE for Windows is irrelevant on the Mac. For example, all of the Outlook and ActiveX stuff won't work on a Mac.

Thank you MS

[Paraplegic Vigilante]

For the security fixes. Now if only our feature requests were heeded - tabbed browsing, pop-up killers, ad blockers - in IE sounds good to me!

Re:Thank you MS

[usr122122121]

Now if only our feature requests were heeded - tabbed browsing, pop-up killers, ad blockers - in IE sounds good to me!

I'm with you on that one, but the day MSIE has popup killers and ad blockers is going to be the day that lawyers collectively decide that honesty is the best policy. :-)

The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is the only one that allows
to play chess properly on yahoo.

OmniWeb, icab, Mozilla, Netscape --- forget it.
Where are these java plugins, anyway?

Even 5.2.1 becomes unstable after a few games.

Does anyone know why this is?

I crave for a non MS decent cocoa browser...

AC.

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[esspe]

use the nightly build of chimera, everyday makes a difference, i threw ie out of my dock today, finally,..

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does look promising, but
you definitely cannot play chess with it.

AC

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

A few things why do you crave a cocoa browser? Who brain washed you to make you think Cocoa is better than carbon?

What version of Mozilla are you running? Im running the latest nightly and to be fair I don't have a problem play yahoo games... with IE I do. Then again some yahoo games have been giving some problem... with is a bug in bugzilla.

Finally with a 'new' mozilla buid you will find the java plug-in is preinstalled.

Oh... can you use yahoo chat with IE? I know I can't.

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Paradise Pete]

I play yahoo chess using Mozilla - in fact it's one of only two thing for which I use Mozilla - for everything else I use OmniWeb.

I don't find IE any more stable for yahoo chess. Yes, IE handles the scrolling properly, but in Mozilla that only affects the main window so that I can't reach the bottom chat line. This is no big deal to me. Both IE and Mozilla mysteriously hang from time to time. I'm guessing it's a threading bug on Yahoo's part that just happens to not surface under Windows. All the other windows are responsive except the one that's hung. It always happens during a drag.

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for replying.

Mozilla and IE 5.2.1 are too slow to
play Blitz. And they crash after
playing a few games.

Again, the only one that works is:
MS IE Classic 5.0.

I was raving about 5.2.5, but the
recent Apple Software updates made
5.2.5 useless. However, 5.0 (2022)
allows you to play chess and fast
and it is stable over several hours!

Very sad, but that is the state of
the art on browsers for the Mac...

AC.

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[Paradise Pete]

Mozilla and IE 5.2.1 are too slow to play Blitz.

I'm in a high-latency area so I thought it was my connection. I didn't realize the slowness was inherent.

And they crash after playing a few games.

They don't crash for me. When I don't run into the (I presume) thread deadlock, I can play for hours. The browser itself doesn't crash, though.

Re:The best browser is ... MSIE 5.1.5 --- WHY?

[max_zorn]

I think some of the crashing has
to do with Apple's recent software updates
(from early July).

If you try the classic IE, you will be
amazed how fast it responds. You can
move the pieces in real time without
that sluggishness present in Mozilla
or Omniweb. I do like the last two
browsers, but you just cannot play fast
chess with them.

MZ

But it's cashing worse than before...

[stephdau]

I haven;t installed it yet beause comments on sites like versiontracker.com are just killing IE. Most users are complaining that their browser is now crashing close to 2 or 3 times a day versus the previous once a month under the older version.

I say wait and see! ;o)
Their last one wasn't that long ago either, so there's bound to be another one coming.

Re: Where are these java plugins, anyway?

[stephdau]

See http://www.mozilla.org/oji/MRJPluginCarbon.html

Goes to show...

[axehat]

Just goes to show, Microsoft has no validity in the computing world. Any educated consumer will notice that when they say "resolves all security vulnerabilities in previous versions of Internet Explorer 5.", that this can not possibly be a legit claim. Dah well, bastards.

No IE for Me (Finally!)

[BitGeek]

Having spent most of the last year using IE under OSX (and suffering). When Mozilla 1.0 was released, I switched, and other than some minor stability issues I'm happy.

So, there's no longer a reason to use IE on the mac, and its reign should be at its end.

Requiring you to quit other applications is unacceptable for an application install, absolutely unacceptable.

As to security, I simply don't trust MS anymore. And I'm happy to be pretty much MS free.

