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Redmondmag on Dumping IE
nSignIfikaNt writes "Here is yet another article discussing options to using IE. This one is from redmondmag.com who claims to be the independent voice of the microsoft IT community."
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Options to using IE? Should be "Alternatives To..."
And besides, IE is not even an option for anyone serious about, well, serious about anything.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Redmond used to be called MCP Magazine, as in Microsoft Certified Professionals. I got a free subscription when I got my MCSE, and the magazine has certainly had a focus on Microsoft certification. Much of the advertising is related to training boot camps and testing aids, and there are monthly statistics on certification. The name change is very recent, as I guess the magazine is trying to broaden it's appeal.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Vote for anyone but IE!
Internet Explorer is the Swiss Cheese of software--it's full of holes.
I'd think it was more like the Limburger of software - it stinks.
Every time some guy I've never heard of working for some online e-zine I've never heard of writes an article bashing a Microsoft product, is it really worthy of attention?
What does Roland Pikapuile think of all this? Please include a link to his blog in the submission.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The Mozilla guys should patent "tabbed browsing", allowing royalty free use in any browser who requests it. With one exception, of course (IE)...
It's nice to see an article about this. All we're witnessing here is the natural evolution of the internet browser system... A monoculture gets decimated by pathogens, and that opens up niches for newer species. This is what any monopoly leads to when it's not protected by some level of government.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
The article points out that Microsoft may add popup blocking to IE... is it just me, or did that already happen with WinXP SP2?
yuck! If your going to karma whore at least but in some paragraph breaks..my eyes nearly fell out after that assault of wordage!!!!
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
This is no flamebait. "redmondmag" used to be a Microsoft lapdog under another name for the longest time...
What better way to evangelize IE than to encourage its own rabid userbase to try out competing browsers? They will try it out, get turned off by the minor differences (such as tabs), and then switch back to IE and be able to say "I've tried the alternate browers, and they are CRAP".
I'm not trying to stereotype microsoft users, I am merely presenting a "devils advocate" viewpoint.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
... I discovered the voice mode of Opera (win2k/XP only, sadly) last night. The thing accepts voice commands: hold down scroll lock and tell it things like "reload", "back", "close window", "zoom in", etc.
You can even select a bunch of text and tell it to "speak", and it will read it to you.
Incidentaly, I had just discovered WinXP's onboard voice synth. A group of people were at a Krystal's and wanted to contact a friend.
We realized that:
--Nobody had a cell phone
--Krystal's has wifi! (I boot up my laptop)
--Our friend wasn't on AIM or similar
--I have a VoIP client... we can call him!
--We have no microphone
--WinXP has a voice synth!
So, with a little mixer tweaking, I routed the voice synth output into Skype's input, called the poor schmuck, and had Microsoft Sam read him a message. (which was, if I recall, "We will be playing Starcraft at ten o'clock and such-and-such a place. Interested?")
Please switch to "Plain Old Text" before doing this again...
Sorry. Next time I'll use 'Preview'.
With a required OS upgrade to get the latest features and security, can one consider IE "free" ?
-Randy
One thing the author claims is:
My Web site uses Google AdSense to display context-sensitive ads to my users. The AdSense administration site works only with IE
This seems dubious. The google site claims that you just need javascript. Can anyone who uses AdSense verify this? I'm guessing the popup blocker in firefox thwarted this guy's limited computer savvy.
From the article:
Which brings me to the real question: Can you live without IE? I try to use Firefox as my main browser, but I find myself firing up IE from time to time out of sheer necessity. My Web site uses Google AdSense to display context-sensitive ads to my users. The AdSense administration site works only with IE...
Well, I've been using Adsense for about 2 months now, and I have yet to open it in IE. I've only used Firfox so far, both on Windows and Linux, and never had any problems.
The darned thing still does not have tabbed browsing for god's sake. How long does it take MSFT to copy that one.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
But corporate users don't spend a lot of time playing with DirectX-based games, listening to Windows Media Player, or checking e-mail with Outlook Express.
I don't think they know the same corporate people that I know.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
MS just give up on the browser, and add some "ie like features/extesions" or some other specific windows features/native gui like Camino for OS X to mozilla and/or geko that are optional to make some broken websites work until the websites get standards compliant and be done with it?
To my knowledge, MS only makes money off of IE by licensing it to people like AOL (and that is a wierd thing, and another discussion), but they make nothing off of having it bundled with the OS, and would loose nothing by bundling some other browser.
It seems evident that there are issues with having a webbrowser tied so closely to the OS. Most of people's issues with switching from IE is that 1) ie is just there, so what else is there to use, and what else is better? 2) There are a few too many broken websites that end users blame the browser for if the website does not work properly.
And if someone feels like adding a completely off topic tangent here. What is up with the IIS websites and those damn "go to # on this page" links or whatever? They are annoying because I don't know what they are doing, and they sometimes break (even in ie) if I open them up in a new window or tab. Grrrrr....
