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Penn State Tells Students To Ditch IE

Hoyceman writes "About 80,000 students and staff are being told to use an alternate browser. The Penn State ITS department sent the alert 'because the threats are real and alternatives exist to mitigate Web browser vulnerabilities.' InformationWeek is carrying the story."

10 of 486 comments (clear)

  1. FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    FROSTY PISS

  2. Alternate browser? by mistersooreams · · Score: -1, Troll

    Use an alternate browser? Sorry, alternate to what? I know this is Slashdot and so the answer to my question is common knowledge around here, but surely story headlines should be self-contained? Or at least make some sense on their own.

  3. Re:People still use IE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I agree, homosexuality is the way to go, those millions of Windows users having snu-snu with the opposite sex are so 80's.

  4. WinAmp and the MBR by kingkade · · Score: 0, Troll

    When you install winamp an option to install a component into the machine's MBR may have been chosen in the default full install. This enables a WinAmp [Boot] Agent to load itself before calling the ntldr, thus allowing the machine to be configured to play a MIDI, AU or MP3 stream at the splash while the machine boots. Also, there was a security advisory for WinAmp 5.03, if that has anything to do with it.

    Cheers, HTH

    1. Re:WinAmp and the MBR by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 0, Troll
      Actually, I have had crashes that I was able to relate to Winamp before.

      One of the things Winamp does/did is bind to the CD autoplay feature.

      In practice that means if I insert some software-only CD Roms into the drive, and installed some pieces of software from it, several minutes through the install -boom! The hard-locked/dead OS wasn't really very communicative about exactly what had gone on. It didn't effect every install, but some software became completely uninstallable.

      Either way, on two different machines, uninstall Winamp, and the problem went away. Reinstall- the problem came back. Gack!

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
  5. Feel sorry for the IT departments by eneville · · Score: 0, Troll

    Students are going to be asking: 1) Duh does my intarweb still work? 2) Wheres my popups gone? 3) Why doesn't the flash movies work? 4) What are these tab thingys? 5) Whats a book mark?

  6. Re:Nice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Sounds like they've become even more inept... Rather than doing their job (protect their own network, educate users about PC software updates and security), they'd rather say it's Microsoft's fault... how easy it is to blame the other for one's own shortcommings. It seems strange to me, I've had Window's PC's on broadband connections for years (behind NAT routers and with current AV software) and never once had a problem. On the other hand, I've had friends who prefer Linux who've spent ages looking for compatible software, dealing with dependency hell, software crashes, etc.

  7. Re:About time by hutchy · · Score: 0, Troll

    I think your pretty arrogant, and you wasted 6 years of your time. I would put you in the category of DOLT.

  8. Re:Support is important. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical sycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" or "fanboy" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

    I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

    If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

    To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".

    Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

    Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.

    More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.

    Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.

    M

  9. Re:Integration nonsense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical sycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" or "fanboy" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

    I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

    If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

    To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".

    Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

    Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.

    More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.

    Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.

    M