Microsoft Ends IE on the Mac

ron_ivi writes "Microsoft is to cease IE support for Apple's Mac on Dec 31st of this year." And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts. CT Deja Vu 'eh? Sorry.

Comments

from the-dupe-dept.

[u2boy_nl]

Posted by Zonk on Sunday December 18, @11:47PM
from the who-needs-ie-anyway dept.

RandomMacUser writes "A while ago, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac, freezing it at version 5. But according to this Microsoft webpage, all support will cease December 31, 2005, and any official distribution with cease January 31, 2006. Also, the webpage suggests 'that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.'"

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/18/ 227225&tid=113&tid=3

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[penguinwhoflew]

I, for one, welcome our new amnesiac overlords.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[Dun Malg]

why must all 12 posters in my example above think that they were the first (and only) person to realize it was a duplicate story?

They don't think that. It's just that since it is a dupe, the actual content has already been extensively commented on elsewhere, leaving nothing but its status as a dupe to talk about. If you want to read about MS discontinuing IE for the Mac, go back to the original article on the subject. The de facto topic under discussion in duped articles always reverts to "dupes and the lazy, unprofessional /. editors who post them".

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[tomhudson]

Also, when they first saw the story, maybe there were *no* posts?

Lets face it, it takes a few seconds to hit "reply to this", write your "Hey dummy, its a dupe!" and hit submit - especially since the server is probably responding to 50 people doing it all at once - its getting slashduped.

Besides, what did you expect - its Troll Tuesday and the editors want to play too.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[cristiroma]

Well it wasn't that bad after wall. I still could read a couple of funny posts more :p

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[Lars T.]

Since I killfiled Zonk, it's not a dupe for me.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[kohaku]

haven't you thought this might not be a dupe? I for one never saw the original article, so I wouldn't have known about this otherwise. In any case, most people probably forgot about that specific date until it was mentioned here again.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[LordNimon]

By your logic, then every story should be posted multiple times by different editors, because there will always be someone who didn't see it the first time.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[milkman_matt]

I've never been one to bitch about dupes (and I'm not now), but I do find my apple slashbox to be kind of amusing:

# Microsoft Ends IE on the Mac
# Microsoft Ends IE for Mac

as the latest two links ;)

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[NanoGator]

"The de facto topic under discussion in duped articles always reverts to "dupes and the lazy, unprofessional /. editors who post them".

Amusingly, Slashdot's serving a lot of ads because of those dupe stories. Not doing much to discourgae this little behaviour that really really bunches our panties.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[Flammon]

Should be:

from the yeah-umm-sorrry-about-that-my-bad dept.

Oh wait, that would be a dupe dept

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least Taco realized this one was a dupe. From the summary "CT Deja Vu 'eh? Sorry"

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[InfinitePudding]

If you've seen it already (and it causes you grief) then just skip along to the next story... or read the discussion to see if any new points were made since the last time it was posted.

Most of us don't read every single story posted on Slashdot... and I'm sure that it doesn't hurt anything to revisit a story.

Re:from the-dupe-dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Far be it from Slashdot to let a few facts get in the way:

1. IE Vulnerabilities
2. Safari
3. Firefox
4. Opera

Seems none of them are bastions of secure computing. People who live in glass houses, and all that.

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

So here I am, obsessively refreshing Slashdot, as we do, and what do I see at the top of the page? Ya sure, I've got mod points, no I haven't meta modded lately. What ho, free day pass?

So I see a big blank page, thanky adblock plus, hit the continue to free day pass link, and what I see? Bright red dupe. Oh wait, but this time with trolling in the janitor's comments!

Hotness. So this is what being a Slashdot subscriber is all about? I'm sold.

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

So you complain about a system which you basically cheated? (subscription system in exchange for viewing an ad).

Way to be a cheap fuck and still whine about it.

Re:Sigh

[mkw87]

What was funny for me was that I left work with my browswer open to slashdot, and at the time the last story was yesterdays post of this. I came in, sat down, hit refresh, and virtually the same damn article was still at the top.......I was very confused.

Re:Sigh

[casualsax3]

Haha yeah I was confused too. I tried the 1 day pass, and in red I saw an article I saw yesterday. Very mysterious :)

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

same here - nice free day pass - I get to see dupes early!
Ironic ... really. Still pointless for me however.

Would you like that article in English?

[eldavojohn]

In case you noticed, the linked article read like a bad translation from Chinese to English. Probably because it was.

If you'd like a better article regarding this, try out this article which is easier and it also contains a relevant quote:

"It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari," Microsoft said.

Instead of having to put up with awkward sentences like the following from The People's Daily article:

IE will not be a problem for Apple users because most of them have applied different browsers on their computers.

I hope everyone has "applied" firefox by now.

I'm not going to say anything about this remark:

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.

Other than this is an arguable statement. It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it. If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus. Yes, a Firefox virus is fixed faster than an IE virus, but it's still a liability.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it.

