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Get Rid of Internet Explorer - Browse Happy!
Matt writes "BrowseHappy not only tells us why IE is unsafe, but also provides "switcher" stories of people that stopped using IE and switched to a safer browser. This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers."
remove the horrible color scheme
please put all Firefox/Opera/Mozilla/etc stories below this line
____ _ _ _ ____________
but seriously you are preaching to the choir here, you think we (and our families/friends) dont know about Mozilla.org yet ?
i have dumped ie (and outlook, blech.) for mozilla and my computer has never been more gooder.
-knowles
Safari! Need I say more?
I think hunting down IE users for sport is a bit of overkill, don't you?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I'd be happy if browsers like Firefox forced MS to at least make IE a little better in terms of proper CSS support, lockups, holes, tabs, etc. But probably it'd be best if Firefox got something like a 30% market share that way they can make their tiny extensions or ignore some of the standards. Web's still the future people.
why run from Vincenzo?
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:eAw_5YZf-icJ: browsehappy.com/
This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers.
So it's against IE.
Banu
... need a porn friendly browser!
This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers.
Yeah, right. This is rhetoric nonsense. Of course it's "against IE", if it's for the use of a better browser. If you're making a case for something, it - at the very least - implies that the item it's comparing it to is inferior in some way. Yes, this is a case against IE.
Don't say foolish things like this just to seem like you're not partial. You are. There's nothing wrong with being partial, when your partiality is based off of sound logical reasoning.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Why is Internet Explorer unsafe?
See what people are saying about Internet Explorer, in the wake of its most recent security issues:
New York Times, In Search of a Browser That Banishes Clutter:
USA Today, Security risks swell for Microsofts Explorer:
The Inquirer, US Government warns against Internet Explorer:
Slate, Are the Browser Wars Back?:
The problem is that hackers continue to find and exploit security holes in Explorer
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
I work for a decently sized bank data processing center. I know that our vendor we use for the core part of our applications and servers will only support Microsoft IE, mainly because they use a lot of .asp for their online compononents. A few banks have received word about the FCC declaring IE full of bugs, problems, and unsafe for most uses; these banks started asking about support for "other" browsers, and received word that there is no support planned anytime soon for any other browser other than IE.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
I use Windows because there's software that I can't run under Linux.
And I use Explorer because there are websites that don't render properly under anything else. Sure, it's bad design to create your website such that it only works under IE, but that's really not my concern; I just want the content and the pretty pictures.
My machine is secure. I'd sooner have an insecure browser than does what I need it to do than a secure browser than doesn't.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
I only use IE when I am *required* to do so, but there's the rub: there are too many things that do not work unless you use IE. The user agent switcher is nice, but it doesn't always work.
For irony's sake, I'll list the biggest offender (in so many ways) in my life: *IBM*'s Lotus Notes.
World is too IE centric.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The headline gives the impression that this is about how to actually rid windows of IE (Possible in 9x/me, but doesn't seem to be in 2k/xp).
Which is why MS needs to take a few extra hours to write a stand alone app for windowsupdate instead of relying on IE and ActiveX. Then most people could leave IE installed and blocked by their firewall.
Do people wonder why we can't attract more women to Computer Science... ?
I'm certainly not going to share this with any women as long as the switching stories only feature guys. This hopefully a) wasn't done on purpose and b) is going to be changed really soon.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Does anyone recall what percent of slashdot page views are ie?
Not really, no.
I feel like a Dutch boy plugging his finger in the proverbial leaking dikes.
IE vulnerabilities are dime a dozen, that I could well be a thousandaire (just doesn't ring right, uh?) Latest one is the drag-n-drop exploit. In fact, it becomes a down outright security risk just to have the blue E icon available on your desktop and startup menu.
So, I deleted the blue E icon thereby forcing the end-user to get exposed to Mozilla and Firefox.
They too went home and switched as well.
Looks like the groundswell support is brewing here. I wonder if this is also true elsewhere.
If you don't like it, drop the "it." infront of slashdot.org instead of complaining in public.
While yes hackers continue to find and exploit security holes in Explorer, let's not forget that holes would likely be found in Firefox et all as well, if the hackers decide to start concentrate on these other browsers once they have a large enough market share.
I knwo for a fact we put my stepmom on Firefox and all of a sudden she quit getting spyware.
I wish we had a study showing how many microsoft programmers use Firefox.
The congregation says Firewhat?
Seriously, does anyone who reads slashdot these days really need someone to point out the advantages of mozilla/firefox/opera/safari/whatever? Is this really news?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Not only is it designed to be a great browser, it has extensive plug-in support so you can make browsing what you want it to be, not what some Redmond-based empire tells you it should be... ;)
------
"There *IS* no patch for stupidity" -www.sqlsecurity.com
http://www.theregister.com/2004/08/20/sp2_scriptin g_vuln/
I use IE all the time
This one time, I got an email from Citibank I need to veerify my account information!
All I have to do is to click the link with bunch of characters in it, then it loads the seemingly legitimate Citibank website. Then I enterd my account name and password, plus all the other informations. There I veerify my Citibank account using IE.
Meanwhile, Mozilla browser and Mozilla Firefox can't even load the page.
Now, which browser is broken?
Definitely not IE.
By the way, for some strange reason, my Citibank password is no longer working shortly after that.
(sarcasm mode turned off)
Look, folks, I've played the messenger part. I've done my part in telling others to try Mozilla. Done my evangelism with the pop-up blocking and the tabbed browsing. I've preached the security of not using IE and all its ugly security issues. I've even pointed to articles from official-ish proclamations asking people to use alternate browsers.
I've managed to switch a few people to Firefox, and that's good. However, there's the frustration of knowing there will be people out there who will not switch, not even know what a "Browser" is, and will definitely not be going to a web site, downloading an executable, and running it to install Firefox. Too intimidating, they'd say. Now what?