I have changed several friends and family to mozilla lately, after cleaning viruses and other crap off their computer - they generally dont care what the browser is called as long as they can access the web. Do your friends a favor and upgrade them today :)
got this from the bottomAlternative browsers may not offer perfection, but they offer plenty of features, though with less manageability. Last I checked mozilla allows much greater manageability of cookies, images, popups, downloads...hell i can't think of anything EI does that is easier to manage.
Pity your being sarcastic. I'm not when I say it was surprisingly fair, considering where it came from. Now, it is possible to do some messy kludging to get Firefox to work a bit with group Policy, but in the main, it was actually pretty correct and factual.
Which is rather unexpected from what is after all a MS mouthpiece.
Time to Dump IE?
Internet Explorer is a hacker's dream. Can you (and should you) drop it right now?
October 2004 by Don Jones
Internet Explorer is the Swiss Cheese of software--it's full of holes. Holes in software are never good, but when the browser is so integrated with the OS as to be as one--you've got problems. Add to that the sheer ubiquity of the Microsoft browser, and it's no wonder IE has become the hackers' No. 1 playground.
Now we're beset by increasingly common--and dangerous--security vulnerabilities. We knew IE was integrated with Windows, but we didn't have any idea how integrated it was. Even Microsoft doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on IE's internals, judging from the weeks it took to deliver an actual fix for the recent Download.Ject Trojan.
Not to say an integrated browser is all bad. To a developer, an integrated browser is cool because it gives you a built-in HTML rendering engine. You can then write apps that use HTML, knowing that the OS can render that HTML for you. IE can begin to take over the regular Windows Explorer shell and, in fact, has become so tightly integrated with Windows Explorer that it's a bit difficult to see where the shell ends and the browser begins.
The downside is a real downer. With a regular Web browser, a security vulnerability might let someone crash the browser. With an integrated Web browser they can crash the whole operating system. The tight ties to Windows means that the slightest IE security issue becomes an OS-wide panic. It's not just IE, either: Windows Media Player, Outlook Express, and even DirectX, are all, in my opinion, overly integrated and give hackers too much access to core PC functions.
But corporate users don't spend a lot of time playing with DirectX-based games, listening to Windows Media Player, or checking e-mail with Outlook Express. They do spend a lot of time in IE, and the more they surf the more they're vulnerable to its eccentricities. That's why more than a few corporations, not to mention individual users, are looking at alternatives--any alternative--to the built-in browser.
Browsing the Alternatives
Despite dire predictions from Netscape (now a unit of America Online, which, weirdly, continues to bundle IE with its software), the market for non-Microsoft browsers didn't go away. It sure as heck got small, though, with Microsoft now commanding around 95 percent of the market, according to some sources. But the times, they are a-changin'. San Diego Web metrics company WebSideStory recently reported IE losing 1 percent of that market, the first time IE has stumbled. IE is now down to 94 percent. Who's gaining? Mozilla.
The open-source code base of the Netscape browser, Mozilla offers a couple of browsers. Mozilla 1.7 is its base product (1.8 is in beta as of this writing); Firefox (currently at 0.9) is the next-generation browser. Both are available from www.mozilla.org. Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser based on Mozilla code. It's available from www.netscape.com, but you'd better hurry: It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.
There's also the well-known Opera Web browser, currently at version 7.53, available from www.opera.com. All of the Mozilla products, including Netscape's browser, are completely free. Opera offers a free, advertising-supported browser as well as a $40 version sans ads. And those are just the Windows browsers (see online extras for more on browsers for other OSes). While these are the major contenders, others exist: Search Download.com for "Web browser" and you'll get 356 results, many of which are small-footprint, self-contained Web browsers. Be aware that some of these simply throw a new cosmetic face on Windows' built-in IE objects, meaning you're still using IE. Others are completely self-contained and count as true alternatives.
Pros and Cons of Straying From the Pack
Forgetting security for a moment, there are functional
Create Windows installation CDs that won't install IE (and/or many other things, like Outlook):
A howto + files for Windows 2000
Free (as in beer) software with no howto for Windows 2000, 2003, and XP
Laptop: $1500
Wireless Access Point: $80
Broadband Internet: $40
VOIP Service: $20
Calling your tinfoil wearing, goverment conspiracy theory lovin' friend with a computer generated voice to play a game of strategic conquest: Priceless.
Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser...It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.
What about Netscape 7.2? Technically, it is Mozilla 1.7, but it does have AOL-produced add-ons.
For example, Mozilla issued a patch that stops the browser from allowing an attacker to execute applications on a Windows system--something we're used to dealing with in IE.
For those of us that remember, the shell: vulnerability was because Mozilla passed it on to Windows to handle, and Windows failed at handling it. That's why Mozilla "patched" it.
Anything ActiveX-based won't work
There is an ActiveX addon for Mozilla.
Interesting too that he brings up the issue that non-IE browsers would be harder to manage using Microsoft products (ISA Server, etc.). I wonder why that is so.