The amount of people using a certain piece of software is NOT a relation to the amount of bugs and flaws it has. We all know about the common IIS vs. Apache argument.

That being said...
The more people that use a specific piece of software, the bigger target it is for hackers/crackers. Software with fundemental flaws and more "powerful" software (direct access to the OS, user data and exe functionality, scripting, excessive privelges etc.), determines the footprint of what it can destory when a flaw is found.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

'It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it. If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus. Yes, a Firefox virus is fixed faster than an IE virus, but it's still a liability.'

That is interesting, but not the current situation, you may be dreaming of a day when IE will not have the dominence it now holds.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[tpgp]

If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus.

Utter nonsense.

In the context of the article this is doubly nonsense because IE for Mac is discontinued and vulnerabilities for it will never be fixed.

In a wider context, its still nonsense. If you're concerned about security, you use the browser with the more secure architecture - not the one with the least users.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right...

I'm sure it has everything to do with the vast user base and nothing to do with allowing active X controls and built in VB scripting. You do understand that viruses are unrelated to web browsers themselves, yes? No one is writing viruses for IE or Firefox... they are writing viruses for your OS.

That being said, your browser can either look at code and say "oh yeah, sure... I know what to do with this active X or VB script stuff, I'll install this (virus|trojan|keylogger) right away sir!" ala IE or it can play dumb like a browser should and say "this isn't HTML or JS so I'm ignoring it" ala firefox.

Thus ends your first lesson in why IE is STILL an insecure PoS, grasshopper.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[eldavojohn]

In the context of the article this is doubly nonsense because IE for Mac is discontinued and vulnerabilities for it will never be fixed. In a wider context, its still nonsense. If you're concerned about security, you use the browser with the more secure architecture - not the one with the least users.

Ok, so you're right. There, that's not something you see on a slashdot post very often, is it?

I guess our argument comes down to whether an architecture really is safe. Maybe IE's architecture is just unsafe because the current lines of attack are developed to target its architecture? As a programmer, I'm fairly bias when I say this but hackers are very resourceful. I do not doubt their abilities to target different applications when it suits them.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[eldavojohn]

But don't some users want this X and VB functionality?

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Nevynxxx]

Or use Lynx, that fulfills both criteria doesn't it? :)

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm not going to say anything about this remark:

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.

Other than this is an arguable statement. It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it. If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus. Yes, a Firefox virus is fixed faster than an IE virus, but it's still a liability.

Y'know, you're argument about whatever [browser/OS/MUA/office suite/etc.] having the highest usage rating having the most virii written for it is really a loaded statement. The problem is that it's true, but it seems to make the presumption that there will be the same amount of virii created for X as there is for Y if Y were as popular as X is now.

The fact is that X and Y are different applications and have different vulnerabilities. In this case, X is a security nightmare because the people who wrote and architected the code had no experience whatsoever in developing applications for the Internet before they began doing so. And then they integrated it into operating system Z! OTOH, Y was written by coders who live and breathe on the Internet, who have vast amounts of experience in coding applications that are designed to run the Internet, and who have had security, reliability and performance in mind from the beginning (well, not counting Netscape 4.x, anyway).

I'm not saying that most virii wouldn't be written to target Y if it were as popular as X is now, because that's true. But I'm saying that there would be far FEWER virii written and far LESS DAMAGING virii written if Y were as popular as X is now.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[BodhiCat]

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.

Actually Explorer on Macs is more secure than Explorer on Windows. Something about them Active X's and .exe files.

It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it. If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus.

This is a general myth about both IE and PC/Windows, that they are more vulnerable since they are used by a greater percentage of users. There are inherent vulnerabilities in Explorer and Windows that don't even exist for other browsers or operating systems. Gates didn't realize the potential of the web early on and has been trying to play catch up ever since he discovered the internet. Windows was designed as as stand alone operating system and doesn't have the built in security features of Unix-like systems such as Linux or OS X. I am not saying that these systems are 100 percent secure, just that they are more difficult to hack and less vulnerable to script kiddies. Active X and the design of IE have left millions of computers open to anyone with minimal knowledge of scripting. Goodbye and good riddance Explorer. Camino on OS X is fine for me and I can upgrade to newer versions of Firefox/Mozilla or use Safari when necessary.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

and, once again, Microsoft apologists are modded way up...

It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most virii written for it. If Firefox becomes the dominant browser, it might even be safer to have IE installed on your computer to avoid the latest virus.

This argument has been shot down sooo many times on Slashdot that I am not even going to bother reiterating the arguments.

Besides, none of the Microsoft shills here will allow this post to ever be seen. That, of course, improves the quality and security of Microsoft products sooo much!

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[tpgp]

Ok, so you're right. There, that's not something you see on a slashdot post very often, is it?

Nope :-) You're obviously a gentleman!