We've given them sufficient reason, and enough encouragement. There will be a LOT of people out there who will not bother installing a browser that didn't come with their machine. Though they'll happily install a Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor. How do we handle that great majority?
I love the Firefox, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see more people using it instead of IE. However, like any good soldier that's been out in the battlefield long enough, a morale boost would be nice on occasion...or at least more words of wisdom.
I am not a windows bigot, nor am I a fanboy. I use Windows XP and related windows software because it just works, and I'd rather actually use the PC than constantly fight it. I've used Unix in the past (Irix actually) and LOVED it, however I've basically given up or more accurately abandoned the desire to use Linux because XP does pretty everything I need, and the software availability and stability meet or exceed what I need (graphic design, web development, 3D modeling and animation, games). Yes, I know there are "issues", but because I "know what I'm doing" and I'm protected by a firewalled router, as well as ZoneAlarm, SpyBot & TeaTimer, etc. I once again , just don't see the reason to learn a new OS. If I had a free week or two I might try Mandrake or something again. The above spout was just to give background that I'm not an OS freak, nor a complete luser. That said, I've always disliked IE as an application in it's own right (performance, memory utilization, UI, etc.), however after a few iterations of NS being complete crap (rendering , performance, etc.) I resigned to use IE. tried Opera, not really impressed, switched back to IE. Recently installed FireFox and I will NEVER use IE again unless the page requires the active X crap. I love everything about Firefox, and as more extensions become available, I love that I can make it work EXACTLY how I want it to work. My only complaint is that I wish it was lighter weight in terms of system requirements, as I'd love to be able to run it on some REALLY old PC's that are essentially worthless for anything but dumb terminal applications (one example is y Fujitsu Point510 tablet). Anyway, that's my story. I would love to see an extension that spellchecked text boxes in online forms though...
What I don't know I just fake...
IE just works
Yeah, well, its relatively easy to get a thing just working when every website is designed to cater to it.
Free XBox, PS2
So does your X10 camera, DVD backup software, Debt Consolidation Program...
It must be something about my machine, but I find Firefox much more stable than IE. It also loads quicker, and renders quicker. I love tabs, programmable search bar, and the simplicity of its' extensions. No matter what features MS adds to IE, I won't switch back because I don't see them seperating the browser from the OS.
I write a lot of .asp, and I use both Mozilla and IE to check the code I write. Unless the person coding the ASP pages is an idiot, it doesn't make a diffrence, as everything is processed server side.
You run into problems because either a) the ASP coder uses vbscript for client side validation, and nothing but IE supports vbscript, or b) they don't bother to write cross-platform client side javascript code. I can't come down too hard when people don't do this, as the DOM differs from browser to browser.
The people responsable for this forking of the DOM need to be dragged nekkid across a cactus patch.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
That's true, but being open source the holes would get fixed in few hours.
What we need is a campaign against Microsoft. For a lot of users the question ins't why to switch, Its how. I install Firefox for people any time I hear the words popup, or spyware. But as soon as they hop on MSN, and click a link they're back in Exploder, and there's nothing they can do about it short of copy & pasting URLs. And of course there's no way to shut off MSN. Well you can, but next Windows Update, or next time you run Outlook there it is again.
My biggest reason for switching is that IE seldom will increase the text size when commanded to. Mozzila always will increase the text size of a web page. I can't read the fine print on a lot of web sites.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
This is comforting but not a perfect solution. I primarily used IE because most of my customers use IE and I want their same user experience. I tell developers to use IE for the same reason. Fortunately most online consumers not use lynx.
Just works? I recently had to use a new computer, and I decided to try IE. First site I went to, I was hit with three popup ads and a spyware download. Second site I went to was www.opera.com.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
There was a /. article a few weeks ago about spoofing Firefox, which pointed to a demo. Sure enough, the script could turn off your title bar, status bar, etc. and looked quite real. Then the follow-ups pointed out where in the config to change things so that the spoof wouldn't work properly. Examples, proof, showing us instead of just claiming it's so.
Also, a hardware firewall will almost never protect you from a web-based trojan; you *requested* the data from the server to your PC, and any hardware firewall (not an IDS) that blocks that is failing to do its job.
Nothing is 100% fool-proof. You know the line: "if you make it fool-proof, the world will build a better fool."
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
"The security issues are a problem" is minor for you because no one's swiped your identity. I heard there's a hurricane in Florida. Oh well, that's 3,000 miles away. Not my problem.
They won't release the names of the major sites that have been hacked so when you visit them with IE, you're screwed. Man, that's annoying. Just how they won't tell you who is selling contaminated beef when Mad Cow was found. If there's a problem, out with the info.
Most slashdotters are anti-M$ as long as M$ are being jerks. IE, and most of M$, is an easy target, but how many people here have an Xbox? MS$ is a double-edged sword. Run with the sword idea.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
that may be the result of spyware opening browser windows......
Every day I'll get at least one popup (which doesn't get blocked) that has to be shut down via task manager and not clicked on for fear of it having a booby trapped 'close button' that really installs something.
Firefox can't show browser windows without a caption. (unless you're running with Java enabled), and in that case it will show a Java frame. (which can't do much harm, and is possible in any java-supporting browser)
Firefox can't install anything other than XPI (which you need to give explicit permissions for).
Spyware/Adware already on your PC won't be magically removed by switching to another browser.
Your post sounds honest, but implausible.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
I know I'm going to be called a lamer and flamed out the ass, but screw it - it has to be said. I was going to move most of our lab computers to Moz this year but ran into issues with profiles. {sigh}
What is it with OSS software? They want to get noticed on the Windows platform, but the very people they need to have accept it (mainly corporations) can't/won't use it because of the hassles involved with profiles and/or user permissions.
