Slashdot Mirror
Finland Issues IE 6 Warning
loconet writes "ZDNet UK reports that The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority have warned computer users
against using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 web browser as it has a serious
security flaw that compromises computer systems. Microsoft has yet to announce when it will release a patch for the vulnerability, which does not affect XP SP2 users but does affect Windows 2000 users and XP SP1 users. The vulnerability was published at the beginning of November."
For the record: for several hours this was top news on the front page of aftonbladet.se, the most visited Swedish news site, with the headline "Don't use Internet Explorer". Hopefully at least a few people followed their link to mozilla.org...
www.getfirefox.com www.spreadfirefox.com
Again.
That's what? The 1000000th time a 'big' institiution has said to use something other then shiternet exploder?
Loosely translated: "If you are not using Windows XP, or installing SP2 is not possible, you can also use a different Internet-browser, until the vulnerability is patched."
This is still far from saying "DON'T USE IE, YOU MORONS!"
My own family was an example of how these suddle ways of trying to make people to care about computer security don't work.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
It will only be a matter of time before we start seeing harsher words about Internet Explorer's security problems. "Don't use Internet Explorer" is more of a catch phrase than a warning.
Imagine seeing harsher words from security firms like,"Internet Explorer is a virus vector" or "Internet Explorer makes Windows an unsafe OS."
Harsher words may prompt harsher actions. The realization of IE's entanglement with Windows may finally be officially recognized as a problem and not an enhancement or innovation.
Read this :-)
Looks like Microsoft PR department has also heeded to the warning
The US always seems to be way behind on anything involving intelligent decisions. Why don't we get warnings about MS crap stinking?
--- MS: "Working software is soooo nineties!"
The demand is out there. Whenever I show or tell about the options avaiable, the non-tech people ask afterwards why haven't they received this information earlier.
Perhaps one reason for the decision by the Finnish agencies to advise against MSIE and for Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, etc. is to compensate for harm done from the computer "security" campaign earlier this year, which amounted to nothing more than a state funded 8-page, 4-color MS ad delivered to every home, apartment or dorm in the country. Telling die hard Chairman Bill fans to update and patch is one thing, but neglecting to even name other options appears to fall somewhere between irresponsible/incompetent and graft.
Maybe this will lead to discussion of other useful tools and operating systems. Obviously, Mozilla, Firefox and Opera are drop in replacements. Likewise, MS-Outlook has a worse track record than MSIE and should be shunned in favor of Eudora, Mozilla, Thunderbird, etc. Home users that just want a computers that works should look at OS X, though I bet there would be a good cottage industry in upgrading old x86 machines to a Linux or BSD distro.
There are also issues like file incompatibility, technological obsolesence, and platform lock-in that those and options like OOo avoid.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
.... Unpatched versions of Solaris, Linux, *BSD and PalmOS also have security problems
I cannot find anything on The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority's WWW site about it, and (thanks to timothy not even looking articles he posts links to) the text in the story, "warned computer users against using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6" links to an article which doesn't even *mention* the warning.
*If* the story is true, can some of the /. Powers that Be edit the story to link to an article that *is* about the story.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Okay I know you're being relative here. But I wouldn' exactly call http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland a small country. And the US is not really far behind on this sort of stuff. I recall at least one zdnet article on switching to firefox and several columns. It's all in your head, really.