I guess our argument comes down to whether an architecture really is safe. Maybe IE's architecture is just unsafe because the current lines of attack are developed to target its architecture?

No, I think IE's architecture is unsafe therefore lines of attack were developed to target it...

Embedded into the O/S and activeX are a good starting point for things for MS to fix.

As a programmer, I'm fairly bias when I say this but hackers are very resourceful. I do not doubt their abilities to target different applications when it suits them.

True - and I'm sure that Firefox will recieve more hacker attention as it grows more popular (it allready has) - I just don't think that will translate into more exploitable vulnerabilities.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[penguin-collective]

It's possible that whatever browser has the highest usage rating will have the most [viruses] written for it.

Anything is possible. But when it comes to Microsoft, we actually know: Microsoft has plenty of products that are not dominant, and they contain lots of security vulnerabilities, too. The problem is with the way Microsoft creates software, not that Microsoft software is popular.

As for Firefox, it is not invulnerable; many of its defects, however, are the result of closely imitating Microsoft and targeting Windows.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[1u3hr]

In case you noticed, the linked article read like a bad translation from Chinese to English.

And why on earth is People's Daily being used as the canonical source of a story entirely based in the US? It's not a leak, it's announced on Microsoft's site for all to see.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[natophonic]

In case you noticed, the linked article read like a bad translation from Chinese to English. Probably because it was.

What you say? Still, it is possible to do someone another way. Firefox makes good use of private and official time for sensuous people. Make your time.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Anonymous Coward]

Going to have to agree here....it's the same argument as "Linux is more secure". Nope. Not as used as Windows and therefore not a target to spend one's time on. Hackers want results be they financially driven or just for pleasure. If FF becomes the dominant browser then yes -more- exploits will be targeted towards it. To say that OSS is more secure then proprietary is nonsense. Just wait until FF is used as much as IE....it's implied security level will plummet.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Tim C]

No, I think IE's architecture is unsafe therefore lines of attack were developed to target it...

Or it may just be that it's the most widely-used browser and absolutely 100% guaranteed to be available (if not used) on a (half-way modern) Windows PC. I don't remember there being (m)any exploits back in the days of the browser wars, although admittedly, the internet was pretty new (in the public's mind at least).

Embedded into the O/S and activeX are a good starting point for things for MS to fix.

I'm not convinced that the embedding is necessarily a bad thing, to be honest. KHTML is as embedded in KDE as MSHTML is in the Windows shell; it remains to be seen how that pans out if and when the use of KDE-based distros becomes widespread.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[tpgp]

You say:

Or it may just be that it's the most widely-used browser and absolutely 100% guaranteed to be available (if not used) on a (half-way modern)

and then:

I'm not convinced that the embedding is necessarily a bad thing,

So. Hackers can rely on IE being present (as it's embedded), and you don't see why embedding is a bad thing?

KHTML is as embedded in KDE as MSHTML is in the Windows shell; it remains to be seen how that pans out if and when the use of KDE-based distros becomes widespread.

I disagree.

From Cert

There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, local file system (Local Machine Zone) trust, the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) document object model (in particular, proprietary DHTML features), the HTML Help system, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. These technologies are implemented in operating system libraries that are used by IE and many other programs to provide web browser functionality. IE is integrated into Windows to such an extent that vulnerabilities in IE frequently provide an attacker significant access to the operating system.

It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser, especially when viewing untrusted HTML documents (e.g., web sites, HTML email messages). Such a decision may, however, reduce the functionality of sites that require IE-specific features such as proprietary DHTML, VBScript, and ActiveX. Note that using a different web browser will not remove IE from a Windows system, and other programs may invoke IE, the WebBrowser ActiveX control (WebOC), or the HTML rendering engine (MSHTML).

Notice the number of technologies integrated? Much more then just the render engine.

Re:Would you like that article in English?

[Rebelgecko]

...ever since he discovered the internet.

Liar! Al Gore discovered the internet!

Bleh

[Jaysyn]

I didn't care about this the first time it was posted...

Jaysyn

Not secure...

[random_culchie]

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.
Not if they keep using old unsupported software..
Nothing will force them to change from IE. Arguably this makes them even less secure.

Re:Not secure...

[frodo from middle ea]

Just to play the devil's advocate.

How does an insecure application (which I don't doubt IE is ), with no hooks in to the kernel space (unlike IE on windows), make mac insecure ?

For argument sake, if IE/Safari/Opera/Firefox all have same # of vulnerabilities in their mac versions. Will they not be equally secure or insecure ?

This is obviously a strong contrast against IE on windows v/s Opera/Firefox on Windows, as IE seems to work a lot in OS or kernel space.

Re:Not secure...

[tpgp]

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.

Not if they keep using old unsupported software..
Nothing will force them to change from IE. Arguably this makes them even less secure.

Hmmmmn, somehow, I doubt that someone using a version of IE on a Mac past the end of 2006 is the sort of person who'd be applying security updates in any case.

