Slashdot Mirror
Plugin Lets Users Turn IE into Firefox
An anonymous reader writes "There is a new plugin available for IE that can make Internet Explorer resemble Firefox by adding tabbed browsing capabilities and an integrated search box. Moreover, the plugin improves IE's privacy and security by integrating a firewall designed to block out Internet exploits, phishing sites, spammers, spyware and worms, with a special HTTP filter that removes private data, and an anti-spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 seconds"
What I need is a Firefox-plugin that looks exactly like IE (including the lack of tabs and search box) while still providing the same level of security.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
or they could just use firefox.
Why use fake Firefox when you can use the real thing?
In case the main site is slashdotted, you can also download the program in question here.
Why would I want to use this plugin to mimick FF, when I could just use the real thing?
Filter slashdot dupes?
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
Sounds like it has a bit more features and perhaps some better security enhancements than the vanilla Firefox installation.
shop.envescent.com - Computer hardware and more.
Does plugin removes IE and installs Firefox?
But maybe this would be more acceptable for traditionally wary and skittish corporations?
Site is down.
Or you could just switch to Firefox :)
is that all it does?
already down... and I was ready to do it!
Damn wannabies...
The article's claims of "and an anti-spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 seconds" are exceedingly hard to swallow.
What heuristics are they using that can find and zap all unmentionables in 10 seconds? Has "anonymous reader" ever run a virus/spyware scan before?
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
So I can make best use of my favorite Active X webapp... RemotelyAnywhere. (and yes, I know that RA uses Java as well, but the ActiveX interface is SO much nicer!)
Mods be damned, Scuttlemonkey's submissions are getting more and more similar to mass-media headlines. This title has the express purpose of starting a flamewar on the world's most popular anti-ms site.
It makes IE look somewhat like firefox, and adds some lacking functionality that makes it work somewhat like firefox. The two are neither identical nor interchangable.
A couple fans told me that my last journal entry was mint; give it a shot. Hope you like.
;).
Kind of silly not to just use Firefox, eh?
Loading...
any chance this has spyware, etc?
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Beowulf cluster of first posts run on IE with this plugin
Make America grate again!
It's a conspiracy!
slashdotted already
Error 500
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
to just install Firefox?
500 Internal Server Error.
That didn't take long at all...
Is this for real?? The site has an internal (500) error. Probably hacked by M$... not.
It's not April is it? No. What kind of joke is this?
anyhow, FP!
-- AC
What's the point? There's numerous add-ons for IE that have been around for a long time now that give this kind of functionality. The only difference is that they don't try to emulate the look of firefox
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Why would you wanna do that?
at least not on their server(s)
Yay! all the benefits of looking like FF without the improved website rendering or large library of useful plugins or automatic disabling of activex or ...
Alternate Link: here
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
that you can't polish a turd. I guess somebody thinks you can.
My humor is probably your flamebait
There's more to FF than just tabbed browsing. I like the security.
and right now it's free!!! my.opera.com
I've been using Crazybrowser for years, if this interests you crazy is also worth a look.
http://www.crazybrowser.com/
Then why not just get Firefox? It'll give you everything this plguin has, and more.
yeah its called firefox. It even adds an nifty little fox icon so you can start browsing in firefox mode right away. Simply delete the redundant blue 'e' from the desktop if it confuses you.
I used FireFox for a while, but I recently returned to using IE. The reason is that there were too many websites that displayed incorrectly or used plug-ins that weren't supported by FireFox. Also there were a lot of minor annoyances that weren't fixable with plug-ins alone.
As a tech-savvy net browser, I am able to avoid/repair any spam or malware I might pick up with IE, so displaying pages correctly and avoiding the various small bugs of FireFox was what led me back to Microsoft. I'm sure there are many people out there who think like I do, and this plug-in will certainly bring more people back to IE from FireFox. Adding tabbed browsing and security fixes to IE will be the deciding factor in slowing the migration to third-party browsers. Why compromise surfing if plug-ins like this give all the functionality of FireFox to the correct** rendering capabilities and ease of use of IE?
**I know that many web pages are indeed programmed "incorrectly" and suffer from many programming errors, which is probably the cause of Firefox's rendering issues. However, as the end user in no position to fix such problems on the web site's end, I have little alternative then to use IE's sloppy but visually correct rendering.
...that makes my WinXP resemble my Linux box...but without all of those neat little security features and everything.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
I think its caclled IE 7. Even the shortcuts are the same, as well as tabs and search box in the upper right corner, with selectable search engines.
sig: Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not
Does it remove the vulnerabilities and other bugs ?
Did anyone else see that for a second (or maybe longer?) the format of Slashdot changed? "Read more" was replaced by the headline title, the right sidebars were gone...?
...even, good!
I don't think it could have been a glitch in the rendering; it looked too orderly and intentioned.
So, it's actually just another alternative IE shell, with the slight difference that it's loaded by the IE executable rather than being a separate executable and using the IE rendering dll. Tabbed browsing etc. can be had in plenty of such shells, e.g. slimbrowser, and most will include a "firewall" or similar, not that they're usually effective at stopping all the malware IE is all too happy to run but it's better than nothing if the user is an idiot. It doesn't fix the most fundamental problem with IE, its broken nonstandard rendering.
I am trolling
And so it still has the insanely buggy IE rendering engine, which has been holding webdevelopers back for the last five years.
Firefox is specifically being popularized to further the state of webstandards, to promote openness and choice on the internet. (See the mission statement of the Mozilla Foundation.) Alternatives to Firefox that focus purely on such superficial features are about the worst thing that can happen. (Let's hope the 500 server error will remain for a long time to come.)
I don't see the point. If you want it to look, feel, and act like firefox, why not get firefox. Yes that is the redundant part. As for the office (scuttlemonkey's idea for a place where this can be useful): if you're equipment is being held so tightly that you can't install firefox, don't you think installing this will get you fired? Many companies keep really tight control over such equipment. Seriously, this is interesting for any ie fanboys, but I don't see any practical application for such an extension (nor do I envision a market for such a thing).
Microsoft will patent Firefox.
Will it remove disable all the plugins that were installed without my permission, including Genuine Advantage?
