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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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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.
Too bad Opera had it first.
Douchebag.
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 Mozilla guys should patent "tabbed browsing", allowing royalty free use in any browser who requests it. With one exception, of course (IE)...
ummm.. yeah.. nevermind that OPERA HAD IT FIRST
#!/
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.
They also list Firefox .9 as the latest version. The article was clearly written a while back... that's all.
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
Like Excel...
(Ouch... I forgot to put on my asbestos suit.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Actually, if you "hurry" to www.netscape.com, you will see right on the front page they advertise Netscape 7.2. The article claims to have been written in October, when, in fact, Netscape 7.2 was released in August, and AOL announced they would make that release back in March; also stating that:
Management in this case being enterprise management of IE configuration, rather than the ability of the end user to manage their cookes, etc.
Funny. I use Firefox at all times. I have no problems with viewing 99.999% of all sites I visit. And I'm dead serious all the time.
Please note that your statement does not confer the meaning that programs like FireFox cannot view 99.999% of the sites on the web.
I have only encountered one website (other then MS windows update page) that gives me a problem via FireFox, and then it is only a loss of part of its functionality.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
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.
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.
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.
Sorry, there is no Fud and the article is no flamefest. The magazine as others pointed out was until a while ago a total Microsoft laptop. And all the points people have risen in the past about IE. (Swiss cheese of browsers, not standards compliant for newer standards after 1997, lack of security and numerous other things are valid.) The article in my opinion was pretty good from a Windows admin perspective. It raises valid points which can concern the average windows admin.
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...
Yup, do your worst. http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/0.10.1/
Three words for you, my friend:
User Agent Switcher.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Funny thing, all this automatic downloading and updating is something that people used to like to bitch about with IE.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've tried the alternate browers, and they are CRAP
You're quite right, that's actually what one of my coworkers said. He had got tired of IE popups and security problems and I mentioned he could try Firefox. He liked the tabbed browsing and the popup blocking, but he didn't like the pluggin support (actually having to download plugins when most of the necessary ones are installed by default on IE such as Java). Also, our internal bug management system has a web frontend with lots of java that would randomly crash Firefox. If it was any other page, it would probably be okay, but we probably spend 80% of our web time on that page tracking bugs, modifying bugs, etc and having it crash so often (about every third time it was loaded), he gave up. Couple that with the fact that the other 15% of the web time he is on a web based conferencing system (WebEX) that uses ActiveX controls, it just became too much trouble to use Firefox and just switched back to IE.
Granted he did say it would give it a shot at home where he didn't need the Java and ActiveX as much, but I doubt he actually did. It wasn't the feature differences (he liked those), just the compatability differences.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
We use MSI internally for several reasons. One is that we have a legacy VB app that is broken down into about 25 separate dlls and ocxs and the VB Setup.exe tool proved completely inadequate for creating updated installations. With the budget we had for software ($0) we found that we could use the MSI tool that came with VS 6 and at least make the upgrade process work.
The other primary reason we use MSIs is that Active Directory prevents users from installing applications via Setup.exe, and we were able to create a loophole in the policy allowing execution of setup.msi.
Hope this answers your question.
"Seek first to understand." - Socrates
> You have to use Javascript? Please get yourself a site that does Java or PHP.
Please to tell me how to set default focus with PHP. Now get a fucking clue, twit.
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.
IE does not have automatic updates, nor does it automatically download content. If anything, you're probably refering to the windows update application, which has NOTHING todo with IE.
There was something else that installed features in IE easilly for you, called "install on demand", however, that's nothing todo with automatic updates.
Oh, and another note, fire fox does not download program updates automatically, it notifies that you there is a update availible. You have to tell it to download it (which is good for those who wear tinhats I suppose).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I tend to try to get my sites to display in netscape communicator 4.8 correctly, I've noticed once I've done that, I don't have a problem getting the site to display correctly in other browsers (of course I additionally add CSS for browsers that can handle it).
I'll make a note that your site looks slightly weird in Netscape communicator 4.8
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Mozillia.org is not defaulted as a trusted site because it could be comprimised when you install. Given that the home page defaults to mozilla.org, this would be unacceptable for a parinoid security policy.
Although, given that the senario being discussed is migrating from IE to Moz, that doesn't make much sense.....
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
They didn't forget. This is on purpose.
If you place mozilla.org as a trusted site, this would include bugzilla.mozilla.org as trusted (since it matches against the end of the domain). Anyone can upload anything to bugzilla.mozilla.org as an attachment to a bug report - including XPIs.
This would make it very easy for a malicious user to make you install a bad XPI from a "trusted" site.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Or, install Opera (http://www.opera.com/), and spare yourself from half those steps. Sweet browser indeed.
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
actually for the nvidia drivers over the past few months they've really become comparable to windows. You can't notice any difference playing UT2004 at least - yet to see about Doom 3 (I'll be waiting patiently :) ). Things might change if Doom 3 gives lots of lag . . .
BTW what's so bad about thunderbird or evolution? I agree with you about KDE and Gnome though.