I agree with the general gist of your post however - that it's better for software to continue to recieve patches indefinitely then not.

However, outside the Free / Open Source Software world, this is never going to happen.

Re:Not secure...

[Pharmboy]

Hmmmmn, somehow, I doubt that someone using a version of IE on a Mac past the end of 2006 is the sort of person who'd be applying security updates in any case.


One example you might not be aware of are intranet applications. We have an inventory order system that REQUIRES IE because of the VB scripting. Not my idea. It will run on any box that uses IE, but the app wont work at all without IE. We don't have a choice but to use IE, patches or no, and our systems are patched very regularly.

The author is almost done with the new version (finally) that is instead written using Javascript and java. Then we can finally move over to Firefox.

Re:Not secure...

[harlows_monkeys]

Nothing will force them to change from IE. Arguably this makes them even less secure.

What security problems does IE for the Mac have?

Re:Not secure...

[cortana]

Please explain how IE on Windows "hooks in to the kernel space"?

Re:Not secure...

[frodo from middle ea]

To be honest I don't know. But this is often one of the reasons put forward by non IE browsers, to tout that they are inheritantly secure as they are not embeded in the OS.

Having not used windows for a while now, I really am not sure what the status of IE "built-into-windows" is.

Re:Not secure...

[cortana]

Well basically it's a myth. No part of IE runs in 'kernel mode'. Unfortunatly it's one of those myths that will be impossible to stamp out.

IE is built in to the OS in the sense that it comes with Windows, and is impossible to remove.

First of all, the 'trident' rendering engine is used by many third party programs, so removing it would break them in the same way that removing a commonly used library would. That is fair enough.

The problem we all have with IE is the fact that you can't remove the front end, iexplore.exe. If you remove it from add/remove programs, it is just marked as being invisible. If you delete it, system file protection puts it right back. If you set an ACL on it denying everyone the permission to execute it, system file protection undoes your change.

If you run it, it asks if it is to become the default browser. Of course, the default answer is yes; so a user who runs it by accident will probably end up unintentionally switching back to IE.

The problem with this is that it's too damn easy to run IE by accident! Programs like mIRC and MSN Messenger hard code IE as their handler for HTTP urls, so when a user clicks on a link from IRC, or picks 'read hotmail inbox' from MSN messenger, IE runs and probably becomes their default browser. ARGH!

Re:Not secure...

[frodo from middle ea]

first of all thank you for an unbiased answer. Every time I ask this question, I end up getting replies either from Pro-Microsoft or Anti-Microsoft people, and they are equally biased in their own ways.

Thanks for clearing some of the doubts.

Re:Not secure...

[Trepalium]

Some of the functionality that was added to IE to support it's integration into Windows is also responsible for it's share of security flaws. In order to integrate IE into the Windows shell (explorer.exe), they added the fundamentally flawed concept of "zones" to Internet Explorer. A large number of security flaws revolved around getting internet content running in either the Local computer zone, or intranet zone, where certain protections are disabled (virtually all in local, and the signed activex warnings in intranet).

iexplore.exe is little more than a thin wrapper around shdocvw.dll, which is also loaded by explorer.exe (which also explains why iexplore loads so fast), so you can never really get away from internet explorer. If you kill off system file protection, and remove iexplore.exe, simply typing a URL into any explorer window will make Internet Explorer reassert itself. If you remove the REAL bits that make up Internet Explorer, shdocvw and mshtml, explorer, windows media player (version 7+), windows help (XP), MSN messenger and many other components will stop working.

Re:Not secure...

[jeffasselin]

You have ANY idea how broken IE for Mac is broken already? A bunch of web sites don't work, some work only some of the time, and a few can actually crash it easily (like msn.ca for example -- no joke). A lot of people are coming to/calling our repair shop for these issues lately.

*Sigh*

[BarryNorton]

Not only is this a dupe, but the horrid undisguised bias in this crappy new version has already been contradicted in previous comments...

Re:*Sigh*

[g0at]

The commander-taco-in-chief posted this. I think it is meant as a representation of the quality and pride with which he oversees his web site. Pretty appropriated I'd say.

-b

Re:*Sigh*

[Shakes268]

Glad he's on top of things. Can we vote to impeach him? I'd rather see Cmdr Burrito posting instead.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a universal truth that becoming the cmdr in chief automatically lowers one's IQ by 30 points?

Re:*Sigh*

[BarryNorton]

Best voting we can do is with our feet - by visiting digg.com.

(I've been modded down for stupid things today, I might as well troll and deserve it...)

Double whammy

[EiZei]

They duped the RSS news bit and now this.. the editors are on a roll!

Re:Double whammy

[BushCheney08]

Ummm, you misspelled 'troll'

Cancelled TWICE?

[JonTurner]

It's bad enough MSFT cancelled it once, but to do it twice, why that's just cruel.

Re:Cancelled TWICE?