A big part of what makes Firefox good is its Gecko rendering engine, which happens to be much better at rendering web content according to w3c specifications than IE does.
Does this plugin address any of that? I'm guessing not, since it wouldn't likely be possible to do that with IE through a simple plugin. At any rate, that makes this thing much less interesting IMO.
You thought I was going to say Linux. Seriously, interface isn't what made FF popular. If it was that simple, Opera would have crushed FF a long time ago.
It's customizability. One of Dreamweaver's most competitive features is the ability to write plugins for it in known languages -- JavaScript and XML. Guess what FF plugins are written in.
A product with a locked featureset is going to suffer against a product you can upgrade piece by piece for free. There are people out there who hate this, but they're slowly figuring out they're the minority.
Good luck improving IE 7. I'm a web designer and I welcome the adoption of standards. But even if FF is losing momentum, it's still going to be with us for some time -- or another cross-platform open-source alternative.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
an anti-spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 seconds"
Try and download your copy today, from a site that can be slashdotted in less than 10 seconds!
// no
Can it replace the broken rendering engine with Gecko too? Simple PNG transparency support, unbroken absolute positioning, this kind of stuff?
Does it support popup blocking? Find-as-you-type?
well...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
and make a FF browser that looks like IE and uses their non-standard way of reading websites. I have to use IE for work related sites, but i use FF for everything else, it would be nice to have all of MS's hacks and non-standard code work in firefox. For those of us forced to use it.
If they wanted to make IE like firefox it would have to use 90% of your ram, freeze randomly, and crash at least once a week.
format c: /q /x /y
is still a wolf.
It's working already! I just tried to go to a site called "http://www.getfoxie.com/" and instead of a dangerous web site, I got a harmless "Internal Server Error" instead. Woot! Woot!
with the added features of Firefox!
...
um, yeah.
Now if they'd just fix the music.yahoo.com so it works properly in Firefox, this might not actually be appealing
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Who is going to use this? What demographic is this targetting? There's not a platform out there that supports IE but not FF. People who can't install Firefox on public/work machines due to lowered permissions won't be able to install this either. People who want Firefox will use Firefox. This plugin serves no purpose, and the "gets rid of ALL spyware in TEN seconds" line sounds like magical marketing-speak.
Actually, it's the website's claim:
Yahoo Cache
Oddly, Google does not have the page cached.
site's already dead...slashdotted. :(
Touche!
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
I want to use make a crappy browser (IE) look like Firefox, instead of going to the website and downloading the 10 meg file and just use Firefox.
This is slashdot. A much larger percentage us than you will find elsewhere have, in fact, never run a virus or spyware scan because we are not running Windows, so chances are very good that "anonymous reader" has not. Neither have I, in fact.
Once the plugin changes IE to Firefox, and prevents you from ever having to worry about internet security again; you can use it to pay your bills on-line, clean your floors, intercept calls from your mother-in-law, throw out the old vegetables in your fridge, test your smoke detectors, rotate your tires, and remove that icky stuff that forms on your shower walls...
Pity.
The opinion above is fiction. Any similarity to real opinions, including facts and logic, is purely coincidental.
But then I wonder, just what is a "good worm" or "good spyware." Good, maybe to John Q. Public, but maybe not to Microsoft (as it would be showing the major flaws in IE).
Of course, the right of what software to install should be in the hands of the user, but what if this thing stopped zombies from being created? Would we be willing to break a few rules "for the better good?"
Maxthon does a similar thing. Is a browser even close to equalling Firefox just because it looks the same? If it doesn't run on Gecko, how is it even close? It won't render anything as well as Firefox does. I remember when Maxthon first came out and people shouted for the Firefox users to switch, after all, it was 'exactly the same', just 'better'.
If it runs on Microsoft stuff, it ain't no good!
Sig Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I am the only hacker I know who actually prefers IE (security zones are a killer feature once you fix the stupid defaults), but I do miss tabbed browsing. A while ago, I went looking for tabbed browsing for IE and came across Avant Browser. It's an MDI interface for IE, each tab containing an IE web browser control. My only complaint is a user interface bug where it loses focus in the browser control itself when I alt-tab to a different application. I'll have to try this new plug-in and see if it's any better.
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Does it include automatic BugMeNot capability?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Ok the slashdot effect is well known but Google has only three pages cached and there isn't anything elsewhere.
What would Admiral Ackbar do?
Yell: It's a Trap!
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
You can use MeadCo's Neptune plugin which allows ActiveX to work in Opera and FireFox.
http://www.meadroid.com/neptune//
All right, for all you "just use firefox" idiots, there are unfortunately times when you need to use IE (like for some non-standard compliant web based software - hell there are times when I need to fire up IE under wine on my main box, a debian machine). This is a nice compromise.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
fools gold looks like gold, but look on the inside, its crap. cubic zirconia looks like a diamond, but look on the inside, its crap. IE LOOKS like firefox but....
Site Slashdotted. Coral Cached
http://www.getfoxie.com.nyud.net:8090/
unless it fixes the (bad) rendering and let's me use firefox plugins, i don't want it!
Ho ho ho!
http://www.websitepromotion.ws/firefoxie/
Cross-dressing is nothing to be ashamed of. Plug-in the real you here.
Trademark infringement, anyone? Did you see their logo? And the layout of their web page is clearly designed to blur the distinction between the Mozilla Foundation and whatever organization or company owns this project.
It appears to me that this group is trying to piggy-back on the success of the Firefox name and image in order to further their own product.
here
It wasn't obvious to me if you needed to be admin to install. If so, it kind of blows the argument of giving corporate types who are locked to IE an alternative.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
This is nothing new... Maxthon (formerly known as myIE2) has been doing everything but the "firewall" for years. It uses the IE engine, but behaves like a separate browser.
How can they possibly claim "an anti-spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 seconds"??? I have never seen or heard of any anti-spyware, ad-ware, or virus tool that can remove absolutely everything. Now I can't get to the real site to see what it actually says, but the post does seem very misleading in that respect, because I don't think that it is possible to identify and remove all pests in 10 seconds!!! Or even ever!
Mirror of Foxie!. Even the download link works!
Dashboard Widgets
Why would anyone waste his time trying to patch a crappy browser instead of simply using a better one to begin with? I don't quite understand that.