Sometimes it's just minor problems - like Moz' inability to have things set up for multiple users on a box, but then there's OpenOffice.org. Not only is it a NIGHTMARE to install in a lab environment (although through reghacks, I got it to work well enough), but it also has problems with Terminal Server.
Now that said, there is progress being made. OOo 2.0 beta lets you install for multiple users and there have been discussions on Mozdev about my very issue with Mozilla.
I understand that 99% of the people who develop for these projects don't know/care about how a Windows shop operates, but if they want their programs to be used on this platform in larger environments, they'll have to start learning how to make them more friendly.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Maybe you could be a bit more specific?
At the very least, what the trojan was... then we could all look up how it installs itself, and maybe let the firefox guys know there's a vulnerability.
I imagine they'd also be interested if you could give them a page that's circumventing the popup blocker.
Ms. Sandlin is just asking for trouble.
Everyone knows that leaving a large warning stating that on no accounts is anyone to touch the big blue button, is practically an order to press the damn thing.
You clearly have never used another browser.
I was like you about a year ago, I never wanted to try another browser, Opera was just for yuppies as far as I was concerned, oooh tabbed browsing, I couldn't see the point. Mouse gestures... well I still don't see the point. I didn't realy mind ads because I used a massive host file to block adservers, but this was still limited. I was constantly getting popups and requests to install plugins I knew I didn't want, in short the web was turning into crap.
Then I decided to try out phoenix, why not, everyone else here was using it. So I downloaded it and I have never looked back. Seriously with an adblock extension and a clean looking theme it was leaps and bounds ahead of Internet Explorer right there. People just don't have an understanding of how convenient it is to google something, go down the first page middle clicking and then have all the pages of interest loaded by the time your done. Browsing slashdot is exactly the same, where before I was opening around 20 windows to view the stories I was interested in, I now just go down the front page, middle click all the stories and read mores... and by the time I'm done the first one is loaded.
But there is just so much more, NO popups, google search. I know you can get google bar but that is a third party addon and sometimes it just doesnt gel. And then there is the type and find function, if for example your looking at a large page of links you can just start to type the text of the link and firefox will find it. Go to suprnova.org and click in the movies frame and start to type the name of the movie you want.
I don't think less of those who haven't used anything else but IE, but seriously you need to try it, you just can't begin to fathom how much the internet doesn't suck without all the crap that targets IE until you stop using it and try something better.
The only woe I have with firefox is that a recient Windows XP update has screwed up launching webpages from the run dialogue, firefox still works but windows pops up with an error annoying but not that bad. I believe Windows XP would be infinitly better if I could actualy get rid of IE for good, but until such a time I'll just ignore it and hope it goes away.
I dont mean to sound like a jerk, but being someone that creates Server Browser Apps for a living, I am compelled to clarify a point.
.asp, .aspx, .cfm, .pl, .jsp or .php, the only thing that is ever sent to the browser is plain old HTML. The server pages are pages that may contain one or more programing languages, recieve and process data, and ussually interact with a database. All of this is done on the server side. Therefore, the server must be compatible with the technology used. But the output of the pages, that is the info that is passed to the browser, is always html.
.asp
It doesn't matter if the page is
The reason why many apps require Internet Explorer might be an Active X control. Active X controls run on the browser, on the client, and only in IE. Such controls are sometimes used to provide word procesing like text input capabilities in the browser, instead of plain boxes like the ones that slashdot uses to write comments.
No, you don't need IE to view
Yes, your programers were dumb enough to use non standard / non compliant client side coding or scripting.
Cheers
Adolfo
This has been fixed - remember Firefox is only at 0.93.
A lot of folks praise Firefox and more and more are using it. To me it's pretty simple: Firefox is the best browser, and it's not even finished yet.
Check out my PHP Url Validator
No, you're not the only one who thinks IE is OK--see marketshare stats.
This is because what you (and 95% of all web surfers) want in a web browser is different than what I and other IE critics want.
What I want is a web browser that's secure, stable, fast, free, and easy to develop web pages for. IE isn't secure and its manufacturer is not good about fixing bugs quickly, IE is free but requires the purchase of either Windows or MacOS, and it's a pain in the ass to develop for because it doesn't even support CSS1 properly, let alone CSS2. And just forget IE's DOM support. [caveat: actually IE for the Mac, although discontinued, is much more secure and provides much better standards support than IE for Windows, making it the second-worst browser]
So of those requirements, I'd imagine you like that it's stable (like all other modern web browsers), and it's fast (also like every other modern browser). It's likely that needing to buy a copy of Windows or MacOS isn't an issue for you, and that you don't care how hard it is to develop for, as long as the person paid to write your web pages can finally come up with a way for the web pages you browse to render properly in IE. So it's exactly as good as every other browser by your standards, except that IE came with your computer so you don't have to bother with that whole download and install process. And that's the clincher for most other IE users, too.
Normally two people having different priorities isn't a big conflict and we can just laugh about it over some beers. But your set of priorities is why I have to work four times as hard to develop a simple web site (code the site using standards, then sniff for IE and throw it different styles and occasionally entirely different pages), and your priorities are also responsible for my mailbox filling up with e-mails about penis enlargment. In summary--please re-evaluate your priorities. Switching from IE may not make your life better, but it certainly won't make it worse, and it'll make mine MUCH better!
Heh.. get yourself an account (if needed), login and switch to 'light' mode in your user preferences... you wont get bothered by colorschemes at all ;)
I am not sure if you are genuine, or an inciteful troll....
The general public simply don't know any better. In my experience, anytime I do a spyware removal ($30-$60) I offer to install Mozilla for free. I explain that if they mostly use Mozilla, they will need my services less frequently. When put in terms of frustration and money, most people do listen and are willing to try it.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Firefox is very close to being prime time. The only bugs I found were using themes and upgrading to a newer version.