My parents, after tons of proding from both my brother and I, finally gave alternative browsers a try (being the scientific sort, we had them try Mozilla, Firefox, AND Opera), and they like all three better than IE. They took to the tabs instantly, and I never hear any complaints about Pop-Up ads. Nor do they have any trouble with plugins for Flash, etc. And while my dad is relatively computer savvy, my mom repeatedly needs to be reminded of how to download/upload attachments. Really, I think all three browsers were well designed with a general population in mind.
Live free or die
I have been using AdSense for well over a year, starting a month or two after it was released. I have never seen any IE specific features. I first started using AdSense with Mozilla, more recently with FireFix. Seems like he may be having other problems, and jumped on the blame Mozilla scapegoat. Maybe he disabled JavaScript.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
After reading...
"which must irritate the folks who run the MSN Web site, a notorious pop-up villain"
and a few other statements I get the feeling that this is a semi-tech writer, trying to scare non-tech readers away from using IE
not to say you should or shouldn't use alternatives, what you shouldn't do is read articles that don't get facts straight
"See? We don't have a monopoly! See! See! Now, go ahead and make your little browsers while we lockdown digital media. And seriously, Fuck Apple. No really, fuck'em."
Oops, make that http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/04/2 021214
This is what Microsoft must be afraid of: cross-platform user interfaces with pluggable scripting languages and super-easy application deployment. This is why they originally fought Netscape - they were afraid that Netscape would become a "platform" independent from the operating system layer. And now exactly that is happening, thanks to open source. The people who designed this stuff were some true visionaries.
The Spread Firefox initiative may seem like a trite marketing effort. But in reality, it is one of the best ways to enable people to switch to other platforms tomorrow. I really hope that the Firefox hackers will get SVG support ready soon, as this is one of the other key features that can have immediate amazing benefits.
Jay Sherman: It Stinks! It Stinks! It Stinks!
Doctor: Sure Mr. Sherman. Everything stinks.
My title above is a disclaimer. I am a Mac user, and only use a PC via VNC to view webpages in IE. That said, I found this article pretty straightforward about the pros and cons of IE and alternative browsers from a Windows point of view. The guy make valid points about centralised management of IE vs. the standalone path of Firefox et al that would be a question in mainly Windows environments.
That said, all of these problems can be overcome by a good admin who thinks creatively, and I seriously doubt that much active development is going into ActiveX using sites these days.
I switched almost full time to Firefox, and never looked back. Sometimes I open up IE, but only because I have multiple hotmail accounts, and want both opened at the same time.
Logic, macros, and more
Management in this case being enterprise management of IE configuration, rather than the ability of the end user to manage their cookes, etc.
About a year ago I started using Mozilla. Now I use Firefox. I've never needed to use IE for anything. Where are these sites (not including those run by Microsoft of course) that force you to use IE?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Really, IE is just so out of date I can't imagine anyone using it unless they have to. I'm still showing off Firefox at my work, but only have 2 others using it. Now that it's about to go 1.0 it should be easier, I love the RSS feature, the Https 'yellow' highlighting and the find-as-you-type new features of 1.0.
All in all I think the only thing that IE is good for is to cause my Mom's Dell to download viruses and trojans so I get the Support call!
CB@#$%^&
free ipod and free gmail!
On a somewhat related note, is there a way to disable altering "connection settings" by regular users in Firefox? We run on a filtering proxy and that's how it's set up to restrict access.
Then it is not a good setup..
You are looking for the wrong solution. You should NEVER trust the settings of $application on a client machine for a security purpose. What you need to do is block all outgoing port 80 traffic for everything but your proxy server(s) (or setup a working transparent proxy solution which will eliminate any client config). Any and all web browsing clients trying to bypass the proxy will be stopped.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Thanks dude , for replying!!
So the name is FAL? But what could it be famous for in another context?
Why does yahoo do this
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ ...and now back to your "IE Sucks because..." threads.
CBV*()$@#
free ipod and free gmail!
With the constant bashing and FUD related to anything that is even remotely MS, slashdot loses credibility...
IE issues are in the real news, along with the alternitives. Serious admins and other IT people DO NOT come to slashddot for help related to any MS issue due to the FUD you generate, this is sad when the knowledge that is on slashdot could help...all this is due to the constant bashing and FUD being encouraged by the ADMINS of slashdot...
-give it a rest CmdrTaco, you feed the trolls far too often-
(the artical and its posted bashing attempt by CmdrTaco are old news BTW, even if it was just published, not worthy of any REAL IT news site that repeats what OTHERS have written...)
now I can expect for CmdrTaco to place this IP on a ban again, guess the truth is too much to deal with, so ban those that don't want to ride the hate-wagon...
I've downloaded it several times already, but always something happens that makes me open Safari again and forget about FF.
I've installed it on my wife's Portable (XP) though, and feel a lot better. Her IT guy seems to be quite good, but it's always me trying to keep her PC up to date, so that's one less worry.
I've noticed that FF behaves a lot better on a PC than on the Mac - compared to the alternative. Doesn't crash, is faster and overall renders better.