Poor server never saw it coming... :(
I planned on inserting something witty here but never got around to it.
There appears to be nothing in the EULA that makes it claim to be spyware/adware.
It's heavily tied in with Ask Jeeves; it comes bundled with their desktop search, and you can't change the search button to go anywhere else.
It comes with a desktop firewall, spyware cleaner and privacy shredder (cookie/temp files deleter) but I'll leave someone with a clean VM image to try those things on thankyou!
While it would be nice to have tabs and a search box in IE, those are not the features of Firefox that make me use it. If you did something like "block ActiveX in IE", you'd get close, but then all those things that require IE wouldn't work.
The adblocker works. It displays boxes with "Ad blocked" rather than no ad at all, and lets you show them by clicking on them.
I look after a lot of people who need to keep using IE for various sites, but I still think that Firefox for general browsing and icons on the desktop for broken sites is the best option.
Hats off to the Foxie people though; it's not OSS and it's likely to be funded/sponsored by a search engine, but will be interesting to see if it gets better. It might be worth throwing on the PCs of people who need to use IE for regular browsing.
The rendering engine remains unchanged. Gecko, the rendering engine behind Firefox and all other Mozilla products/projects is what would make the real difference between them and any IE based piece of software.
When someone creates a plugin which would let replace the broken rendering engine of IE (I don't remember how it's called) with Gecko then that would be newsworthy.
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
Does it improve CSS rendering? Does it support Firefox extensions?
Basic functionality and GUI aren't Firefox features worth copying.
Take a turd and applying some frosting does not make it into chocolate cake. To make IE secure, you'd probably have to turn off the features that allow the FF plug-in to run.
Its main interest to me is for a customer who's choice in Digital camera means I have to leave his default browser set to IE. Otherwise the camera software breaks in annoying ways.
If this can give him the same security as his co-workers and not break the camera software then it's great.
Time will tell.
Hahaha, slashdot.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
Have now run the spyware sweeper. Damned right it's fast; came up in 2 seconds, and with four hits. Asking for details on them included "host redirector" (windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) and "search redirector" (registry entries, shown without values, probably as a result of installing Google Toolbar).
Nothing at all like a "full" antispyware scanner like Spybot or MS/Giant AntiSpyware.
... a plugin that lets users turn Windows into Linux
I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to use ctrl+T a LOT for generating new tabs. I don't like the fact that you have to use the little green plus on the foxie toolbar to add the tab. That, and foxie seemed to mixup the google toolbar and the foxie toolbar when I was trying to turn one (or the other) off. I had to turn off the foxie toolbar to turn off the google toolbar. Maybe this wasn't ready enough to be called an IE->Firefox plugin
Getfoxie.com sued by the Mozilla Foudation for resemblance and stealing all likeliness. IE users become saddened that they have to continue using plain ole IE.
Does it also make IE standards compliant? Add transparent png support? No thanks.
Once we had that, then we could code a new type of worm that installed firefox through an IE exploit (Ironic!) that looked exactly like IE. Once that was done the worm could attempt to send itself out to a certain number of computers and then terminate completely and remove all traces of itself. It's Brilliant! The best thing is that no one would know!
Of course then you may end up giving MS a big head. THey may think something like, "Look, we finally fixed most of it!"
-- Afternoon Satire
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
Just for one second PLEASE realize that there are legitimate reasons for this plugin. They might not be reasons you would choose, or it could be that are forced on you (businesses), but they are valid nonetheless.
Looks like IE 7 came early, but not from Microsoft.
I can't see the website (down atm), but really folks, what is the point? From the description, this isn't exactly "IE as firefox", it's just a plugin for tabs, higher security, spyware removal, etc, all in one. How is that firefox? It's just taking on the features of ff...
No you see, what I would really like is a plugin for firefox that cripple's its CSS rendering to that of IE... then not only do you never have to use IE, but you can preview the way your site is going to look to most of the world, even from OSX and Linux. =P
-Chris
Time IQ - Web Based Time Tracking
I've tried FireFox and Moz flavors, Opera, Maxthon, IE 7, and IE6 with MSN tabs.
Over all, for play browsing, I use FireFox, for work I use IE becaus, well we are a SharePoint shop and I am, after all, the SharePoint Evangelist.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
and what is the name of this plugin that provides all the features of firefox?
[drumroll............]
It's name is... ahem... Firefox....
Consider that IE is the entry point for most spy and malware. Perhaps they mean that the browser can either intercept the malware, or at least remove it soon after installation.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The site is not responding right now, so maybe they clarify this point, but what's the purpose of putting a firewall, which traditionally does stuff like port filtering and rate limiting, at the browser level? Or are they just using the term "firewall" as a buzzword to indicate popup blocking, which really has nothing at all to do with a firewall?
rooooar
Not even heard of Maxthon (by the makers of MyIE2 apparently) - I've just tried it for a good hour or so and its actually quite slick.
:)
:) - and its good! [although theres no close button the right, which confused me somewhat :)]
Supports multiple proxies, autorefresh (these are available as addons to firefox), and has tabs (inc undo), switchable disable of activex, download and ad managers.
Took me a while to find the Gecko engine, but there's details at their forums. Unfortuately its a bloody ActiveX plugin with the Gecko engine in, and its huge!
I'm impressed - Its certainly better than IE - and suitable as a replacement for it, and very quick. Surprisingly, it actually runs WindowsUpdate faster than IE6 does on my PC [after Disabling Windows Advantage, naturally]
There's some faults that let it down but working with IE, its probably the best they could do
Having said that and having used it, I'm still going to stick with Firefox!
Though I am going to keep it installed along with OffByOne - [thanks to Artifakt who i saw mentioned it yesterday] not many features (no iframes, even!) but small enough to run on a floppy! Comes in very useful occassionally!
Duguk
A 16 year old putting on a fake mustache to buy beer.
1) create an IE plugin. In side of this plugin put a full, decompressed, working firefox install
2) when your site detects IE, try sending your page as data for the plugin you just had the user install.
3) the plugin passes the rendering of the HTML to firefox which renders inside of the IE window. Your IE window appears to have all of the benefits of firefox while your users still think they're using IE.
