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"
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.
Faster startup and rendering. It's not worth it to me - better to render it slowly and correctly than fast and wrong, and I won't even start on security - but firefox can be a real dog on older machines.
I am trolling
I know a number of people who refuse to use Firefox. I fought the good fight, told them they were being foolish, promised them newer and better capabilities ... but they simply refuse. One person simply refuses to switch because the browsers 'just don't look the same'.
I know what's good for them, so if I could conceivably trick them into using a better tool, we can chalk up another victory for (more) secure browsing.
" 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."
Way to be part of the problem. Thanks for not helping man.
There's no reason for people to fix those pages if everyone just switches back to IE.
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.
Actually, that's the final component I need for my 'Linux by stealth' installs.
These days I have have adopted a very aggressive attitude to 'correctional computing'. When someone comes to me with a dead or dying Windows box I first decant all their data off the machine. Then I install a customised, stripped down, KDE with Redmond themes and all the MS icon set, rename icons to 'My Computer' and so on. It usually takes several days for them to get back to me with some query about how it isn't behaving quite like it used to. I tell them that's the 'new thing', it's a 'security patch' or something. I tell them that if they don't like it I can put the machine back the way it was, for 120 quid, which it what it costs to buy a legitimate Windows install. Nobody has ever changed back yet, and this week I completed my 50th 'stealth install'. All these users are older people who use their computers for web browsing and printing mostly, and I take my experiences so far as a kind of scientific 'evidence' that this class of users can't tell the difference. If you service machines for friends and family try this. Don't ask, just do what is good for them. After all they are putting their absolute trust in your computer knowledge, to do anything less is to fail them in.
Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox as much as the next Slashdotter, but don't we all want a more secure Internet Explorer for our Windows-using friends as well?
This is going to sound completely selfish but I say no - because in the longterm, I want people to have more of an incentive to turn away from Microsoft - not keep using it. Or at least not give companies an excuse to design IE-only compatible websites.
I think any other free alternative is better than a MS dominated future. Hell, MS didn't even make this plug-in so how can I trust them to secure the rest of their apps?
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
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.
So I have to use two browsers, one for regular browsing and one for internal website (expense reports, hr, timesheet, etc. etc). I'd love to be able to have tabs for IE so that I don't end up with multiple windows for intranet sites. I'll probably try this tomorrow.
And no, I can't get them to change the sites. We're a "major" company, but not large in the sense that IBM or Intel or Microsoft are. Yet the buerocracy on stuff like this is extensive enough that suggesting a change would just go into a black hole. I'll have to wait until I'm a vice president or something to make this happen (ie, never).
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.
...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.
or they could just use firefox.
IE is faster. So assuming this had all the same features and security (it doesn't, but hypothetically) why would you want Firefox again?
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.
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.
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.
The bad thing is that that's a real situation.
When a "stealth install" blows up in someone's face and you find yourself in court, you will have reinforced all the negative stereotypes of the Geek. God help you if actually try to collect that 120 quid from an "older person," a pensioner, perhaps, who wants his Windows system back in order as you promised.