PS- to anyone who thinks about running Entourage, it has a 2G mail limit. Their integer actually wraps at 2G so you reach that much mail (and it caches EVERYTHING- news, mail, images, even deleted stuff, so it doesn't take that long) and you're SOL. The app tries to open the file, then starts seeking at a negative index into it and crashes. Serves me right for using an MS product, forewarning to everyone else. (Yes, Mail.app crashed one too many times for me. Still looking for a good mail client.)

When there's no browser competition, IE was good. But now there's everything- Mozilla, Chimera (really promising), Opera, iCab, OmniWeb and probably other lesser known browsers. That's quite a selection with Mozilla being actually usable, Chimera coming quickly and Opera, iCab and OmniWeb being late "beta" quality. OmniWeb 4.1 might actually be usable, but its too early to say. (Usable to me is a browser that goes a week regularly without crashing, beta is one that can't.)

Re:No IE for Me (Finally!)

[Anonymous Coward]

But now there's everything- Mozilla, Chimera (really promising), Opera, iCab, OmniWeb and probably other lesser known browsers.

Unfortunately there isn't quite "everything" yet. Many of these browsers are nice but most are missing some feature or another. For instance, none of these browsers have ever made good conversation with me.

Re:No IE for Me (Finally!)

[speleo]

I've heard that in the latest update to Office X the Entourage mail limit has been raised to 4-GB and fails more gracefully upon reaching it.

Re:No IE for Me (Finally!)

[Anonymous Coward]

OmniWeb is not of beta quality.

OmniWeb 4.1 has been out for several weeks.

Re:No IE for Me (Finally!)

[foniksonik]

You should try out Mail.app again. Since the last update it has improved in performance and stability.

I used to have problems with large mailboxes as well in Mail but now it is working quite well.

Re:No IE for Me (Finally!)

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, it's not beta quality. It's more like ALPHA quality. Doesn't work with my bank, doesn't render most web sites right, java crashes all the time. No javascript that counts, no tabbed browsing, not even a fuckin STATUS BAR. *AND* they want $30 and no source code. Fuck that.

Oh, it does manage to consume most of my cpu making pretty fuzzy text though.

Why use IE?

[Tar-Palantir]

Internet Explorer has a track record of insecurity. I finally got fed up and deleted it.
Now, I use OmniWeb almost exclusively, retaining only an old copy of Netscape to handle to non-standard pages that standards-compliant OmniWeb chokes on. It works quite well for me.
By the way, I do not work for OmniGroup.

Re:Why use IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

"track record of insecurity" What is the track record for IE insecurity on Mac OS? You would be hard press to put together a list... and how do you know OmniWed is more secure that IE? You just don't.

BTW I don't use IE anymore... so I am don't have a pro IE bias...

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive just installed 5.1.5 for MacOs, and it's really faster than 5.1.4.

I was using Mozilla because it was faster, but now, it's IE that is faster.

I recommend it.

Big whoop

[Anonymous Coward]

I dumped the PC. I think I'm old enough that I can dump IE too. Today I am a man.

Re:Big whoop

[Anonymous Coward]

You're also a faggot if you're using a Mac.

Tabbed browsing?

[tuxedobob]

What's that?

Re:Tabbed browsing?

[foonie]

From the Mozilla 1.0 guide:

Tabbed browsing - allows you to switch between pages without having to switch windows

A tab for each page appears at the top of the window. Easier to manage a bunch of open pages, IMO.

Re:Tabbed browsing?

[tuxedobob]

Eh, as long as I can still use the keyboard to switch.

Re: Where are these java plugins, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, but this does not work properly.

While you can see the state of the game room,
you can not scroll around properly.

Compared to MSIE 5.1.5, it is dog-slow.

Thanks again,

AC.

Too funny....

[HiredMan]

This was a very plate-of-shrimp moment.

I was surfing this article in OSX IE 5.2 and since I have points I moderating a comment as "funny". When I clicked the "Moderate" button IE blow up on me and want away!

Ack - started returned to the article and it died on me again. Damn... that really sucks. Anyway - third times a charm. Or maybe iCab is the charm...

=tkk

PS All M$ sekurity updates should very clearly read "fixes all KNOWN security issues" - a very important detail.

Re:Too funny....

[Lord_Slepnir]

PS All M$ sekurity updates should very clearly read "fixes all KNOWN security issues" - a very important detail.

Until Apple starts making it's own internet browser to package with OSX, don't bitch about Microsofts. I might add that if OSX IE is so unstable and buggy, why not use mozilla or netscape?

FEH!!!...Kinda...

[MacDaffy]

I updated to IE 5.2.1 and it promptly changed my homepage to MSN! However, they've improved text presentation so dramatically that I'm having to resist the instinct that it's the upshot of some M$ dirty trick.