My bitch about Mozilla/Firefox is that both are memory hogs. Firefox is great with older computers in terms of loading time and cpu cycles but my computer will use hundreds of megs of ram when I do alot of browsing. After awhile I need to close all the windows and tabs and restart it to gain my memory back.
I also have 512 megs of ram so that should not be happening.
Firefox/Mozilla need to improve resource requirements before competing agaisnt the light IE.
http://saveie6.com/
look, i've given extensive trials (at least a month of solid 40hr/week usage) of the major browsers: Netscape (since 4), opera, safari, mozilla, firefox, ie. but, in a MSwindows environment, nothing beats the real-world performance of ie.
it does have a host of problems. but these aren't the days of ie4 where the browser really did crash every 30 minutes. and ALL of the pages that i need load properly.
ie6 loads signifgantly faster than mozilla on every machine i try (recently that's from an amd k6-2 366 to a p4). additionally, i do not have to worry about pages not rendering properly.
look, ie has security holes. and so does firefox. i run fully patched ie, behind a configured firewall with a current antivirus that has script blocking and i use a pop-up blocker (google toolbar).
it loads fast(er). it renders pages well. it handles plugins well.
i am not a web designer. perhaps my rudimentary html knowledge and cursory understanding of css leaves me blind to ie's "obvious flaws" but so would most of consumer computing market.
the "features" that mozilla boast aren't all that important to me. tabbed browsing isn't all that hot. I've been trained to look to the taskbar (and now with xp click on the ie group) to see what pages i'm browsing. and i am far too quick on the close button (and checking "don't aske me again") to make use of tabbed browsing. I have often closed several pages at once when i am tab browsing.
in fact, the ONLY feature that i can think of that firefox boasts is that it can--unlike ie--rememeber the web page icons (is that what they are called?). but even with firefox, it's not perfect (it will refresh only after you've gone to the page. but at least it does. ie forgets it 1 day after saving the favorite).
perhaps i'm missing the point, but i like to quickly, conviently, reliably access the web. and, in a properely maintained and secured environment and with a user who doesn't install weatherbug every 30 minutes ie is better at those tasks than any other broswer available for a MSwindows environment.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
I switched to Firefox after tha ballyhoo on Slashdot. To date, I've deleted all of my must-save cookies 4 times. The browser is not oriented toward someone who selectively accepts cookies and regularly flushes their cache. It's WAY TO EASY to accidentally hit the wrong "CLEAR" button and make your life miserable. At the very lease, Firefox needs an "Are you sure?" prompt, if not a complete reorganization of how the configuration settings are presented.
on my Win98 PC the way 0.92 did, it would make it a bit easier to stay switched. It starts up, shows that it is trying to resolve the host name of my home web page, and freezes. Have to kill it with Task Manager, then fire up Mozilla to bring up the same page.
However, Mozilla won't show me the submit button on the Skytel page to set my pager to nationwide roaming mode, but IE and Netscape 4.x do so - I've looked at the source Javascript, and, although no expert, I don't see anything particularly weird. Unfortunately, I can't just give my Skytel id info to the Mozilla team to see what to fix, and after trying once recently to see how to file a bug report, I'm not even sure I *could* get the info to them - opaque, hard-to-use support is not too encouraging. It has had this problem since about 1.2, and I keep hoping each new release will finally "catch up" to Netscape 4.x at least.
Oh well, it's nice for the other 75% of business browsing I can do with it, and the 98% of personal browsing I can do with it.
I don't really need Firefox anyway, and I found it (0.92) to not be any faster under Windows 2000 than Mozilla, and no smaller in memory footprint as long as I don't open the mail/news reader, so no big deal...
True story.
I volunteered to look after a student computer lab at university. We did a fresh install of Windows 2000 on all the workstations, set up NTFS, applied all security patches and turned on the auto updater. The lab is firewalled and NATed through a Linux server that's running Samba as a primary domain control for an NT domain. All users have low priv accounts, authorized through the PDC on the local network.
In other words, this is a pretty secure setup, except for the local machines (everyone has physical access). But regular users don't have admin privileges.
There was something I found quite odd. After running for a year or so, I discovered that when I launched IE from my own account, it came up with the Yahoo bar installed. That's weird, I thought, since I'm the only admin and regular users don't have that kind of privileges.
I double checked the patches and hotfixes, yup, we're still up to date...
Fast forward... things started to fall apart after 1.5 years. Some how, spyware entering via IE from one account was able to 'infect' other accounts. Launching IE would immediately pop up ads - even in accounts that were never used before. Whole system-wide applications and spyware seemed to be installed by low privilege users. It's a bloody mess, I don't want to touch it any more.
I'm not sure whether Windows or IE is to blame (my guess is: both) but if they want me to volunteer my efforts to admin the lab next year, a bunch of 1st year students are going to walk in and find a bunch of dumb consoles running stripped down X interfaces to a FreeBSD server.
I used to use opera, i loved the mouse gestures, the popup blocking, but i hated the ads.
I never tried mozilla because i didn't like the blocky texture that it had, and it just felt 'empty' when i first installed it.
A friend had firefox, i said, try opera, and after time testing it against a few heavy loading pages, opera was a *bit* faster because we configured it to open 128 server connections (sorry admins), but that was only on photoshop contests on fark, or other heavy image loading pages.
Other than that, we went feature for feature, they were the same speed on other pages, but what really got me was the mouse gesture trials (with the plugin extension) and the customized ad blocking (another extension).
After that, all the features we commonly used matched up, except gmail notification in firefox. These extensions were also really easy to install also, i've only been using it since this morning.