If it weren't for Safari, I'd probably be using Firefox too. I'm curious how much marketshare FF has on the mac.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
If and when IE does go by the wayside, what are all the companies who develop web apps for IE only going to do? And there are a lot of them. Stupid companies who develop web apps for one browser and not others, and I have worked on several projects like this, are going to find themselves up the proverbial shit creek without a paddle! Then again, it could mean all kinds of new jobs when they realize that their customers are not using IE nearly as much anymore and they have to upgrade their apps to actually be cross browser. Might be a nice windfall!
"and even DirectX, are all, in my opinion, overly integrated and give hackers too much access to core PC functions."
Wasn't that the point of DirectX? To provide more direct access to hardware for purposes such as graphics? That's why you couldn't play games in windows 3.1 and had to use DOS; you couldn't get at the hardware. The trick is how to do it safely.
It sounds like this guy's taking one idea and applying it to everything here. There are some things that do need kernel integration for performance reasons. As for doing it with your browser, I don't really see the point. Integrate all the browser's IO by way of tcp/ip, win32, directx, etc and leave all the rendering engine out of kernel space. But microsoft is probably doing exactly that for the most part. It's hard to say what's part of the windows operating system (kernel) and what just ships with it. Sure there's a lot of stuff that you can't uninstall but that doesn't mean that stuff isn't bound by the same rules that an application like firefox is bound by. It's pretty hard to say how integrated IE really is or if most of these bugs are just there because MS ships when stuff is just "good enough.
OK this may be minor but the versions of Opera and Firefox mentioned imply this article was written months ago, yet it's dated October. What's going on? Why have we been given an old article (and not just a week old either)? Opera 7.54 (going by the file modified dates i have), is a version up from what the article claims is the latest and was released on 29th August this year. When you're discussing security time can matter.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
And thatnks to firefoxie, you web developers never need to load IE again, just let firefox do the rendering... http://fishbulb.info/index.php?p=4
I use Opera but getting gmail to support it has been an uphill struggle.
Too bad as I find it an excellent browser.
Dude, I would if I could, man. Honestly. I'd route all port 80...and a few others while I'm at it through the proxy. Even if it's just the particular range of IP addresses or the domain that's used by the public workstations. I agree that it's fscked to rely on client configs for security. I agree that it's even more stupid to rely on IE for public use (like giving chainsaws to children).
:)
Unfortunately, I'm a peon in the environment and have to cope with decisions made elsewhere. If I had my way, we'd be running Linux (instead of NT), OO.org, and a whole slew of kid-friendly edutainment titles. But of course there's not much of a chance that I'll get my way.
The thing with IE is that each window is a seperate session which is nice in some cases.
I personally use Mozilla for browsing and Firefox for session testing.
I'd like to see seperate sessions for Mozilla as an option for tabbed browsing instead of having to close the entire browser and mail client.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
and extensions like NetCaptor had tabbed browsing working with IE before Opera, Safari, Konqueror et al.
Of course, you could use MSI repackaging tools for easier deployment through SMS, Group Policy or some other tool, but it's a shame that these vendors haven't realized the market potential and made their products more accessible to corporate IT departments.
Now, to be honest I have no idea what an "MSI repackaging tool" is. Like an RPM packager or something? Maybe someone can explain. Anyway, it sounds like it might be relatively easy for someone who has this tool to do, and (if they're feeling in the spirit) make the package available. Or heck, maybe even sell and support it! It sounds like this might have a major appeal to corporate IT departments, who usually have some money to toss around.
Ahhh, they probably only put it in there so they would get slashdotted and be able to raise their advertising rates. "Why of course you get your money's worth with our banner ads. Our hit rate is through the roof!"
You can actually make Internet Explorer 5.5 and new do tabbed browsing by adding the Maxthon (formerly MyIE2 ) plug-in to IE. Not only do you get tabbed browsing, but you also get pop-up blocker and a number of really nifty features.
Given that Mozilla was developed under Open Source, I'm not even sure if they want to patent the idea of tabbed browsing, especially given Opera has done this for quite some time.
The article does raise one valid point, though:
However I'm sure there must be a way to retain full control. At the very least I'm sure you could push the prefs.js files to user profiles, and maybe even secure them against change/deletion by the user. How do you guys do this?
Stupid question, and not the right place for it, but: anybody know where to get the Firefox source? Their Linux binary download unaccountably fails to work on my PowerBook :-), so I need to build my own.
"Someone sitting in an ivory tower might suggest that not having VBScript and ActiveX is a good thing and that visiting sites that use them is a bad idea anyway. True, but if that Web site happens to be your internal procurement Web site, not visiting isn't really an option."
For me it's an option to tell the responsible manager that you are not able to do your job due to security problems. If he does not listen, push this issue high enough and see how long it takes until a different solution is there. Security issues have a high interest today.
Moral courage is not boosting your carrier in the first sight, but it might turn out to be a valuable criteria.
tglx
Microsoft is worried, which is why they are producing XAML, an XML killer.