[Pope]

Mac IE was so bad, they had to cancel it twice just to be safe!

Re:Cancelled TWICE?

[Cmdr_earthsnake]

Damnit, they should've cancelled IE all platforms ;P

Mark me down for that why don't you, I've got karma to burn anyway.. MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Re:Cancelled TWICE?

[ArCh3r]

OMG! This comment is a dupe http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171706&c id=14298591

Whoopty f'ing doo

[PenguinBoyDave]

I use Firefox on Mac. IE on Mac sucked. As far as I'm concerned, they are doing everyone a favor by discontinuing it. Safari is better that IE as far as that goes.

Re:Whoopty f'ing doo

[rollerbob]

In its time Mac IE5 was one of the best browsers available on any platform. With the Tasman rendering engine, it had much better Web Standards support than its Windows counterpart, and its drag and drop customizable toolbar paved the way for similar functionality now found in Firefox and Safari etc.

So IE5 Mac did not suck, then. It sucks now, perhaps.

This just in...

[Billosaur]

Microsoft no longer to support IE for Apple

In a related story, Apple IE users will no longer be supported.

And in business news, Microsoft announced it will discontinue support for IE on the Apple platform.

Thank you and good night.

Re:This just in...

[BushCheney08]

So, anyone know when IE6 for Mac is coming out?

Re:This just in...

[thelost]

while there is a certain amount of humour to this i find little in a journalistic website having such poor standards set for theirselves. surely they wish to be taken seriously? To compare, how often do you see a newspaper running exactly the same story day after day? When you fail to even do the simplest checks to see that something has already been reported on your own website then you start losing journalistic integrity.

Re:This just in...

[meringuoid]

So, anyone know when IE6 for Mac is coming out?

Well, I don't know, but I heard on irc last night that they aren't going to make it - they're dropping Apple support completely! I've been thinking maybe I should submit an article about it to /.?

Re:This just in...

[Billosaur]

while there is a certain amount of humour to this i find little in a journalistic website having such poor standards set for theirselves. surely they wish to be taken seriously?

I don't remember anyone claiming that Slashdot is supposed to be a school of journalism, a beacon of journalistic integrity, or an arbiter of what's newsworthy. People contribute story ideas; some get published, some don't. It's the Internet; the volume of information is staggering. To expect perfection is to have your sights set too high.

And not to put too fine a point on it, I take /. seriously; frankly I don't care much what anyone else thinks about it.

Re:This just in...

[Stan Vassilev]

Well after Mac moves to Intels, emulating one OS in the other OS will be rather cheap operation. Maybe even some library like GTK could be installed so we can swap apps from one too the other..

(ok I'm expecting comments in the line of "great! all windows worms now compatible with macs" but you HAVE to have thought of it before..)

Re:This just in...

[jb.hl.com]

It won't be. If you haven't heard, support for Mac IE is due to be discontinued.

Re:This just in...

[BushCheney08]

What?!?! Someone get this up on slashdot right away!

Re:This just in...

[Triple Click]

Next Tuesday!

Re:This just in...

[1u3hr]

It's the Internet; the volume of information is staggering

The amount of information the editors post comes to about two pages of text a day, all told, including all the categories that don't hit the front page. And that's betweem at least two and up to four editors. There is no excuse for not spellchecking, or duping a story from 24 hours ago. Several years ago they actually researched stories, now they seem to just randomly queue up a bunch of submissions and go off to do something more important.

I used to work on a news website and edited and posted an average of 80 stories a day, by myself, and I would have been embarrassed to publish 1/10th the errors theese guys do.

Re:This just in...

[thelost]

seeing as this is one of the most high profile geek news websites that is on the web expecting a high quality of journalism is reasonable; and to mention the point about arbitrating what's newsworthy, that exactly was slashdot does due to having a massive readership, when something is posted on slashdot people pay attention. Whether or not their editors have said it they are in a position of power and these poor journalistic practices do reflect badly on them.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

With any luck, tomorrow we will find on /. that Microsoft will cease to support IE for Mac.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, it's coming. Hooray for WINE! http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/14 30222

Re:This just in...

[weg]

So, anyone know when IE6 for Mac is coming out?

I heard rumours that it'll be released together with the G5 powerbooks next tuestday...

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps it will be available in a fortnight

Re:This just in...

[jkreuzig]

I used to work on a news website and edited and posted an average of 80 stories a day, by myself, and I would have been embarrassed to publish 1/10th the errors theese guys do.

I would be embarrased also. ;)

Re:This just in...

[1u3hr]

I would be embarrased also. ;)

I';m anb editpr, not a toyipst. (And you misspelled "embarrassed".)

I've left the above sentence as it came off my thick fingers to show what I'm dealing with... But seriously, I don't have a spellcheck in my browser and don't have the patience to cut and paste it into a WP for a forum posting. I also moderate on a site that uses Slashcode, and I know that when publishing a story you are presented with a list of "words that ispell doesn't know". So I really can't comprehend how they can get that wrong so often. But obviously what management there is doesn't care; after a while the attitude filters down that you don't get rewarded for taking care or punished for screwing up, so why bother.