The sad part about this message is that it sounds like a piece of spam, marketting material. But i give this advice to opera users: you tried opera once, try firefox now.
one thing : i cant' figure out how to get every new window to open as a tabbed window, some open as a new firefox window. Oh well. I'll figure it out eventually... (there, now this doesn't sound like spam)
Runnin' On Empty
Have you ever tried holding ctrl then scrolling the mouse-wheel up or down? That's the quickest way I know to increase/decrease font size, and it works in IE and FF for me.
you can choose the max amount of ram for mozilla firefox to use with browser.cache.memory.capacity
just goto about:config
It turns your hair green.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
I'm not so sure about that... I've had many problems with Firefox. They block port 1080 for some obscure reason based on a really old trojan that has absolutely nothing to do with Firefox, yet to get around this block, you have to make an obscure config file edit. I had to use IE to access a friend's server. There is also the bug where if you used .8 and upgraded to .9, clicking the "Add engines..." for the search toolbar does nothing. I had to manually go to the http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html site. It's not that bad for people who know what they are doing, but, when that feature is lacking, users can go straight back to IE and download their favourite toolbar and use it's dictionary, search, or whatever. (IE Does block popups now, along with things like, onmouseover and and a few other scripts)
I explain that if [...], they will need my services less frequently
It looks like your line of work (spyware removal) is going to die from your own word.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Completely correct.
:)
However, some of ASP.Net's built-in features (like validators) don't work on non-ie browsers, simply because MS were to lazy to make things standards-compliant.
These problems can be worked around tho - drop in peter blum's validators, which have an identical API, but work in all browsers... very nice.
A bit off topic, can you reccommend any websites where I can learn how to do CSS properly? I'll admit I usually use lots of nested tables for things.... where can I learn how to do this with CSS
and despite all the Slashdot sensationalism about it, a lot of Windows users out there haven't been burned."
But a lot have been burned. In fact, almost every Windows user I know that uses IE has had problems with unwanted popups, spyware, etc. Its a good way to get them to try another browser, like Firefox. The merits of the browser will speak for themselves when they use it. If you just tell them how much 'nicer' their browsing experience will be when they switch, that won't convince as many to switch, they'll just think its too much trouble. However, point out some of the vulnerabilities that we see so frequently in IE, that could allow malicious person to run, say, a keystroke logger on their computer, or hijack it to support illegal activities(whether the owner of the hijacked computer would have any legal liability is a question that has not really been tested in courts, as far as I know).
On some work computers I have changed the Firefox Shortcut to appear exactly as the IE shortcut - I used the same icon, and renamed the shortcut to "Internet Explorer".
I then placed the shortcuts in the same places that you normally find IE.
No one noticed. Not one single person.
Makes things easier for some people sometimes.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I think the problem with people giving up IE is that it is so integrated with the windows OS. When i had my mac there was the finder for files, and netscape for the internet. On windows, if i just want to casually hit up a web page, i can easily open a new explorer window and type in the address, as opposed to waiting for mozilla to load up(though mozilla has a much better web browsing environment). I think the layman feels the same way. I'd love for there to be a more efficient way to browse files so i could delete explorer from my computer altogether. Well, i'm sure there is, but i'd rather hold out until i get another mac:)
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
Actually, Mozilla and Firefox will tell you when new versions come along.
However, your post is wrong in a much more profound way--arguing from perfection. Arguing from perfection is a form of a false dichotomy. This scheme presents two alternatives: perfection, and what the speaker wishes to railroad you into. Since perfection is never really available in anything, the only remaining option is the one the speaker wants to railroad you into.
No network program of the complexity you'll commonly use (like a web browser, chat client, or e-mail client) is "totally safe". That frame is a useless one with which to understand the problem. Far better to analyze it from the frame of providing everyone the freedom to share and modify the program so people can find problems, fix them (or make enhancements), and then help the rest of us by sharing their improved version of the program. This frame gives a realistic means to weigh which programs can be genuinely useful and which can be shown to be consistently bad.
Microsoft (being a corporation) has a profit motive behind working on MSIE. Thus once they have achieved market dominance there is little interest in improving the program further. Only competition will pressure them to improve the program, and then it will only be improved along lines that not determined by the users of the program. Users get no opportunity to determine what is valuable for the next release because corporations are not democratically run organizations and the software is not free for sharing and modification. This doesn't just apply to Microsoft, it applies to any other proprietary software. But we happen to be talking about this situation in the context of how Microsoft fails to address reasonable safety when web browsing.
Digital Citizen
How do I run it without Internet Explorer?
_________ Help me get a PSP!
According to Marketing Warfare (ISBN: 0070527261, Al Ries and Jack Trout), maketing is a war fought on the mental battleground.
Not, lets consider your computer locks up. You will simply reboot it, and think this is something normal. Right ? Even if you don't, most people do.
And there is where Microsoft really shows its maketing domination. It is not that users don't get burned by its products. They simply think those are normal things in computing. When I tell someone that one of my computers (running a firewall, and so I never turns it off) has a 2 years uptime, they think I'm lying. That my workstation was running for 7 months without a single reboot. After that, I had to turn it off cause I was replacing the video card.
That is the real problem, isn't it ? It is not that the Internet Explorer uses are getting burned (or not). It is that they don't see that as burning. Their mindset if so frozen into the Microsoft partern that they think those are normal things, and they even think about the possibility that it can be different. They don't see that a browser crashing should not take the OS down with it. That just by accessing a homepage it should not be possibly to automaticaly install a program on his computer.
Having a better browser will never make Firefox/Mozilla/Opera/Galeon/Konqueror/Safari/Net
Anyone developing opensource software, most expecially softwares that are alternative versions well entrenched on the market, should read the book I mentioned. Expecially the part about attacking an entrenched enemy.
