Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Issue Out-of-Cycle Patch for IE
rsw writes "Microsoft will be breaking their normal patch cycle and issuing a patch for the Download.Ject attack (a.k.a. Scob). They claim that the forthcoming patch will be a "long-term solution to the core vulnerability" exploited by Scob." Note that this does not mean that they are replacing IE with FireFox.
The released a patch when it's needed, not when it's scheduled. How novel.
I disagree. I use firefox for just about everything; online banking, online account management, etc. Every once in a while I need to open up IE to view a flash animation or some other stupid site that uses ActiveX - but at that point I know what they are trying to do and can establish the risks of going to it in IE.
/. problems, for some reason I get this render problem intermittently, but a simple reload typically handles the problem.
btw, regarding all these
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
"Our [Microsoft IE] users should have confidence that as long as they're running the latest browser with all the latest security fixes, they will have the most powerful and secure browsing experience," Hachamovitch said.
Umm, yeah, we should (in a perfect world) be able to have confidence that the biggest software company on the planet puts out the best product. But Microsoft is too big and juicy a target to inspire confidence.
We also should be able to trust our elected leaders to be able to spend our tax funds wisely, but I'm not holding my breath on that either.
So, are their patches normally NOT long-term solutions to vulnerabilities then?
There is a lot of "broken" sites that won't be right in IE when Microsoft will release it's SP2 for XP with a lot of added security to IE.
Pop-up won't show, and all the non-correctly defined elements won't show right neither. So, maybe finally the webmasters will correct their sites.
Montreal - Best city to live in!
Build a CD of Windows 2000 without IE (or Outlook, etc. etc)
Build a CD of Windows 2k, XP, or 2k3 without IE (or Outlook, etc. etc)
Download an IE removal program for Win2k
I think it is a problem with Firefox. I've noticed that it happens a lot on table layout pages, especially large ones. Livejournal can have the same problem.
... although the simple Resize Font trick fixes everything anyway (ctrl+mousewheel)
Basically it guesses widths of table cells/columns at some stage, then sticks with them as more of the page loads, and doesn't compensate for the new contents, which may include more tables, which will then overflow other elements on the page. Well, it is something like that. I think it could be solved by merely re-formatting the page after it has fully loaded
Rightly or not, that Homeland Defense notice got some peeps in senior management a little spooked and asked our IT department to start making Firefox the default browser on all new systems they set up for employees.
As a long-time Mozilla and Firefox user, I couldn't be happier. Whether it's the right reason or not, I couldn't care -- at least there's a hint at the IE domination trend slowing down a bit, and that is good for consumers.
What is sad is the multitudes of fixed HTML examples that Slashdot readers keep coming up with, but still haven't been used even though I remember some of them being done a year ago!
My wife was infected by spyware by simply visiting a site that was an etrade affilliate site (they were offering a free PDA if you opened an etrade account).
She told me at the time the only difference between her computer and her friend that sent it to her was that she had Sun Java installed and he didn't. He didn't get infected and she did.
This was several months ago, she searched and didn't find any exploit info about it.
A couple days ago she found the exact exploit she had encountered on a vulnerability list, a combination of Sun Java and an IE bug cause a certain vulnerability.
So you might think you are safe, but how many "zero day" or unknown exploits, such as the one my wife got infected by spyware via are out there?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Do people care about IE security problems? Most do actually, people just either don't know about the vulnerabilities or if they do they don't know there's anything that can be done.
/. renders.
Everyone I know when I talk to them about how bad IE is, if they listen, switches to Mozilla, I switched my school's computers and those of atleast 60 others.
People are listening now more than ever, its becoming so bad (atleast one a week) the mainstream media is even going "Another Internet Explorer vulverability has been found".
All I tell people is that:
1. Mozilla works faster
2. It has a pop-up blocker
3. It is immune to those once a week IE vulnerabilities
4. You just about don't get spyware (and mention keyloggers). <---The Killer One And BTW, I use Firefox 0.9.2 (mozilla.org build for Linux/x86) and have never had problems with how
"Firefox is not an acceptable replacement for IE for 90% of the users out there so I really think we could have done without the snide comment."
Huh?
Microsoft Internet Explorer isn't an acceptable browser for 90% of the users out there.
Nevermind your "snide" assertions about the websites that don't work, people are getting owned here. It's a serious problem. It's the spam problem and the virus problem and all the tech support problems, all stemming from this one application that's so insecure that everyone, from DHS to MSN themselves recommend getting rid of it immediately.
If your favorite website doesn't work in a generic web-browser, get them to fix it, or get a new supplier. Even the banks have got HTML websites now.
I've been contemplating which thread to post this to, so I'll post it here.
Why does everyone thing we're "winning" against Microsoft/IE with Mozilla Firefox? It's not that we are winning, it's that Microsoft isn't playing anymore.
There's no reason for them to have the dominant browser on the market anymore, and one HUGE reason for them to explicitly NOT have the dominant browser. Their DOJ investigations focused, in part, on the fact that IE was bundled with Windows and thus constituted a monopoly. However, if Microsoft now lets IE flounder and lets Mozilla (or another browser) become dominant, they have a huge lever to use against any future DOJ or legal inqueries. They can then say they aren't a monopoly, as another browser is dominant.
And why not? There's no money to be made on IE - it's strictly a resource drain. They don't make a single dime from it... why pay someone to keep IE up to standards, when they can get the whole Open Source community to do it for free - in the form of Mozilla.
Stop and think about it for a moment, there's absolutely NO reason for MS to have the dominant browser any longer... there's no financial or legal advantage to it. A browser is effectively a commodity, and anyone developing one is going to have to expend resources to do so - with no return on that investment. Thus, Microsoft's only real logical conclusion would be to let IE slowly fade away, it solves not only the money/resource drain, but also protects them from further DOJ inquiries.
So Firefox isn't winning, exactly... Microsoft just took their ball and went home, because the game had no point for them anymore.