You laugh, but I've done it before and it works. The only problem is the big install and making sure that your site uses the plugin if its available.
{
addTabs();
removeSpyware();
registerSearchBar();
}
or they could just use firefox.
Or you could just keep your head up your ass and keep missing the points of the stories!
10 seconds per page, perhaps, or per web object? Those figures are believable - but would make the plug-in unusable.
- make me a sandwich
- do what i say when i say
- don't talk so damn much
You guys make the plug-in, I'll find a girlfriend.Ready....break!
i don't care
Encouragement to use IE is the last thing we want to give Windows users. If IE weren't the dominant browser, web designers couldn't get away with making pages that only work in IE. If a web page uses ActiveX, and you're not using IE and Windows, you're out of luck.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
This stunning news has been reported by the superior R&D labs at Microsoft....
Hold on....
This just in.
In a shocking twist, it has just been discovered that in fact, the browser was actually Internet Explorer, made by Microsoft. In an underhanded tactic, Microsoft contracted a shady company to develop a plugin designed to mimic the popular open source browser.
With the plugin firmly embeded as a "Critical Update" anybody that has recently patched their IE browser would have this new "functionality." After a short period of inactivity, this plugin will start transmitting your vital and personal information.
This will enable Microsoft to cry for the ban of the browser "firefox" since all browsers will look like it. After crushing the open source browser, Microsoft would release an "update" that removes the new plugin. Microsoft then will initiate a huge media campain claiming IE is the "Next Best Thing" and much more secure that the evil "Firefox.
For more on this story please tune into /. tomorrow for the daily dupe.
Wait--so we get all the glamour of firefox with all the insecurities of IE? SCORE
my life would be significantly easier if somebody wrote a plugin that allowed internet explorer to use the gecko renderer, and especially if there was some way to make it install on demand (e.g. gecko renderer activeX control). giving ie tabs and a search box are completely uninteresting to me, but give me a way to make pages i write look the same in ie as they do in firefox, and i will be a *very* happy camper.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Maxthon (formerly MyIE) does most of, if not all of those things and it's been around for years now. Link: http://www.maxthon.com/
why try fixing a crappy browser when you can simply use a good one?
If you want firefox like capabilities but using IE... Try http://www.deepnetexplorer.com/ This amazing browser is built off IExplorer so it works for any webpage but with all the features including tabbed browsing as well as a nifty phishing identification system as well.
While it would be nice to have tabs and a search box in IE, those are not the features of Firefox that make me use it. If you did something like "block ActiveX in IE", you'd get close, but then all those things that require IE wouldn't work.
Copy the MS HTML control, binary patch the copy so it has its own registry keys and profile and doesn't get confused with the original. That includes its own HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT!
Using these patched keys, configure it so it will ONLY run ActiveX controls from %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\%GENSYM%\chrome - I guess it might be safe to make everything not in that directory "internet zone" and set its version of "internet zone" to disable scripting, the whole kit and caboodle.
Now you can copy the controls you know are safe to use and necessary for to function as a web browser into that directory, and put a bare minimum of applications in its HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.
Then patch the IE "shell" and Outlook to use this control.
The MSN toolbar does this already. Thanks to the websites which allow only IE (sarcasm), I have to use it sometimes. The tabbed browsing experience with it is slow, buggy, and poorly designed - doesn't even come close to Firefox. Thankfully, the toolbar lets me choose which search engine to use, so I don't need both MSN and Google toolbars.
That's all i gotta say.
The title of this article does not match its contents..... will it really "turn IE into Firefox"? Will I be able to use all of my firefox extensions with this new browser? Will it transform the source code from closed to open? Will it get rid of that annoying "E" icon?
I think not.... Even the summary refutes this bad title:
"new plugin available for IE that can make Internet Explorer resemble Firefox"
Resemble..... not "into"
----
next weeks slashdot:
"New Plugin turns Windows into Linux!"
read more rants: thunt.net
Actually, the majority of Slashdot visitors are Windows users. This was confirmed in the old IRC interview and in recent posts by Taco and others.
"Sufferin' succotash."
..you can still get it from www.download.com
I was conned by an old man in a cloak. It turns out those *were* the droids I was looking for.
Why do I say this? First of all the URL for the site mimicks getfirefox.com. Secondly, the site itself (here is the Google cache) appears to have been lifted wholesale from getfirefox.com. Their logo is nearly identical (same colours, use of a stylized fox, etc) and they
A plugin that changes XP into Tiger!
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
Why just modify the GUI when you can replace it entirely and still use the Worst Rendering Engine(tm) ever? Oh, wait, that is Lynx.
Internet Explorer rendering in Firefox.
NOTE: I haven't tried it out or anything (you'd probably have to read the entire thread and use the unstable branch of Firefox -- 1.0.5), so I can not guarantee anything.
Now I can download a program that improves my Internet Explorer to look, act, and feel just like Firefox! I mean, sure it won't be kept up to date, or really fix the security holes, but it's the look that matters!
Or, I could just download Firefox.
This is a cool project, but I have to say, I'd rather just use the real thing.
- dshaw
P.S. For anyone taking this comment too seriously, yes, I already know how to get rid of IE and have been happy without it for many years.
how about an IE plugin that automatically installs firefox and sets it as the default browser?
I'd like a plugin for Firefox that automatically sends hate mail to webmasters who actively block anyone not using IE or Nutscrape Aggrivator.
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
I can think of only one relevant question in response to TFA - Does the plugin make IE standards compliant? No?
Ok, so we're still better off with FF. It's kinda sad really, that they chose to clone "popular features" rather than improving the technical merits of IE.
www.getfoxie.com is overloaded and returning 500s, but the actual download still seems to work:
http://www.getfoxie.com/download/foxie-1.0.exe
Also I'm about to change FoxIE's start page. It's stored in foxiecore.dll as a HTML resource called start.htm (use ResHacker or RedEdit or similar tool to replace).
are css bugs being fixed too? :)
There is no magic pill that can turn a body wracked with disease into a new person. you may patch it up a bit, you can even paint if up to make it look real nice, but underneath you still got the same sick body.
What WOULD be nice, is a Firefox extension that could completly fool those few ancient IE only holdout websites thats will not let you advance to the next page because you are not using IE 5+
Come on now, that's ridiculous. It might as well be 10 years.