So, I don't agree that "a lot of windows users out there haven't been burned". The whole point is that they don't see that they are getting burned, no matter what happened. Most of them don't care even when they do get burned, a situation even worst than you described.
morcego
The warning against IE went out in our office a few weeks ago and I've been trying my damndest to get my immediate co-workers to switch to Mozilla or Firefox. The majority of the technical people at the company have been using Moz for months or years now but my department, Client Services[1], are all addicted to IE.
Once our IT dept sent out the warning and urged everyone to use Mozilla for regular browsing I installed it on two of my three co-workers PC's (the third is dating our SysAdmin so it's his job to get her to switch) and offered to help them with anything having to do with Moz. The only thing they've asked me to do is uninstall it (which I won't do.) Whenever they use it they gripe about how it looks (well mostly about how they don't like the "godzilla" head) say it loads slowly and they don't have time to learn how to use it. Yet they still whine about pop-up ads, spyware etc... Whenever they start griping I chime in with "Ya know that's not a problem in Mozilla!" Their replies are always the same "We don't like that godzilla thing, it's got an ugly head, har har."
I even made them an offer: For one week use Mozilla exclusivly and I'll always stop whatever I'm doing to help with you any question you have, be it how to install a plugin, how to use tabs, how to block ads etc... and if you still don't like it better than IE I'll remove from your system. But you have to use it and take the time to learn it before I'll take your complaints about how it 'sucks' seriously.
The response I've gotten when the topic comes is that they stop bitching about IE and go back to closing pop-ups. My boss actually said to me "I don't like learning new things"
These are the type of people that will never, ever switch. They know enough to know that Mozilla and IE are different programs and they just refuse to give an alternative to what they already know any serious consideration. I fear these represent the vast majority of IE users.
Oh and the company I work for? We provide online, webbased training and learning management services to corporations, mostly for OSHA type regs and similar subjects that are well suited to the CBT format. About 80% of the company (those with technical or content creation roles) uses Mozilla or Firefox for most of their general browsing but the non-geek staff stubbornly use IE. If we can't convince our holdouts to switch, without forcing the issue by management fiat, I don't know that they ever will. *sigh*
[1] Not to be confused with customer service, we dont' deal with end users, we work at the corporate level.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
I haven't once seen an unrequested pop up using Mozilla or Firefox (Yes, I use both on a regular basis).
What version of Firefox are you using? Are you sure that you got this trojan off of a website? There are plenty of ways other than browsing the web to receive a trojan, such as downloading a program off a file sharing program, for instance.
As far as I know, it's impossible for anything to install itself in Mozilla without at least a dialog asking if it's okay to do so (for things like extensions or Java Web Start programs). Or are you one of those people who install Active X extensions?
Fetch Text URL - Firefox Extension
When I first started experimenting with Firefox, I opened up tabs for each of the sites that I have open during the day, and compared the amount of memory used against Internet Explorer - Firefox won hands down. I could have all the sites normally open running in the same footprint that one or two copies of internet explorer used.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Why would this be a good thing? Imagine the nightmares web page designers would have to go through if they had to support two completely different non-standards-compliant browsers. We'd need to use several different browsers on a day-to-day basis just to view all the pages correctly.
Welcome to 1998. I'll be your host.
-Waldo Jaquith
Apache is quite a different program than Windows or IE... In fact Apache can run on Windows, therefor invalidating your comparison.
And now to disolve the FUD. Apache will perform "silent" crashes, where a crash is detected and Apache re-loads itself from another process. These happen often and if the machine is fast enough you don't notice them. Pages running on Apache have also been defaced in many ways over the years.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It's like a neverending icecream headache!
--
make install -not war
I found that most bank websites work properly only in IE (of IE, FireFox, Mozilla, Opera). These fools are creating the dependency on MS that they tried to avoid in the 1990s. That was when Gates foolishly declared he wanted to toll every Internet transaction he could, as a new bizmodel. That's the banks' bizmodel, so they got spooked. Since MS has now crept between the banks and their customers, at the browser interface, how long before MS opens a bank to "compete with PayPal", and takes over the banking industry?
--
make install -not war
I am a Mac user and I use Firefox exclusively (better compatibility than Safari, better [and more!] plug-ins availble for it, like being able to skin it), but have one pretty big complaint with it - the amount of system resources it takes up.
Right now on my iBook g4 800 w/640 RAM, Activity Monitor says that FireFox is using 83.85 MB of active memory and 417.46 MB of virtual memory. And that's with one window w/5 tabs open.
Having the same pages open in Safari Activity Monitor shows Safari using 31.98 MB of active memory and 143.21 MB of virtual memory.
So yeah. I couldn't really use Firefox when I only had 256 RAM...too many crashes. Now that I've upgraded, it is worth it.
Havent we talked about this enough allready?
/. quite regularly but many times I've never seen the first round.
In a word, no.
The horse is dead when the worms stop coming.
The current main page of Slashdot is a good place to find out what's happening now. And not just for regulars. I don't mind dupes. I read
I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I have used IE for years now and haven't had a lick of trouble. With the advent of the google toolbar it is far more user friendly then anything else (though tabbed browsing would be nice) Once and awhile I have to run adaware or the like, but I don't really get gunked with spy/malware. (and I go to some pretty sketchy porn sites) I think the main problem is people clicking yes on security certs, and people can make that mistake on any browser.
....to take over the corporate Windows browser.
If Firefox was available (from mozilla.org) in a Windows installer (.MSI) format and settings could be made using policies, you'd see a rapid increase in corporate desktops moving to Firefox.
Windows admins want to be able to install Firefox on ALL their desktops, with extensions pre-installed and the settings (optionally) controlled via system policies.
This should be goal #1 for 1.1 of Firefox and Thunderchicken. The brower is great. Now lets banish IE from the corporate Windows desktop. (Then the migrate to Linux will be that much easier)
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Then most people could leave IE installed and blocked by their firewall.