Re:This just in...

[Ilgaz]

What makes me confused is... Why people "love" this story? I just spotted it on a turkish media watch site which has nothing to do with "tech news".

I think people outside Mac world assume Mac IE is an important browser like Windows one. It is not. I still think it wasn't a "bad" browser in its time. Obviously it is very slow now but can browse most of W3C Standard compliant www sites.

The important thing about IE for mac was: Standards support and being a standalone application does NOT mess with any part of system. For that reason, many people "keep it" in their Applications folder. Also thanks to its use of the standard OS X installer for installation, there are no "warnings" in system log even on Tiger install. I must admit they really know how to code on mac when they aren't busy with some evil "world domination" plans :)

If Windows IE was an application like Mac IE, nobody would hate it that much.

BTW, I had to "checkout" using Mac IE yesterday on a www shop. I had full order list and noticed nothing on mac except IE supports shops weird javascript. So, it stays in my /Applications folder. Thanks to OS X Arch, nothing would do any "harm" by sitting in it's folder as an .app package.

Re:This just in...

[sambira]

Does anyone still use IE for Mac or Windows? Firebird is the one true browser. It will unify the world.

Oh thank God...

[sketchydave]

Does this finally mean I can stop banging my head on my desk when IE for the Mac decides that CSS stands for Can't See Styles?

Re:Oh thank God...

[osssmkatz]

Does that have anything to do with the commenting style you are using? Most CSS books recommend you comment out the CSS using an HTML comment. That way, HTML clients that don't support CSS won't display the CSS Code, because to it, your CSS is just a comment. However, commenting styles vary from browser to browser vendor and version.

So if Mac IE is treating your CSS as a comment.. that could be your problem.

--Sam

Re:Oh thank God...

[sketchydave]

Oh no, its more that I hate having to go through a bunch of ridiculous CSS hacks and such to make IE for Mac ignore the CSS that works in every other browser except IE for Mac. That gets old real fast. I usually just do a Javascript redirect if they are using IE for Mac telling them to use Safari or Firefox. "Can't See Styles" was just the wittiest thing I could think up on the fly. I'm too low on coffee to try for anything else. Craves Style Support...Crashes Silly Sites... yeah, need coffee

dupes aside

[TedRiot]

I think this might be a good thing for web in general, because sites need to start supporting web browsers in general if they want to keep their mac users instead of assuming that mac users will want to install IE. Not that mac IE ever behaved like its windows counterpart..

Re:dupes aside

[aug24]

I just spoke to house.co.uk because I can't read my electricity bill online (weirdly I can read my gas bill!). They informed me that 'FireFox is not compatible with House' - I told them that it's the other way round and that they just lost a customer!

The more different (but standards compliant) browsers out there, the better the experience for all of us.

Justin.

Re:dupes aside

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This is a great thing. As of now, some companies require that you have IE. When I got DSL for my sister, the tech insisted that DSL would not work without IE. I discovered on my own that they have a registration website that only works with IE. I think it was some broken javascript that would not let me complete the form with Safari or Firefox. They say they support Apple computers, so now they'll have to make that registration form work with Safari at least, which hopefully means standard compliance. Online banking is another area that will be improved. Most companies will never respond until enough people complain, and adding OSX users to the line of complainers may be enough to force some change.

Re:dupes aside

[metlin]

I'm not even sure if its Windows counterpart knows how to behave.

Re:dupes aside

[jedidiah]

When installing comcast cablemodem service into my current house, I told the tech that I was NOT going to put a Windows box on a naked internet connection. He just called tech support and worked through the situation as if it were a mundane technical glitch.

Re:Saw this before...

[aed]

Wouldn't have mattered... I did manage to open my mail client and even send out a mail about this...

Back in 1999 it was a very good browser

[YA_Python_dev]

Everyone please remember that IE/Mac is a very different browser than IE/Win, and back in 1999/2000 it was one of the most standards-compliant browsers around.

According to The Web Standards Project it helped to start the "CSS layout revolution".

Re:Back in 1999 it was a very good browser

[monktus]

It was also the first browser that could run natively in OS X as far as I remember. When I was working for a web design company in 2000/2001, IE5 for Mac was actually the easiest browser to develop for; Netscape 4 was a nightmare, and I won't even get into IE 4.5. I used IE5 on OS X for a long time and, although it's a dinosaur now (in fact the CSS support on this puppy is probably better), it's another example of the quality of Microsoft's Mac software in comparison to its Windows equivalents. I probably fall into the Apple fanboy catagory but I've used Mac Office often and I've even taken a liking to Windows Mobile. It's not all bad.