"...spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 second.."
:) )
I believe proper grammer would be less than 10 seconds.
(I'm such a jerk !
which is a sure sign of a company/individual with something to hideI have yet to find a legit business operation that uses a domain owner hiding service, its usually the seedy scammers who use those kinds of services because law-abiding responsible companys and users are not really concerned in hiding contact details, after all that in business is usually why you have a site, to promote yourself and provide a contact point for your customers not hide behind an equally suspicious company
and they expect people to install their software ? LOL
Well format c: may only take about 10 secs to type in, but it takes considerably longer than 10 secs to run (unless your hard drive is ridiculously small).
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
There's also a skin that lets Windows look like Mac OS X! Sorry kiddies, you don't get any of the security benefits.
;)
Seriously though... why would you want to skin I.E. to look like FireFox just so you can get the benefits that FireFox already provides? I'm a bit confused... Also, I find FireFox to be a bit snappier than I.E. generally speaking... I'd hate to think what happens to I.E. with the skin applied... wait, I take that back, maybe it *DOES* get faster.
Ah, but have you run a rootkit scanner?
I run linux, and admittedly I haven't got around to it, but I do know of linux boxen getting cracked, so root kit scanners and tripwire stuff is almost as important on a *nix box as spybot/adaware on a windows box.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Never let a Microsoft employee do what a frustrated developer can do. Of course, we've had 10 years of M$ showing us more of what they can't do. Leave it to an OSS developer to fix IE.
:(
What I really want now is a Firefox plugin that'll completely uninstall IE from my system, but still allow Windows to work. Perhaps Firefox could take over for Explorer since back in the lawsuit days, M$ claimed that removing IE would break Windows (like it wasn't broken already)
And please don't flag this as flamebait as I'm using IE and Windows right now.
PDA & Smartphone Optimized Sites
Replacing my laptop with a Treo
There are OS X themes for Windows XP too, but that doesn't mean you will then have a real operating system. Anyone who uses this deserves what they get.
Have you ever used /q on a format before?
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
check this out: http://ie-in-firefox.dr.ag/ Internet Explorer runs IN firefox as plugin, so you can open a tab with a site loaded in IE in firefox ;)
very useful so you dont have to start IE in case you need it.
free 880 megs file hosting - www.FTPZ.US - best
Why would anyone want to use this? Why not just run FireFox?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
For the config files: I think this is in fact a more clean and simple way to do. I like it more than any gui and don't understand why poeple always think "it's grapical, so it must be better".
;)
But you even say that you don't want to configure the system *at all*. Then please leave the files of your *suse*-linux in their initial state and STFU!
For the rest i could only say:
cowsay "stepping out to take some fresh air"; emerge -uD world && cowsay "aaahh, that was wonderful!"
The bottom line of all this is: You have to decide what you want.
EITHER take it *preconfigured* and don't bitch about it
OR accept that you have to make the descisions how you want your system to behave.
You can't have both. not in windows, not on mac not on linux.
The only diff of windows an linux here is, that windows hides the config files behind some idiotic gui that only offers half of the possibilities (because it expects that you are an average idiot) and cripples the other half because of only leaving things in that are "self explaining".
I recommend the MATRIX to you, because it's the only thing i know, that you will accept and that does not ask you to configure it.
---
Okay, I should go to bed now...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I use the gestures extension more than keyboard shortcuts myself. Mostly because my desk is suckily designed, and the keyboard tray is both too high, and too small.
all pests ... BULLSHIT !
Marvelous, stupendous
This is ideal for my office.
I would love to get my users using firefox, because it would save me a lot of spyware related calls. However, that's impossible, because we have an internal document-retrieving website that uses links to documents on our network file servers. IE handles these fine (because they're MS servers), but firefox can't get the files.
Something like this is the best of both worlds for me.
this is like lipstick on a pig. no matter what you do you aren't going to change how much it stinks.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. --Nah' make them get firefox instead.
w00t
why on earth would I want a china town rolex when I can get the real deal for free.
its NOT firefox...
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
...freeking hardware. It's precisely because windows is the dominant OS that other OS users are constantly forced to suck hind tit when it comes to hardware and drivers. Don't know about you, but that got old a long time ago.
Making IE "better" so that people stay on windows is just like giving an alcoholic another drink, you aren't doing them any favors in the long run. It's called being an "enabler". You are enabling Microsoft to keep postponing actually going to work and doing something worthwhile, and you are enabling the vast herds of MS users to stay dumbed down and to stay in the economic thrall of that criminal gang of bogus software peddlars.. The users aren't learning anything new, they aren't accomplishing anything new, all they are doing is continuuing the great sucking sound of peoples wallets emptying in the direction of a pack of already zillionaires, who long ago got a case of the eXtreme lazies. These poor people need to know THERE'S MORE BRANDS out there. You AREN'T helping them by giving them some crutch, by doing microsofts job for them. Would you keep people on one brand of car or camera or something? EGADS most people don't even know there's anything but windows and this is 2005, it's ABOUT TIME the vast herds started bingoing to HOW MUCH they have been getting ripped off by the convicted monopoly abuser.
When I first read the title of this story, I thought someone had finally written a Firefox extension that hacked all the computers on the local network and installed Firefox as the default browser on them. Thanks for getting my hopes up, Slashdot!
-William Brendel
Feature-wise, it's fine. Up there with IE, for sure.
But as far as stability goes, it's just 100% pure ass. I run Firefox under both lunix and Windows, and IE under Windows. I've never, in years of using it, seen IE or crash or freeze up.
With Firefox, I'm forced to restart the damn thing every couple days at best. The most common problem is that it'll just start eating up bigger and bigger chunks of memory until my whole system slows to a crawl. What kind of a browser would use 800 MBs of memory to display google.com, and nothing else? Firefox will, just give it some time.
At least I can somewhat gracefully shut the thing down and restart it when it goes on a memory binge. Often, though, it'll just unceremoniously exit while trying to load a page. That wouldn't be so bad, but every setting and bookmark I've made since starting it gets lost. I've lost god knows how many bookmarks that way.