What's wrong with the firewall rule "Process name in {explorer.exe|iexplore.exe} -> Allow connections only to *.microsoft.com and *.trendmicro.com"? (Trend Micro offers a free online virus scanner called HouseCall that works only on IE.)
Windows XP Service Pack 2 would take 15 hours or more to download on dial-up Internet access. During those 15 hours, your computer is vulnerable. Not everybody can afford the $800/mo T1 line that is the only broadband available in areas not serviced by cable or DSL. Is SP2 available from Microsoft on CD-ROM yet?
And what about those users who cannot upgrade to Windows XP yet, those who are still on Windows 98se or Windows 2000?
I used group policies to force every user's web session through a filtering proxy server. The proxy drops pop-up windows, active X plugins, and nasty spyware and viruses. As far as I know, the only way to make IE secure, is to prevent the bad stuff from getting to it.
-ted
I still think IE has a better experience, and some neat stuff has been put together for IE recently, including Recall Toolbar, a browser add-on that indexes pages you visit and lets you later search them. Useful for finding pages when you later want to.
Imagine the nightmares web page designers would have to go through if they had to support two completely different non-standards-compliant browsers.
.
Calm down there sonny and remember to salute your superior officers. Some of us have already been through BW I and II, as well as few "Browser Actions" like the launch of NN 6.0.
Boy howdy, I remember those days. You had to make sure your Palette had the Web-Safety on or BLAM!, colors bleeding all over a Mac browser IT WAS HORRIBLE!
Sniff a browser incorrectly and the Flash movie you had on point was as dead as an MIDI file without an <embed> tag in Netscape.
You just make sure and stick to JavaScript object detection insted of browser detection and it won't make a hill of beans difference WHAT kind of new fangled whojeewhatsis they come up with to view web pages, you'll do just fine
Now put down that ActiveX Control sonny, we don't want you hopped up and going through any kind of delusions of granduer when you're out in the jungle.
DIS-missed *salutes*
I think you're describing the same problem I had. I found a fix via Google that worked. Here's what I did (running XP):
Go to My Computer > Folder Options > File Types
Select URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol and click "Advanced"
Select "Actions: open" and click "Edit"
In the "DDE Message:" field you should see something like "%1",,-1,0,,,,
Delete all the text in the field and click "OK".
Repeat the above steps for the File Type "URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Security".
I think I read that unchecking the "Use DDE" box will work as well.
While yes hackers continue to find and exploit security holes in Explorer, let's not forget that holes would likely be found in Firefox et all as well, if the hackers decide to start concentrate on these other browsers once they have a large enough market share.
There is one gaping security hole, ahem, feature, that only IE has: ActiveX. Firefox will never have a vulnerability involving ActiveX or other proprietary Microsoft technologies because those technologies are proprietary and exclusive to IE. That is not to say that Firefox and other browsers are immune to security vulnerabilities, just that they have an inherent advantage.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
simply because MS were to lazy to make things standards-compliant
I suspect it has more to do with MS trying to force lock-in to Internet Explorer (and thus windows) than lazyness.
I am NaN
But until the risk increases (or manifests itself to me personally) or Mozilla/FireBird get easier to use from install to every-day usage, I ain't switching.
1) Run Ad-Aware and/or Spybot Search & Destroy -- you're probably already infected and don't know it.
2) Go to this site and download the latest version for your OS.
3) Find wherever you saved the file to, double click it & follow the prompts. Bam, installed.
4) Upgrade? Download new version, rename the mozilla folder to mozilla_old, install the new one, move any plug-ins from the old plug-in folder to the new one (when it says something about overwriting the one file that's in both, say 'no'), and delete the mozilla_old folder as soon as you know it all works.
It's nowhere near as hard as you might think. If you can manage WINS, you can move/delete a few files.
It's also better than having all the information on your computer exported to Nigeria, or having your PC used like a proxy while someone hacks into someplace important enough to get the Feds to knock on your door, or having your PC used to store child pornography. Don't laugh, both of these have actually happened to people; check the news...
Now then, if you need it personally demonstrated to you, I'm sure that I could find a few malware websites which are typosquatters, etc.
Considering the number of complaints every time there's an article in this section, you'd think they'd change the color scheme. We shouldn't have to modify the url or go through other hacks to get a page it doesn't hurt to look at.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Customize 2k before installing files and instuctions
Uninstall IE and OE, etc from a 2k machine that already has them
Customize Win2k, 2k3, XP before installing
I remember one from when I started programming: "Nothing can be made fool-proof because fools are so ingenious."
I wish I knew who said that. Maybe I will look it up on Google some day.
I use and have used Mozilla with:
1) Citibank
2) US Bank
3) Washington Mutual
4) Direct Merchant's Bank
5) Bank of America
6) Fidelity
7) Ameritrade
8) Household Bank
I actually haven't come across one that hasn't worked yet. Actually, the Washington State Department of Licensing site was the only business-critical site that tried to lock me out!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
except there does happen to be an extention that will run ActiveX on FireFox, it's highly recommended to leave it alone though because it adds lots of IE 'features'
In the end, It's all bovine dung you know
I had a brother-in-law stay over and I let him use the computer to read email and browse, so he naturally used IE since he didn't know about Mozilla I have installed (IE is only in one place under Accessories|Communication, but he found it). Needless to say after he left I ran my weekly Spybot: Seek and Destroy and AVG anti-virus, only to find a few trojans, a virus and tons of tracking cookies in the IE folders. Needless to say I created a new folder called "Do Not Use" and put the blue E there, hoping no one uses it again.
:)
By the way Mozilla Firefox has been working with my bank since version 0.6 (way to go Wells Fargo!) and I have not had any need to run IE with any other sites I visit. If it doesn't run in Mozilla, I don't want to visit the site, simple as that.