Re:Back in 1999 it was a very good browser

[Pope]

I think OmniWeb came first for OS X, it was the only one at the time to have the nice Cocoa font anti-aliasing so text was nicer to read in it, and had the first OS X native Flash implementation. I stuck with OmniWeb as my main browser for quite some time until all the other browsers caught up.

Now it's just another front end to WebKit, but back then it was its own rendering engine, having a legacy from the NeXT days.

Re:Back in 1999 it was a very good browser

[RaNdOm OuTpUt]

Of course, when M$ noticed it had a standards-compliant product, they stopped making it.

Brain-dead comment

[Malc]

"And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts."

Remove this brain dead inflamatory comment, and there's nothing really left of this story. I hope the person submitting it is proud of themselves. Especially considering this is a dupe of a previous front page story.

Furthermore, this comment is just plain wrong. When Microsoft stops support for IE on the Mac, are they going to remove it from all the Macs that already have it? No of course not, so the security situation will not change immediately. I hope Microsoft will continue to supply security patches, otherwise there is a danger that every Mac on the internet with IE will become less secure over time as exploits are found.

Out of curiousity, just how insecure has IE on the Mac been?

Re:Brain-dead comment

[TeacherOfHeroes]

I hope Microsoft will continue to supply security patches, otherwise there is a danger that every Mac on the internet with IE will become less secure over time as exploits are found.

Unless thats what they want to happen.

Would it be so bad for MS if the public perception of os x as more secure than windows was damaged a little?

Re:Brain-dead comment

[hackstraw]

"And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts."

Remove this brain dead inflamatory comment, and there's nothing really left of this story.

Very true. I was going to comment on that and the usual dupe, but both were caught by others (-1 Redundant for me).

However, the "brain dead inflammatory comment" was probably added by an "editor". I decipher the story topics as the following (reading slashcode would confirm that, but I rarely read articles before knowing everything about them :)

user_xyx writes "Something interesting in italics" Followed by editor slant to begin flamewar in regular font.

An "unedited" comment looks like (the next article on the front page):

evilduckie writes "According to this BBC article photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor show the European Beagle 2 probe which was lost after it apparently crash-landed on Mars."

No extra flamage needed on this!

Since this is a dupe, go ahead and read my -1 Redundant post about IE on Mac "support" here. I tried to be more factual, and not as trollish but IE is clearly a substandard product on a Mac. And I said once before, that IE was either never or at least has not been supported for at least a few years.

I've found it unnecessary for so long that I'm not sure if its installed on my Tiger box, and I have not used it in a very, very long time on my Panther box.

Re:Brain-dead comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that the brain-dead, inflammatory comment was added in by Malda himself. Brain-dead and inflammatory are two words often used in describing the way he's been running this site for a while now.

Re:Brain-dead comment

[Malc]

Hey thanks for the clarification about the italicised part of the story versus the non. You would think after all these years I would know this. To be honest though, the non-italicised part has never really been enlightening enough to come across to me as an editorial comment. As anybody who's run a successful business knows: consumers are often pleased by the most surprising and insignificant things. It's the idea people buy, not the brains behind the operation. And in fact the smartest people are often unable to sell a product!

Re:Brain-dead comment

[hackstraw]

As anybody who's run a successful business knows: consumers are often pleased by the most surprising and insignificant things.

I've never run a successful or unsuccessful business, but I would almost agree that consumer are often pleased by the most surprising and insignificant things.

Surprising just means unexpected, nice, and often a sign of attention to detail. I'm pleasantly surprised with my car's design feature of a gas cap holder inside of the locking gas cap cover. My car is not a BMW, but they had that feature at least 20 years ago, and I though it was cool then. I've heard that a Lincoln is going to put heated windshield washer fluid in cars or has already. Pretty cool. Volvo has for years put a $0.02 piece of plastic on the windshield for valet tickets. Nice attention to detail.

I completely disagree with people liking insignificant things. Otherwise they would not notice or care about them.

And in fact the smartest people are often unable to sell a product!

Smart people often put up with junk that is in my opinion is dumb. I don't think that smart has to do necessarily with selling a product, although most smart people usually do other thing than sales. Smart people often have the inability to think outside of their smartness so their product is more of a niche thing that may or may not be tolerated by similar people. UNIX is similar (command line world). It was primarily created by and indirectly for developers and hackers. Nothing does anything really, but chain a few goodies together and in no time, you have everything. grep used to do nothing if you simply typed 'grep'. And, the usual ^C did not break out of it either. Of course you had to use ^D to tell grep that there was an EOF. More mature coding and GNU/Linux has fixed many of the limitations and gotchas of UNIX from ~15 years ago (thankfully!). I read the UNIX haters handbook (from 1992 if I remember correctly) for the first time recently, and almost all of its issues have been fixed.

Sure, UNIX/Linux and OS X have inconstancies and silly stuff in them, but much less than some other guys. I used to have to use annoyances.org as documentation of how to do things (or not) in Windows. There appears to be similar things for other products, but as I said, annoyances.org was essential 10 years ago, and I would assume it is still pretty good today.