And the worst is when it just fucking freezes. Locks up, doesn't respond, spins its wheels forever, totally ignoring any attempts I might make to get control back. Time to "kill -9", again losing any settings or bookmarks. And even after the signal of death, it somehow stays resident for minutes, so that I can't even start a new one, since a new instance would make me use a new profile. Same thing in Windows.
Just wanted to let you all know that when I went to install this plugin to test it out, Anti-Vir definitely found a deleted a Keylogger. WARNING: Contains suspicious code HEURISTIC/Trojan.Keylogger! C:\PROGRAM FILES\FOXIE SUITE\SWEEPER.EXE File has been overwritten and deleted! No thanks, I'll pass.
Don't get me wrong, I love Internet Explorer as much as the next malware author, but don't we all want a world-class browser for our friends as well?
What about a magic plugin that'll make IE's version of JavaScript behave like Firefox (i.e. DOM compliant)?
My favorite feature between both Firefox and FirefoxIE is that FirefoxIE's 'Home' button has a chimney... what house/browser is complete with out it (well besides mine of course)?
Sunday night, I was browsing the web in IE via my Windows 2003 Server that hosts my web site (and is conveniently located next to my main computer). I had turned on JavaScript, ActiveX, and a few other things to make the browsing experience less annoying (I hated having to put every site I visited into the list of Trusted Domains). Since there's no free AV software for Windows 2003, I was running with a firewall, fully patched, but with no anti-virus running.
Well, fate finally caught up to me. I was browsing a Google cache of a discussion group. Within seconds, the IE toolbar had been taken over, icons were installing on the desktop, and my computer rebooted, only to never come up again.
The aftermath was really messy. I got about four hours of sleep that night, trying to clean and fix things. By the next day, I'd mounted the drives on another computer and cleaned it, but it still wouldn't boot. I then had massive problems with Windows Activation, getting stuck in Microsoft call center Hell. Eventually I managed to install the Windows 2003 Server setup from an inactivated Windows XP Pro installation and it worked.
Needless to say, I've added additional security, as well as switching to Firefox. Going through that level of pain and suffering is the biggest motivator to moving away from Microsoft that I've experienced in a long time. My guess is that since the Windows 2003 Server browser is so locked down, they don't bother fixing holes.
Caveat Emptor
o ductivity-Suite/3000-2144_4-10430237.html
http://www.download.com/Foxie-Privacy-Security-Pr
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
why bother?
As a tech who currently has 4 machines on his bench right now with spyware problems, I have these words of reality checking: 10 seconds my a$$!!! Who are these morons trying to fool here. To remove spyware/malware/trojans from a machine, it usually takes me 3 days without a format and reinstall, and I usually have to boot up with an NTFS Dos boot disk (Hirens)http://www.9down.com/modules.php?name=Down loads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=172&ttitle=Hire n's_BootCD_v7.2_With_keyboard_Patch and delete manually what the removal tools miss. I have found that deltree removal of all temp and content.ie5 directories knocks a day or so off of my scanning.
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.
The site may be slashdotted, but you can still download the plugin from
http://www.getfoxie.com/download/foxie-1.0.exe
I do a regular spyware sweep, and almost never come up with any hits using Microsoft Antispyware and Adaware, but after installing this Adaware found possible Browser Highjack attempts from Adlogix. A dll and a few registry values/keys. Getting rid of this stuff now.
http://www.getfoxie.com/download/foxie-1.0.exe
;)
No internal 500 error
You could put a turd in a Snickers wrapper and it would still be a turd.
That's the best analogy I could think of.
Why not just use something like VNC??
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Why not just use Firefox?
You're doing it the hard way. You need a Bart's PE boot CD, my friend.
IE sucks, I have to design a ss just for that browser for all my verified sites.
go suck on one MS
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
There are two Windows web browsers built on the IE dlls that have tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and all that sort of stuff. They have been around lots longer and have had those features before Mozilla let alone Firefox had them. They are NetCaptor and CrazyBrowser, which actually is a free clone of NetCaptor. Mozillaquest.com has more about Netcaptor and comparisons between Netcaptor and Mozilla. Netcaptor was the first browser to have tabbed browsing. "NetCaptor from Stilesoft is a pretty slick browser for Windows. It is a browser user-interface (UI) built around an embedded IE engine. NetCaptor has many neat features such as tabbed-browsing, a collapsible sidebar, ad-blocking, and more. Interestingly, NetCaptor had the tabbed-browsing and collapsible sidebar features before Mozilla and Netscape had them."
This "foxie" installs iun6002.exe (desktop surveillance personal spyware) on your computer. I just ran Ad-Aware SE with the latest difinitions. Before I had installed this program I didn't have this nasty spyware installed. I could be worng but I don't think I am. Following links: http://www.lavasoftnews.com/ms/display_main.php?ta c=Favoriteman
http://www.auditmypc.com/process/iun6002.asp
http://www.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/microsoft.publ ic.inetserver.iis.security/2004-06/0260.html
what the hell would i want an immitator when i can have the real thing... This is like making love to cardboard cut out of supermodel when shes in your bed waiting...
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
If you don't scan the hard drive or the registry sure ;) if all you're doing is scanning the memory and IE's toolbar folders, and all 'downloaded files' before they're installed, then yeah it only takes '10 seconds' if it finds an adware that infects ie, then it can remove it from the registry/hd by searching for it then rather than the other way around. sure, you don't have as complete or through an examination, but most adware infects ie, so it leaves enough of a trace behind for a 'quick' scan to find out what spyware it is.
for a browser integrated anti-spyware it's just right, for a 'stand alone' anti-spyware it falls far short of what is needed for compherehensive spyware protection.
Everyone whom you love, loves no one else. You must be special.
"FrontPage."
Yeah! Amazing, ain't it? Steve Krug observed this phenomenon in Don't Make Me Think , that the larger the organization, the more cooks there are working on the stew, what with people trying to get their content as high as possible on the page, and other technicians, designers, and programmers all trying to shape their little God's Phosphorescent Green Acre in their image. What usually results is a site that's overloaded and ugly. And unless the culture of the company changes drastically, any attempt at redesign will have the same problem. It doesn't change because it's an effect of the political attitudes rather than a problem standing on its own.