How to install w/out restart

[Anonymous Coward]

You can install IE without quitting your apps *or* restarting. Just run this AppleScript:

tell application "Install Internet Explorer"
DoAutoInstall
end tell

It will make you authenticate and agree to the license, but then it will just run the install. Afterwards, it will the take you back to the main page of the installer where you can just click "Quit".

Great, huh? Heard about it on the Mac OS X talk list.

Re:How to install w/out restart

[Melantha_Bacchae]

An AC wrote:

> It will make you authenticate and agree to the
> license,

In light of some of the EULA tricks Microsoft has been pulling on the PC side lately with security updates, I would strongly suggest that people doing this install carefully read the license first. Some of Microsoft's new rights granted by these EULAs have been pretty scary: being able to automatically put anything on your computer that they feel like, having the ability to arbitrarily disable programs and data files, etc.

The alternative is to find another browser whose author(s) you feel you can trust not to try and take over your Mac.

"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millenium (Japanese version)
Don't worry, Godzilla stopped it!

The reason for the installer

[Phrogz]

There was a lot of outrage on the mailing lists and version tracker as to why this version (including 5.2.0) of IE used an installer (and such an annoying one at that) rather than drag-and-drop. The response from Dan Crevier (below) over at MS shows that they're not a bunch of mindless dolts, and that we power users who hate installers over drag-and-drop need to remember that sometimes installers can actually be better for novices (if done right):

Novice users are likely to drag the new IE software somewhere on their machine but then click on the Dock icon to launch IE. Unfortunately, this will launch the old version. Users need to either install it over the old version or they have to update their Dock. We're still trying to figure out the best solution that's easy for novice users and not incredibly annoying for experienced users.

IMO, the ideal solution would be drag and drop, where running an old copy of the program quietly checked to see if a newer version was installed and took some 'appropriate' action if one was found. (Auto-update aliases? Probably bad for folks with multiple installs for testing purposes. Hrm...)

Re:The reason for the installer

[dunderwo]

Novice users are likely to drag the new IE software somewhere on their machine but then click on the Dock icon to launch IE. Unfortunately, this will launch the old version. Users need to either install it over the old version or they have to update their Dock. We're still trying to figure out the best solution that's easy for novice users and not incredibly annoying for experienced users.

Nonsense. With even barely adequate instructions (most drag and drop installs have instructions in the freakin' window background image), novice users are likely to drag the new version into /Applications, replacing the old one, and automatically updating the dock icon. Novice != stupid. Microsoft seems to think otherwise.

Re:The reason for the installer

[Anonymous Coward]

What if user B tries to install IE where user A 'owns' IE. Then its not so simple... user B can not over write something user B has not rights to overwrite. This would make novice users angry... Nonsense is your claim that drag and drop can be simple for novice users. It can be more complex... espically if more than one person shares said system.

Just keep the files separate from the installer

[hayne]

It seems to me that an obvious solution to keep everybody happy would be to have an installer (as now) but keep the files separate from the installer application so that more knowledgeable users can drag & drop them as they wish. I.e. instead of supplying one executable which contains the actual IE files within itself (opaque = bad), make a disk image with an installer plus the IE files (transparency = good) - the installer would get the IE files in the same folder and do its stuff.

Requiring you to quit other applications

[Type-IIa]

"Requiring you to quit other applications is unacceptable for an application install, absolutely unacceptable." poor baby. life's hard isn't it? god knows how we are expected to cope with such hardship stupid fuck

Re:Requiring you to quit other applications

[axehat]

Your breathing, and I wonder why. This will be moderated as a troll most likely. Sorry, but when I am jamming to Ave Maria (a Mozart song for you less cultured /. readers), I do not want to have to quit iTunes to run their installer. For instance, I am downloading Undying, it is a game that I have been wanting, if Carracho has to quit, that puts me back at the end of the 10 user queue when I sign back on. Downtime is bad, which is why unix rawkz. So, if you happen to like downtime, Windows is your number one a+ source for all of your computing needs. Now, moderate me!!

Re: Where are these java plugins, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

current mozilla trunk builds have the plugin pre-installed inside the app.

Re:Just keep the files separate from the installer

[skylarp]

That's exactly how Office v. X works, so clearly SOMEONE over in the MBU has thought of this. Maybe the IE and Office teams just need to put their heads together...

Re: Where are these java plugins, anyway?

[max_zorn]

Yes, but they are too slow.

You cannot play blitz (5-minute games) with them.

MZ