What needs to happen is a few really interesting XUL application to be written, then for an IE plugin to be developed that lets IE run XUL apps (essentially replacing the IE rendering engine with XUL). That may already have been done.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While this is impressive, Mozillas XUL also introduces some security hazards. Right now they are not really used, but see this example in the 0.9 Firefox Series shows the spoofing/phishing possibilities. IE got into trouble by integrating too much with the OS, XUL might integrate mozillas to far too...
The only time I ever use IE is when a site won't let you past a 'best viewed with IE' screen.
Once you go in with IE, you can find the real target URL, and 9 times out of 10 it works fine in Firefox. If I care about the site, I just bookmark the inside page.
I suppose there are tricks I could do to set Fox to pretend to be IE, but I'm too lazy for that. If I were on Linux fulltime, I suppose I'd have to, but I just periodically import my Firefox bookmarks from Windows into the Linux version.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
This extension allows you to easily open any link in IE without having to copy/paste or even manually start IE. For those few pages that do require IE, it's saves alot of time.
If you want to, you can customise all the "chrome" in Firefox however you like; it's all XUL (google for that).
For example, I have a customised version of Firefox that runs full-screen, with no menubars, no toolbars, and very limited context menus that we use to ensure that users can't get anywhere but the site we want them to browse. We actually use it with Knoppix to create a completely turnkey "kiosk"-style system, but the customisation is equally applicable to Firefox on other platforms.
Cheers,
Nick
Three words for you, my friend:
User Agent Switcher.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Laziness not necessary. Install prefbar (by kicking that kickable clink, in Groklaw lingo) and choosing your preferred language. When done you are (in Yoda lingo), you have a little dropdown menu asking what referrer you want to have, with a choice of a few common ones. Far easier than importing bookmarks. All sorts of other (fully customizable, in PHB lingo) goodies too.
Now how about an alternative email client (free and full featured).
She's not a techie, she just likes to put her photos online for family.
-- Seq
The article says that the Google AdSense administration site only works in IE. Is there someone with an AdSense account out there that can tell us if this is true or not, and if it is, why?
By switching to IE, then you are jumping through the hoop the website developers have set in front of you. I recommend you just ignore the site and move on. There's plenty of other content on the web that's not obfuscated from visitors with browser requirements. Maybe over time, the developers of said sites will realize they can increase their page hits if they open up their site to W3 standards.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
OK, here's my problem. Yahoo mail. When I compose a message, I noticed that with IE, it had a link for "Color and Graphics" as opposed to my currently selected "Plain". When I use Firefox or Mozilla, that option is missing. I checked, and it delivers different pages to IE vs. Mozilla with that option not being delivered in the Mozilla version. I thought I would try the User Agent Switcher to try the Colors option in Firefox. It got that page, but when I clicked that link to switch to "Color and Graphics", the page was all screwed up. Does anyone know what it's trying to render that is so screwed up there? Is it IE being able to "backdoor" something from the OS that other browsers don't have access to or what?
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
What are the companies that bought these products going to do? The companies that developed existing ones will make new ones, and probably resell them for more $$$.
We have one such system at work - for which the login page has some awful script which detects when you hit enter on a textbox and then submits the form (with no submit button at all on the page). I can rewrite the "SubmitMe()" function to be cross-compatible, or perhaps add a button to the page, but I could see how other companies without somebody who has done web-dev could be a little stuck here.
Your current MS IE alternative may become the focus of malicious hacker if enough people move to it. That is the only thing saving grace about the alternative browsers, not enough people use them to be of any interest to hackers.
For some reason, Yahoo! seems be another company that dropped the ball when it comes to non-IE support. This is true with Yahoo! Photos (uses ActiveX on one page), and with its video streaming service. Which is funny, because C|Net streams WMV all the time and it works on Mozilla + Safari. Kinda annoying when you have them for your ISP.
I've been hearing the same complaints from my wife about her computer being slow for months. She's using a Dual Pentium III 750 with 512 Megs of Ram and Windows XP. The problem was her computer is slow, it was IE and Outlook XP being slow.
This weekend I converted her over to Firefox and Thunderbird. Not only was she happy, she was REALLY happy about it and she's thanked me twice more today.
I write a blog on IT Toolbox and today I wrote about this topic. Go check it out!
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/visualbasic/dotnet/arch ives/001750.asp
The link you followed to create a Gmail account has already been used to create an account for sexellent@gmail.com. Now, its account creating powers are all gone. To create another Gmail account, you'll need a shiny new account creation link. We apologize for the inconvenience. (link #25)
sexellent? Is that what you give gmail accounts away for? And hardworking, honest hackers like myself cannot get one? It's a shame!
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
I have been doing some guest teaching at a local high school and when the kids found at that I ran Firefox and Mozilla my credibility quadrupled. As long as Google, GMAIL, E*Trade, and EBAY work with Mozilla I'm good.
On the other side of the age spectrum, Firefox is the ultimate geriatric browser since old-folks who will click on nearly anything that moves can do the least amount of damage to their PC's.
