75% of Network Connections Not From Browsers

Trailwalker writes "An article at BigBlueBall.com states that 75% of web connections do not use a browser. IM and P2P applications are used instead." While surprising, this is probably more indicative of how instant messaging has been able to complement and/or replace email in recent times.

Comments

msblast

[jbplou]

I would think that msblast makes up a larger amount of the applications with network connections. I work for an ISP and there a still many customers who are afflicted with that virus.

Re:msblast

[AndroidCat]

That probably gets balanced a bit by the HTTP connections from people still infected with Code Red.

Re:msblast

[mrhaleon]

Scanning for traffic for worm-infected customers is one of the things I do at the ISP I work at, and I can tell you, it is often NOT as simple as telling them to clean it up. Half the time, the customer doesn't believe us, as if we'd bother to make something like this up, just to annoy them. When they actually do look, much of the time, they claim to find nothing, or to have "fixed it", but we still see the worm traffic. And of course there are those wonderful customers who shut the infected machine down for the day, claim to have "fixed it" and then turn it back on again the next day... And, to top it off, one out of every three of the ones that actually DO resolve it end up getting reinfected days later, because they didn't bother to do all the patches after removing the infection (despite explicit suggestions to do just that on our part). It's a fun job, let me tell ya...

Re:msblast

[harmonica]

I think that it is our work as computer-scientists and tecnitians to educate everyone we can

Most people don't want to know. It has nothing to do with laziness, but there's only so much time that they're willing to spend on computers.

I'm not sure if there's a solution unless the program / OS part of a computer is more or less read-only (some pre-installed applications, and that's it).

Email is on the way out....

[403Forbidden]

Serously, the second AIM puts ICQ-like away messaging in, email is dead.

It's much more convenient to just start up a program, punch a few numbers, and see who is on for real-time conversations and get all the messeges they sent while you were away. Further, with the increased use of Webmail based email servers, it is becoming more and more inconvenient to check it... It's become rare to have a non-isp provided email account be POP3 by default.

Is AIM ready for the spotlight? Not quite... AIM, the popular one with teens, i'd say, still needs to work on privacy, logging, and message ability while someone isn't logged on. ICQ is a more perfected clinet, but the settings and UI are much too complicated for a novice.

Until recently, I only checked my email every couple weeks.. i'm on AIM almost constantly.

Re:Email is on the way out....

[globalar]

"email is dead"

It might be broken, exploited, less sophisticated, and maybe even not as convenient as IM, but it's still at least as ubiquitous. Also, IM has a lot of conventions which make it often times (not all times) less professional or even communicative. For example, IM stresses ways to shorten words but not necessarily make things anymore clear (or more developed). It's a lot like a phone in many ways. And sure we use the phone a lot - to varying degrees of success.

Email is just becoming a mainstay of many people's life. And it is very accessible - it really is like electronic mail (it has many mail conventions) and people seem to respond to its simplicity well. Also, the art of writing a coherent sentence, proof reading it, and then choosing a better word or phrase is much more suited to email.

I just hope I didn't prove my ignorance of these things in this post ;)

Subject line is misleading

[Rick Richardson]

The article states that 75% of users use non-browser applications to access the internet.

It DOES NOT say that 75% of the connections are made by non-browser applications.

There is a difference, and I blame the lack of any sober editors at Slashdot today for this getting through.

Re:Less spam

[mskfisher]

I used to get AIM spam all the time from porno bots. I have no idea how they got my screen name, but I would entertain myself by making snide remarks back, or by making them fail the Turing test. :)
I've still got the logs on my machine, and I'm thinking about putting them up in a section on my web page.
Here's an excerpt from a good one:

snuglybaer493 (1:39:10 AM): hi :) wanna chat?
kwabla78 (1:39:24 AM): a/S/l?!!??!
snuglybaer493 (1:39:29 AM): asl (age sex location)?
snuglybaer493 (1:39:38 AM): 24/f/new york
kwabla78 (1:39:59 AM): i'm a taco from mitsubishi, and i'm older than the hills
snuglybaer493 (1:40:07 AM): so what are you up to kwabla78?
snuglybaer493 (1:40:12 AM): cool. i was just hangin out. kinda bord.. kinda horny :)
kwabla78 (1:40:27 AM): are you horny like a rosebush?
snuglybaer493 (1:40:33 AM): should i take that as a yes?
kwabla78 (1:40:34 AM): or wait... was that "thorny"
snuglybaer493 (1:40:38 AM): feel like cybering with me ? please please...
snuglybaer493 (1:40:43 AM): :)
kwabla78 (1:41:00 AM): what is this that you speak of? is it like cyber-warfare? if so, then by all means.
snuglybaer493 (1:41:18 AM): hold on. lets get a simple yes or no answer. you are of age and you want to cyber with me?
kwabla78 (1:42:15 AM): um... yes, i am older than the hills, and i wish to engage in cyber-warfare. i want to help the Department of Defense against those cyber-Taliban!
kwabla78 (1:43:02 AM): do you also?

Or this one...

Tonadzift559 (6:36:14 AM): Hey kwabla78, what's going on , monday-monday, I wish someone would answer my IMs. Do you wanna chat with me :) I have a cam. and My 2 best friends just showed up.
kwabla78 (6:36:38 AM): PLEASE MAKE IT STOP
OH THE PAIN

Thankfully, it's stopped... but it was entertaining for a while. :)