Most sites that do not seem to work with Mozilla are the ones using JavaScript to pop open unrequested windows to function. When MS released SP2 for XP it will block those, forcing many websites to redo their crappy code and make the web even more compatible with Mozilla... one can hope
I have a "friend-like" relationship with a law office, where the primary lawyers are friends of mine.
I suggested to the secretaries one day that they d/l and use Moz on all their systems for security purposes. I d/l'd it once to their file server and let them have at it.
I was shocked when, a month or so later, I discovered they were all using Mozilla on all the systems, just like I'd recommended. There wasn't a single phone call, no complaints, no questions... nothing.
These are the people who call to ask if they should click "Open" or "Save" when they click on a PDF!
I was SHOCKED. Mozilla is clearly a winner!
I've been using it for years, but I'm a Tech Weenie and so really don't qualify as anywhere near your "average" user. For instance, using Windows, I don't feel comfortable until I can get a putty session up on a *nix box when I'm working...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Not using IE is no problem. Just do what Ms. What's-her-face does and don't click on the blue E. But, there are many other applications that use the same HTML engine as IE. Aren't they just as vulnerable? HTML Help, Frontpage and Outlook are some of the most egregious examples. There are many others.
It's not that I haven't tried to secure IE and Windows. I have tried the various methods for securing out my machine via Security Zones. I ultimately had to turn things back on when my HTML Help stopped working, or I browsed to a website that just wouldn't render properly without ActiveX or scripting turned back on, and I just didn't trust it enough to add it to my Trusted Sites Zone. I have also used Group Policy Editor to enable the Classic desktop turning off Active Desktop.
It's a very dark ride.
It has a lot to do with the way Firefox is constructed. Mozilla, Firefox, and IE have one thing in common aside from the fact that they're all web browsers. They are all deeply tied in to their application frameworks. With IE, it's tied to COM and ActiveX, some of the newer features I hear will be tied into .NET natively. Mozilla and Firefox are tied into XPCOM and Gecko Run Time.
That said, lets think about this practically for a minute. There are very few applications other than Mozilla Firefox, and a few niche applications for Linux I can think of that depend on the same gecko run time that Mozilla does in the same installation. So assuming a hacker could get in and screw up the Gecko run time or XPCom, how much damage could they really do? They could screw up the application framework, for a single user... possibly the whole system if the user is logged in as root or administrator, but it's not going to take down say... the Window manager your OS uses.
In contrast Internet Explorer uses components that are integrated so tightly with Windows and the application tools it uses, that if you screw those up bad enough, you can hobble, disable, or even kill the computer system the exploit is deployed in.
I think our friends at Microsoft could learn a thing or two from the way Mozilla is constructed, and it seems like they are from the new registry configuration scheme they've proposed for Longhorn. I don't know if it will make IE or Windows more secure, but it will keep guys like me working for many years to come.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
You can still get that independence!
Use Firefox to build and align your bookmarks in the way you desire, and then export it to an HTML file.
Then, set the homepage of ALL of your browsers to that file!
Problem solved.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
The Greek domain is filled with lame sites that work properly only with IE. As much as we want, we can't get rid of IE totally. :-(
Surely, you can say to this people "you are lame, I don't do business with you, I don't buy from you, I don't visit your site". But this decision here in Greece means forget web bankikg (all banks have lame web developers who never heard the word "mozilla") and some of the major news sites. Not even the olympic games site works as good as in IE (although it is not serioysly misrendered like other sites).
I am sure that this applies to other countries as well where linux users are a minority. Most companies consider the cost of testing (or even worse planning) their site to work with all browsers an effort not worthy...
Ah, but if you use the hack that I found in a /. discussion (see my journal for a writeup on it), it won't make it.slashdot.org into just plain slashdot.org - it'll make it hireadesigner.slashdot.org, which isn't valid, and therefore behaves as just plain /., but shows up in their logs.
Tab groups:
Netscape showed a tabgroup as a single item in the bookmarks that you clicked on to open the group of tabs. Firefox shows it as a folder, and you have to open the folder and select "open as tabs" at the bottom, which is annoying. Is there any way to get tab groups to behave more like they did in Netscape?
When you select "open as tabs" for a folder it closes all other open tabs instead of adding the new tabs onto the end.
Tabs:
When you right click on a link it lists "open in new window" before "open in new tab" how do i switch the order of those two?
How do i get rid of the "x" box on the right side of the tabs that closses the current tab? It's annoying and i keep pressing it by mistake.
How do i get rid of the "close other tabs" option when i right click on a tab? I sometimes hit it by mistake when trying to select "close tabs." (Okay, those last two were issues in Netscape as well, but i'd still like to know how to fix them.)
Downloads:
The message "Download Complete" that slides up from the bottom of the screen is _really_ annoying, how do i turn it off? _Nothing_ should be moving around the desktop on it's own!
The whole grouped together downloads thing is annoying, how do i get it to show one download box with percentage in the task bar for each file i am downlading?
Icons:
Sometimes there's an error and a page without an icon gets associated with the icon of another page. How do i clear out the icon from a bookmark?
Is it supposed to save the icons permenatly? All the icons in the bookmarks list are blank again every time i open Firefox. At first i thought this was because Windows almost always crashes before i close Firefox, but i tried loading a few pages and then closing and reopening Firefox and the problem still occured.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The next release of Firefox will have under the Help menu:
Tell and Friend
and
Promote Firefox.
But there is nothing there yet.
Phillip
I think that this ruse has some value, tough, but in a twisted way; if, after this change, some users COMPLAIN about the browser experience, any firefox problem that they indicate is NOT due to a "IE sucks" mantra, and so it is doubly valuable to the firefox team. ...On the other hand, I would REALLY love to try this and hear some moron say:"I told you that IE6 solved all problems", and than click ? -about ....:-)
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)