However, I wouldn't count IE out just yet. People will be flocking back in droves when the new Palladium/DRM IE arrives. It will keep users safe from any copyright infringement while installing even more spyware.
Yeah, so you are counted as one more IE user. May work in the short term, but it will contribute to shift the statistics towards IE, what is we *definitly* don't want.
There are people who still use IE? Thats f*ckn crazy, shut up.
Just a WARNING to anyone trying to remove or seriously disable IE... ...I tried this a year or so ago. All I wanted was the Windows OS, no IE. I used the IE-Uninstaller of the time, (now I think its called LitePC or 98Lite). It worked great, and effectively removed IE...
BUT HERE's WHAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW...
You CAN'T use MS SQL Server, MS SQL Server Client, or any program needing ADO! Why? Because all three of those require MDAC, and guess what...
MDAC WON'T install without IE being on the computer!
No MS SQL Server, its client or ADO without MDAC... thus none of the same without IE!
I'm pretty sure this lovely symbiosis was completely missed by the Anti-Trust adventure.
So time for me to learn about other SQL Servers... MySQL being the first.
Hey, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned IEView (http://ieview.mozdev.org/). It's a cool little extension to Mozilla Suite / Firefox. Have you found a web site that hates Mozilla? Are you running Windows? No problem. Right-click on the link, click "Open in IE" and it will open in Internet Explorer.
which is why they are producing XAML, an XML killer.
I'll assume you meant XUL killer.
This type of propaganda keeps poping up. It starts out questioning M$ then comes back around to state that M$ is ubber allas. Come one the M$ fish is long past dead, time to throw it out.
Eh, their new avatar feature in their messenger, can only be customised in a unsecured IE browser. If I have the settings secured in IE, I find I cannot do such things..
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Install linux in your pc
My parents, after tons of proding from both my brother and I, finally gave alternative browsers a try
Warning: Proding considered harmful. Please resist the urge to prode anyone, let alone relatives.
site won't let you past a 'best viewed with IE' screen.
If a site does this to me, (i've only encountered one or two in the past) I dont bother to switch browsers, I simply leave the site. If a webmaster is too ignorant/lazy to at least make an attempt at a site viewable in all browsers, then odds are the content of the site is not worth seeing.
Unfortunately the key to linux on everyone's desktop is too many factors.
.net off.
Graphics card -> ATI and Nvidia are clearly not ready
Databases -> mySQL is actually pretty damn good
UI -> KDE and GNOME is good but still flawed
Browsers -> Firefox hmmm....
Viruses -> good shape
Spyware -> good shape
Adware -> good shape
Office -> still no good email client
Games -> Argh!
Dev -> Still think it needs a good GUI dev tool like visual basic to knock
Using a phone booth, $0.35. When your brain works, things are easy. For everything else, there's a credit card waiting to suck the rest of your life.
XP users, they are so clever.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
MCP was the name of the OS on the Burroughs B-90 mini that I programmed in the early '80s in N.Z. (although I remember it as MCPX - the extended version), and the Wikipedia says that the Tron people borrowed the name from that. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs
Thank you. =D
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
Ok, the following link is best viewed with IE, and you cannot see it without, so you'd better use IE for it, right?
http://www.thisisnotavirushonest.ru/virus.html
You only switch to IE's useagent when you encounter a page which says you need to "upgrade your browser to IE 4.0+"
It's funny some of the names people come up with. You still need one? Email jiggybyte@gmail.com and I might be able to hook you up.
Oh, hands tied. Got ya. ;)
It that case, send or suggest a basic plan up the ladder to use such a blocking feature or the XUL modification that another poster suggested and the advantages each has. Someone may listen. Maybe that would be a start of getting you out of being what you described as being at the bottom of the barrel
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
And spoofing a user agent will no longer be an option--the Palladium infrastructure will cryptographically attest that you are using an authorized browser. Online banking will be all over this, since most people won't change banks over browser choice, and they can trumpet it as a security measure. The fact that they'll cut their costs by only having to write IE specific code is just a bonus.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
But then the administrator of that page sees these articles about how alternative browsers are gaining momentum in the vacuum left by a lack of IE updates, checks his logs, sees that (amazingly) almost everyone who visits his page is using a version of IE, and decides that there's no reason to spend the time making it render properly in the other browsers or to even remove the browser ID check.
If the site isn't crucial (and personally I've never encountered a crucial site, corporate intranet or otherwise), then it's better to make your impression in the logs as a frustrated Mozilla/Opera user. Additionally, sending a polite email to the webmaster asking them to change their page wouldn't be a bad idea. If enough people do that, perhaps the site will be changed and the internet will be a little better for all of us.
Schlock Mercenary
Both IE and Mozilla contain a non-standards-based HTML editor that can be used in a form. Complain to Yahoo that they aren't supporting the functionality in Mozilla. Complain to the W3C that this isn't part of the HTML spec.
Likewise, I've got six if people want them, email hbarker at gmail.
The fact that they'll cut their costs by only having to write IE specific code is just a bonus.