Where I work, I've noticed a thing vaguely similar but in ways startlingly different. The front-end that the customers see suffers the bloat because everyone wants to lay claim to or get something out of the page. The intranet is, by comparison, a joy. Individuals work on those pages, and they vary greatly by design and weight because individuals use different techniques, and the company maintains standard CSS.
I've actually been given reason to set up a few small contest sitelets on that intranet, and true to my ethic I've tried to make them as small, light, and still somewhat attractive as possible. No Javascript, CSS, graphics where possible... and it works in IE, Safari, Firefox, etc. Folks seem to like it, too, because it's not blindingly slow. It could even lead to ...more work. And a hand in the main site redesign, for what good that'll do.
Maybe you don't have to become a vice president before you get more control of how their web is designed...
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
It does not come with Ask Jeeves Desktop Search.
I should know, I am the manager of the Ask Jeeves Desktop Search development group here at Ask Jeeves.
AJDS isn't bundled with anything at this point in time.
Makes you wonder what other parts of your posting are full of crap, or all of your postings you've ever made...
What am I saying, I am probably talking to a troll right now... Damnit, I fell for the trap. ^H^H^H
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
"imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery dept."
That's right - Internet Explorer was copied by Firefox and runs exactly the same except for some improvements. That's it.
So the only thing that IE is doing is giving a nod to Firefox for it's upgrades and says, "Thanks - we'll use those little enhancements too without sacrificing the look and feel of the original program WE created first!"
The flattery is on Firefox's end mimicking IE, not the other way around!
BROOKLYN
haha might i add that internet explorer's 'fan site' also seem to resemble that of spreadfirefox's? Spread Internet Explorer them wannabes *shakes fists* if they really wanted a better browser they should just get it!
What IE needs is a plugin for handling the text/html and related types using the Firefox rendering engine. That way, people will get most of the benefits of Firefox, while still not having to learn to click on anything other than the "e".
This seems akin to taking the body of a Ferrari and putting it atop a '78 Maverick!
To say nothing about adding many, many layers of complexities into the mix....
In short this strikes me as a classic example of a Very Bad Idea (tm).
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
What about just installing Firefox?
Perhaps they should code a plug-in for their webserver to turn it into one that can handle a Slashdotting.
I don't use Microsoft Internet Explorer. Never have. (even though I Microsoft does have Internet Explorer 5 available for Solaris and HPUX -- which is what I would need).
So I guess I am seeing "bad rendering" on pages. I am unclear on what I should be looking for, though.
Currently, I use Mozilla 1.7.7 (desktop), lynx (server), and EudoraWeb (palm) as web browsers. What are the web-sites that make "IE" a must-have or must-use application?
You are maybe the thousandth poster with this comment; but I still don't know what I am missing...
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Some workplaces run everything through a proxy which is configured to only work with IE. There is no option to use another browser. The result is people are stuck with IE and its insecurities. Having a wrapper for IE that permits the thing to still work through the proxy, but also improves security and usability is not a bad thing - it beats the only other choices: plain IE, and nothing.
- IE 3-6 (7)
- Firefox (Deer Park)
- Opera
- Netscape Navigator 5-8
And each one renders just a little bitwrite in c!
You, mister, are totally crazy!
I likes.
You can't handle the truth.
If you want it to act like Firefox, for heaven's sake just get it. It's better anyway. HA.
I'll bet Bill Gates secretly uses Firefox.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
If this has been done before, "show me the code."
For a second there I thought someone had actually made an ActiveX installer for Firefox. Pity. *That* would be newsworthy.
that someone was posting a /. article about IE7.
HD Trailers
Our Intranet relies heavily on Integrated Authentication to identify users and grant them access to various pages within our site that are customized to them and their employee type. We pick up their login from the server variables collection. Is there an alternative to this technique that I could use that allow the pages to work in Firefox but NOT require any other input from them at all? Suggestions appreciated.
Ask Jeeves Desktop Search is not a "Toolbar", its an entire indexing and seach engine.
http://sp.ask.com/docs/desktop/index.html
It allows you to instantly find anything on your PC. It also has a very useful feature Google, Yahoo, Copernic do not have. Application Integration. Click "attach" in your favorite email program and search for your file with AJDS, one click and your file is attached.
Its the power of instant desktop search integrated into every application on the desktop.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Many of us work in offices that require IE - not just because IT might want it, but because internal support pages, including web email, ONLY work well with IE. I know at my company this is the case - I, a vetran Firefox user, has no alternative, because the internal sites that I need (raise a tech support issue, order equipment, online training, etc.) simply don't work well under Firefox. And using Firefox behind their firewall gives render issues on several sites tha I like...and web mail from home doesn't work either. So I am stuck with IE at work and even sometimes at home - I might as well dress it up, give it some mints, put some lipstick on it, and kiss it... FS
Er, what's your point? IE was hardly the first web browser.
The IEview extension for Firefox now keeps an "always views this page in IE" list for you.
Any web site that you must use IE for, need not stop you from doing all your web browsing in Firefox.
-- "Have you ever seen your own brain?"
It's free you know. And in contrast to IE does comply with most web standards.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
...and just as useless.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
No matter how much better Firefox is than IE, if you develop web pages, you don't have a choice in the matter of whether you use IE.
With the IE market share right now you better test your web pages to make sure they work with IE. Otherwise, you are going to lose customers.
I look forward to using an IE that is more like Firefox. It won't make me switch from using Firefox as my principle browser, but it will make compatability testing easier.
Having using Maxthon since version 1.14 (they're now up to Version 1.3.3), I actually really like this program, mostly because they include a lot of stuff in the program such as the very nice AD Hunter function that blocks most popups, popunders, Flash animation ads, many online ads in general and even ActiveX objects! Since running Maxthon I've had very little (if any) spyware/adware loaded on my system. :-) Also, Maxthon includes mouse gestures, which makes even a cheap two-button plus scroll wheel mouse very useful in web page navigation.
If you've seen the Internet Explorer 7.0 betas it appears Microsoft pinched a lot of ideas from Maxthon, that's to be sure.
Has anyone tried IE7? It pretty much resembles Firefox. Tabbed browsing, search box, phishing filter, etc. No need for a plugin.
