Microsoft Advises to Type in URLs Rather than Click

spacehug writes "In a recent Microsoft Knowledge Base article, they provide 'Steps that you can take to help identify and to help protect yourself from deceptive (spoofed) Web sites and malicious hyperlinks.' These steps include always using SSL/TLS, typing 'JScript commands' in the address bar, and typing in URLs instead of clicking links! I have a suggestion that's not in the Knowledge Base: don't use IE!"

Comments

Don't use IE?

[tacocat]

I'm not great lover of Microsoft products, except for their mouse, but the idea of not using IE probably won't do much in regard to web site spoofs like this. Unless you have some specifics where the exploit will only affect a MSIE product then you probably need a retraction for your own credibility.

These typically show up as something where the href tag is entirely evil, but the anchor tags are wrapped around a statement like http://www.yourbank.com. My experience has been that these are seen in email spam, but I've never seen this on a web page. I found a very well done one for paypal last week. It was pretty impressive because most of the links on the web mail form were legitimate.

Of course, if everything only sent ASCII email we wouldn't have this problem would we?

Re:Don't use IE?

[airjrdn]

What you don't get is MyIE is just IE with some browsing enhancements. It's the same underlying browser.

Don't have an Aunt Hilda, but Aunt Linda hasn't found it to be an issue either. :) I'd imagine it's because these security holes are exploited by what? Around .0001% of the sites on the net?

What's the percentage of sites actually offering me PNG files? Now, how many offer up JPG's?

Keep using Mozilla, no one's busting your chops to change. Why are a lot of /. readers busting everyone elses to change?

WinXP is actually a good desktop OS

[Knights who say 'INT]

While I don't keep my computer on for days, I "hybernate" instead of "shutting down", something that essentially dumps my RAM to permanent storage and recovers the whole thing when I boot back up. I've done that for three-four months before noticeable performance effects.

But then again, I run Firebird and Thunderbird and SIM (the best icq/msn oss clone out there) and generally software I trust to work okay. Microsoft is just not good at the web browser/email client game, and perhaps they should just let those go, and partner with someone who can actually write those things and make them good.

IE and Outlook Express have done more damage to Windows' reputation than any of its own bugs.

Really, there's been only one serious XP bug so far. When you compare it to dozens of nightmare linux stories of frying standard hardware. No one being held responsible for those because it's "free software, use it at yor own risk", et cetera.

Don't use IE?

[airjrdn]

I have a suggestion that's not in the Knowledge Base: don't use IE!"

Flamebait!

As a career developer, and computer hobbyist going back to around 1982 I can assure you, I'm no newbie to PC's. For those of you interested, here's why I and many other people use IE.

Plugins; they install seamlessly, and it supports everything out there. No visiting multiple sites to get one plugin to work.

Are popups an issue? No, the free Google Toolbar eliminates those, and offers other positives as well.

Is security an issue? Not really. I've been on the net a LONG time, and have yet to visit a site that's caught me off guard due to an IE exploit.

What about tabbed browsing? Sure, it's nice. I get that via www.myie2.com. It's a wrapper around IE so that I get the benefits of the IE engine, with popup and content filtering tabbed browsing, and many other nice enhancements. It's also free, check it out.

A lot of these same things transfer to the discussion between using Windows and Linux. Can I do MOST of what I want in Linux? Sure. Linux is EXTREMELY versatile and powerful. Can I do them as easily? Nope. If I screw up in Windows, it's either easy to fix immediately afterwords, or after a quick visit to Safe Mode. In Linux, things are MUCH more involved, and often times to get something to work I'm required to edit text files all over the place.

Gaming is where Linux loses me for sure. I like to play First Person Shooters, and although there are a few out that support Linux, a lot don't. I just purchased a new Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. Not only do the games and software it shipped with not work in Linux, but if I boot into PC Linux 2K4 (LiveCD) I get a loud buzzing sound. Hmmm, I don't get that in Windows with or without installing drivers. Beginning to see my point?

Security holes or not, people will use what's easy, convenient, and full featured if they can fine one item that matches each of those pieces of criteria.

I apologize for running on.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Best Computer Security

[salesgeek]

Turn off and lock in vault.