That assumes that banks and other financial institutions are ready to move to IIS based web servers. Everyone running IIS has been burned multiple times already by worms. Connecting anything running a Windows service directly to the Internet has been found to be hazardous to the servers health. Until MS can run worm free for a couple of years, I doubt banks/financial sites will migrate away from Apache. However, I could be wrong... All I know is that I value my sleep (pager not going off = more sleep ) and I wouldn't switch server architectures just to make the webmonkeys happy. There are still some rough spots with CSS, but overall the world of web developlment seems to be converging. The fact the IE is remaining stagnant is helping standards stabilize as well.
That's good to know. Still scary to picture a world in which a web server could force an authenticated client, whether it be IE or anything else. No more ad blocking or flash filtering for us if that were to come to pass!
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Uhh, what's the matter with you? You can use Mozilla and FireFox in exactly the same way if you wish. Just turn off tabbed browsing! You can even map the middle button to open a new window, or "session" as you incorrectly call it. Which btw is still better than IE, in which you have to right click and select Open in New Window.
The "hackers just haven't targeted the alternatives yet" claim is a common refrain from MS apologists.
It's possible that hackers will begin to target Firefox and find it just as exploitable as IE. It's also possible they will begin to target Firefox, and find it to be more secure than IE.
I think "more secure than IE" is not a very hard thing to accomplish. IE is badly designed; this was touched upon in the article. It's true that all software has holes, but I'm convinced that IE is over all a lot worse than Firefox.
or just hit ^N [in IE] to open a new browser with current page in it..
For anyone who doesnt know how to switch from IE here is a tutorials for you:
Switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox
Enhancing Firefox with Browser Extensions
Sorry.
No, he sees people connecting initially with some other browser, and then "switching" to get in past the part that checks the user agent. And then again, he sees alternate browsers checking out the pages.
UNless, of course, all the pages check for IE compatibility.
In any event, I don't have anything installed to let me change my useragent, and I have rarely find pages that either don't render (reasonably) or won't let me view the content.
A session is not a 'window'. A session is a communication session between the server and the browser.
Say you visit your bank and login. In Mozilla, once you login, your session is set between the server and the Mozilla browser. You can middle click and get a tab or window and still be logged in as the same user if the authentication uses sessions like most all user session server bases authentication uses.
If you setup a PHP script, you can see that your session id is identical across all windows and tabs.
There is nothing really wrong with that, just inconvienent for programming and debugging. The pain is that to reset the session, you have to close Mozilla which includes the mail client as well.
Like I said, I use Mozilla for general browsing and mail, Firefox for single session browsing and debugging. Firefox loads quicker.
In IE, every window is a seperate session unless you choose to open a link from a session based visit in another window.
Not really worth it for me to use IE except for browser checking. I just wish Mozilla/Firefox had the option for session management.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
All so true.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Well, I guess there are people who actually want to see those annoying banners and popup windows that Firefox and Mozilla block so easily...
Personally, I have always been quite happy to live without using IE, even when I was running windows.
If Mozilla doesn't patent it, Microsoft will, and then they'll use it to shut everyone else down. I don't see anything wrong with decent organizations patenting good concepts just to prevent companies like Microsoft from having the same opportunity.
all m$ needs to do is come out with "internet explorer 7" change nothing except the version # and add some new sexy icons, and they'll be back in favor with the "average user"
All the torrents you could want.
Wernt they supposed to separate it as part of a court decision? I've yet to find a way to actually separate it - they should release a utility to let you remove all IE components and drop-in replace it with anything that can render html, that means all other applications that call IE (eg WinAmp) would work the same except with a new browser.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I've noticed that WinAmp and Real Player both have browser windows incorporated into them. Are these basically framing in whatever my default browser is, are they their own minibrowser, or what? Do these run IE by default?
The difference between
I guess you refer to Outlook, with its collaborative features.
Outlook is great, until you go on holiday and comeback and have to wait 30 minutes for Outlook doing whatever it needs to do to get going.
It simply does not scale.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Me too - email something fun to woodenrobot@gmail.com and I'll try to get an invite to you.
---
"I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be."
It's an old trick for opening new windows with JavaScript (so you can decide the size and remove the title bar, and so on). Basically they do
<a href="#" onClick="openWindow()">link</a>
the href="#" is there because (IIRC) an anchor without an href is either invalid markup or just doesn't display properly sometimes. The # just means reload this page.
It comes from the days of IE4 where you had to kludge almost everything to get it to work properly.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Better still, contact the business and tell them why you won't be buying one of their products from them.
Google AdSense works fine for me.
Firefox + Phoenity theme + Google toolbar + ... =
eye-candy, powerful and secure web browser.
Give it a try!
Despite the fact that the article tells you that is was written in october, some infos are out-of-date. The latest Firefox is 1.0PR and the browser statistics are much worse for the IE depending on the site monitored.
So those people running these sites will only see IE in their logs, assume that noone uses anything else and continue to make sites that require IE.. This is not what we want atall, we should complain to the website authors and not use the site until it works with standards compliant browsers.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
What we need is an organised site which lists sites which fail in various browsers and organises contact with the webmasters to fix these problems..