I was really expecting that to be a bad porn-knockoff link. And then I clicked on it... what the hell? No boobies?
paintball
I suggested to a client once that they just use FireFox. He proceeded to download it. He was promptly told by IT that he could not install it. With this, at least he can some of the benefits if he can't have them all.
I installed it. It seems to work, though there's an AskJeeves search bar you can't get rid of without dropping the address bar as well. There doesn't appear to be a way to configure search provider, either. The tab implementation is faster and more integrated with IE than the MSN toolbar's.
I'd also prefer the option to install without the weird Privacy Sweeper crap; my IE security settings, firewall, and AdMuncher take care of that, thank you. All I really need is tabs on IE for those rare times I can't get whatever site I'm on to work in Opera.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
You're an idiot. Why the microsoft would you want to defeat one of the main advantages of FX just so that is looks nifty and does a wee bit more? All you're doing is fueling closed source, proprietary software, while not getting the full benefits of FOSS. "Ignorance is expensive"
They actually just changed the Firefox installer to say something else and renamed firefox.exe to iexplore.exe
This solves EVERYTHING!
Saying that the tabbed windows make IE into FireFox is like saying that a fat guy's man-tits makes him a woman. It doesn't, although in both cases some twisted people might think otherwise.
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
Now if they could only make a plugin that prevents Windows explorer from crashing every time IE does.
Ehm, wouldn't it be better to not have these pests atall? The thought of having malicious code running on my system for upto 9 seconds is bad, 9 seconds is more than enough to do serious damage...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
1) Anonymous poster.
2) Aimed at an audience reknowned for lack of security clue (average MS/IE users).
3) Does something redundant (just get Firefox if you want Firefox's features) and pointless (trying to secure IE is like trying to waterproof a string-vest).
~ Better a freak than a sheep. ~
Yes, your linux box can probably be cracked, but I wouldn't say security software is "almost as important" as it is on Windows simply because there are many, many people trying to get into your Windows machines and install spyware in order to make money. There are none trying this on Linux because there aren't enough people using it and those who are probably know how to avoid spyware. As such, Linux users only really need to be worried if they've given themselves a specific reason to be targeted, since Linux boxen will normally be cracked individually by actual people rather than wholesale by random software.
I'm desperatley looking for a mod that will make firefox act more like slimbrowser for IE... I hate the fact that slimbrowser is built around IE but i just cant stop using it, the tab interface is so slick and streamlined it makes browsing so efortless.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
http://www.crazybrowser.com/
a tabbed ie wrapper that i have been using for 2+ years (and its much easier to use the firefox IMO)
I have used Maxthon (MyIE2) for 3+ years now. One of the greatest features is the configurable search tool. Through the preferences you can set up any URL with a variable param to be tied to a search keyword.
For example, I have it configured so that typing "dic foo" into the address bar will pull up http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=foo.
This is a truly awesome feature, and I use it for all kinds of stuff including google [g ] and babelfish [tr ].
Of course, sometimes I have to reverse-engineer a web page to find the POST parameters and then turn the URL into a GET-based query.
--x
Foxie drops ISTbar.dldr onto your system - yes, even when you visit it with FF and get the alleged Internal Server Error from the site. Is it possible to edit the text that appears on the /. main page to warn of this?
Sorry, make that 24.4% not 23.6%
Windows is getting this in the future, but it's already here on Linux, so why wait? Also, I don't trust applications that run on Windows. It isn't MS's fault, but look at how many new versions of programs that run on Windows include spyware, and how many EULAs cover the companies' asses saying "This application may change functionality in the future" or "We are not responsible for what happens to your computer", so you can't really set your applications to automatically update on Windows anyway. Who knows what sort of spyware or adware future versions will have?
On Windows I don't even want to be running the latest version of an application because of this, but on Linux I know that a program won't include this functionality in the future and have no problem automatically updating to the latest version of software.
Ah, I didn't see that, sorry.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
If you have to download this plugin and it makes IE just the same as firefox, why not just download firefox?!?
I do this for friends and family out of kindness, I install firefox and then make the start icon the little blue E, so they don't get confused and still click on the same icon to browse the web, they hardly notice the difference and I no longer have to go by weekely to clean off the spyware (as long as i change some of the default behavior, like not allowing website to install software, etc..).
Tried it, Uninstalled it. Ask Jeeves what the fuck?
Well, yes. You're right. A sensibly locked down linux box is pretty safe from automated[1] attacks. I don't believe any OS is immune from targeted[2] attacks. To protect form the latter requires a security conscious admin constantly monitoring for such activity. I'm pretty sure banks employ people whose only job is maintaining network security.
[1] absolutely no sentient involvement.
[2] deliberate, driven by a sentient being determined to break in.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Oohh! You mean they made a plugin to properly support W3C standards? Oh, wait, its just security BS, which they have to fix using a bloody firewall and some features MS 'promises' to add eventually... Seriously, why the heck would I bother with a plugin that doesn't fix the most serious problem with IE, its inability to properly support web standards? I tried the test page they came up with, with the smiley face, and Opera came close, Firefox came close, but messed up a slightly different way but IE gave nothing but a huge red smear on the bottom of the screen, and that was after waiting 5 minutes or more for it to finish figuring out what it was doing, when the others took less than a minute... And that test is only for the, "most common CSS and other W3C standards *most* web developers are likely to use." A solid block of cement is more secure than a safe too, but I don't store valuables in one, because the whole point is to be able to use the damn thing, not just 'secure' the items inside from crooks. Same with a browser. It can be secure as Fort Knocks and still worthless, if you have to tie one arm behind your back, stand on your head and throw out half the feature theoretically available to you as a developer, just to make it work properly.
I found the same spyware on my computer after installing FoxIE. Anyone else with it wanna do a scan and verify?
Removing it does not seem to impede FoxIE. The file does not reappear either.
Considering the IE DOM/CSS support is so screwed up it, making IE LOOK and ACT like Firefox won't replace IE's crappy support of basic standards. At least I can depend on Firefox. :P
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
If you'd read some of the discussion above before mouthing off, you would have seen that Maxthon uses the IE 6 Trident engine.
Clearly, hardpressed coders such as yourself don't have to plan for another eventuality.