On another note, my personal website excludes IE users because it cannot display the CSS properly... The problem is not that it cant, but the fact that it tries and screws up... Lynx for instance doesnt try to render the css, and just displays the text quite nicely.
If anyone is interested in setting up a site to catalog IE-only sites and pressure developers to support standard browsers, mail me - bert64 AT browsers DOT firenzee DOT com
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Or we could actually get our work done by using the site.
Mod point free since 2001
Which encourages use of IE and holds the web back..
Aside from the security risks, consider this:
IE has not seen any major feature updates for years, the support for modern standards like CSS is the worst of any browser in use today and shows no signs of improving. The widespread use of IE is stifling innovation on the web, a few years ago new and innovative advancements were coming out regularly, now we've not seen anything new for several years, all because of IE.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Three words for you, my friend:
Make a link.
;-)
I use Firefox.
I like Firefox.
Don't fire the fox
because
that fox is on fire!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I don't especially care about "innovation on the web," I care more about the content the web is letting me access. If I have to use IE to get that content, than so be it. Innovations on the web are just methods to access content.
Mod point free since 2001
Two words:
I'm lazy.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Twitter, you're a petulant cock-gobbling sycophant to Linux Torvaldyos! Quit taking DP from ESR and RMS's feculent cocks and why don't you try to stop sucking quite so much? Get out of your parents' basement and see the real world - maybe then you'll see how pathetic you sound, with your neverending stream of bullshit about how Microsoft is stalking you. Wasn't it you who said that Microsoft believes your insane ranting is actually a threat to them, so they PAY PEOPLE to reply to you on Slashdot? No sir, I don't get any money. I do it for the love. Someone has to go up against your paranoid whining. So get back in your cage and shut the fuck up already.
So, your content with the web to remain exactly as it is now (and has been for the past 4 or so years)?
Or would you rather it remained as it was in the early 90's when it was first invented, remember the days of HTML 1.0 when we didn't even have forms, no frames, no background images...
Had MS been the dominant player in those days, you can bet the web would have stagnated at that level instead.. People wouldnt be any the wiser because they wouldnt realise that newer technologies exist, just like they dont now.. How do you know we wouldn't have a lot of new technologies were it not for IE holding us back...
Besides, innovations on the webs are not only ways to access content, but ways to sort and search content, and make content more accessible to those with disabilities or limited finances (slow connection, old computers) or new technologies like mobile links..
Look at things like flash, this wouldnt have been needed as a plugin had a standard been implemented, there are several standards for doing similar things, and yet theyre not implemented in IE... other browsers may implement them, but theyre not widely used because most browsers cant display them.. Look at things like MNG or SVG..
Consider this, flash files cannot be searched by search engines, do not work with text to speech tools and display at fixed sizes and don't scale/zoom, making them inaccessible to those with poor eyesight and others.. Many of what flash is used for can be accomplished with CSS, there were some nice examples of butterflies which can be dragged around the screen done entirely with CSS for instance.. Published standards can be easily implemented by search engines and appliance vendors etc...
One of the biggest reasons the web appliances didn't take off, was because of the difficulty of writing a browser, the appliance vendor didn't have a clearly defined standard to follow, they had to work out the bugs and quirks of IE in order to display many common websites. This was difficult and time consuming to do, which made it cost and time prohibitive to do it properly, resulting in half assed attempts which still took too much to implement and left users thinking the appliances were crap.. In reality the vendors worked very hard but didn't have the resources to reverse engineer IE enough to work out its many bugs.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
So to paraphrase, you're saying "If it wasn't for modern browsers, would have Flash. Flash isn't very good"?
I'm not saying the web should stay stagnant technologically, just that if I go to a website, I'm going there for the content. "Helping making the internet better" comes I get my job done. How do you explain to a client you couldn't finish their projected because your were philosophically opposed to the design of one of the websites you needed to get something from?
Mod point free since 2001
Internet explorer also goes against your "accessing content" idea...
Microsoft actively encourages design of non-degrading sites, whereas the standards dictate sites which will degrade gracefully in browsers not supporting the feature sets.. Standards compliant sites display just fine in lynx for instance.
Now consider this... IE is no longer being developed for mac or unix, and versions for older releases of windows are not being updated.... So if a site your trying to view depends on a feature only present in the latest version of IE you have no choice but to buy a newer version of windows, which may also require you to buy newer hardware aswell... This destroys the idea of the web being accessible to all, those who cannot afford the latest hardware or software are left out in the cold..
Do you bill your client for the purchase of client software required to view the websites you need to get something from?
How do you explain to your client that due to your use of IE your machine became infected with a virus and their project is delayed/lost because of this, or even stolen by a competitor!
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
DRM, Digital Rights Management -- "you have no digital rights." Spyware is, of course, an integral part of how DRM works. How else to know exactly what you've got on your machine? Well, not *your* machine per se, but the machine you're being allowed to use, at any rate...
...only half tongue-in-cheek.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."