Bye bye MSIE on OS X. Nice knowing you.

Re:Brain-dead comment

[hackstraw]

Smart people often put up with junk that is in my opinion is dumb.

Yes, I am dumb and often don't proofread my posts and look dumb taking about dumb. I know better, but do worse...

Re:Brain-dead comment

[tsaler]

I think you may be working from the presumption that Microsoft is more sinister than it really is.

Re:Brain-dead comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be so bad for MS if the public perception of os x as more secure than windows was damaged a little?

If it was a MS product, yes of course. How on earth do such comments get modded up?

Re:Brain-dead comment

[Trillan]

Out of curiousity, just how insecure has IE on the Mac been?

The only one I ever heard of was MS02-019, which was fixed in 2002.

Re:Brain-dead comment

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh no, because little crackpot conspiracy theorists like yourself would be quick to point out that it was a problem with Microsoft's software and not OSX..

Nice try though.. keep spreading the FUD man.. you're doing a great job.

suggestion

[lovebyte]

I am a subscriber.
I sent an email to tell it's a dupe 20 minutes before the story appeared to everyone.
I was hoping it mattered.
I am disappointed.

Since during the last duped story someone suggested a way to avoid dupes, let me add my idea:
During the time the story is not yet fully released:
Allow subscribers to post.
Automatically give 5 moderation points to all subscribers and allow moderation.
Editors, please check the subscribers posts before releasing the story to everyone.
If all is ok, remove the subscribers posts and release story.

Re:suggestion

[Skater]

What makes you think they'd be more likely to check the posts than they would their own email?

Re:suggestion

[ZorbaTHut]

That would require the admins and editors to do work. I've seen very little sign of interest in that.

Re:suggestion

[mopslik]

let me add my idea

Here's an even easier idea that the editors can try out, patent-free:

• Click "Old Stories" to reach the Search Slashdot page.
• Type "IE Mac" into the search bar.
• Behold the power of searching (second result).

Re:suggestion

[lovebyte]

What makes you think they'd be more likely to check the posts than they would their own email?
Emails are plagued with SPAM and it can take time to sort them out. Subscriber's only post would be vey quick to read, especially moderated ones.

Re:suggestion

[orkysoft]

Why remove the subscribers' posts? I'd rather have a subscriber get ``first post'' and actually post something interesting, than one of those stupid trolls.

Re:suggestion

[sydneyfong]

Only on slashdot would somebody pay for the "priviledge" to do work that editors are supposed to be paid to do.

Meanwhile, CmdrTaco continues playing WoW...

Re:suggestion

[bprime]

What about those of us that only subscribe to get the fr1st ps0t?

Two corrections here...

[jht]

First of all, this is a dupe from Sunday. Nothing new to see here. Move along. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Secondly (and more important): IE for the Mac was an entirely different product, with a different codebase and a different rendering engine. While IE for Mac did have an occasional vulnerability (typically patched pretty quickly), it was at the time a more standards-compliant browser than its distant Windows cousin.

Unlike IE for Windows, IE for Mac was simply an application. No low-level stuff, no rendering engine used by the system (like IE Win and, for that matter, Safari/WebKit for the Mac), no ActiveX compatibility, no nothing. Other than the lack of pop-up blocking (which wasn't a common feature in any browser yet), IE was a pretty decent product. Most Mac users used IE, and were pretty happy with it - it had versions for the old Mac OS, and a spiffy Carbonized version for OS X). When Apple announced Safari, though, the writing was on the wall for IE Mac - why keep building a browser that earns no revenue and doesn't even help draw users to other Microsoft products? Just to get a few more MSN pageviews by people too lazy to change their default homepage?

Nah.

Re:Two corrections here...

[muikano]

Okay two points. i regularly check my RSS feeds and it wasn't on the front page on Sunday. In fact i only caught it today. What exactly is a dupe story anyways. I first saw this discussion on digg but since most digg comments are dumber than sticks, I was looking forward to slashdot commentary. Second point. One of the points the digg convo had, if you can weed out all that junk, is that there are some IE only pages that provide NEEDED services. There's also the fact that IE doesnt play well in other browsers. People that develop on MACs might have liked an updated IE just for testin' purposes. Slashdot needs to AJAX the replies.

Re:Two corrections here...

[trooz1]

Just to get a few more MSN pageviews by people too lazy to change their default homepage?

I wouldn't be so sure about that!
A Microsoft Catch-22

Same freaking article title, much worse snarking

[frankie]

Quick refresher course in web history: 5 years down the road, Mac IE is outdated and in desperate need of retirement. But back in 2000, Mac IE5 was far and away the most standards compliant browser available. It had little or nothing to do with Win IE, except that IE6 was later based on Mac IE's rendering engine. It did not support ActiveX, and has no higher security risk than anything from Mozilla and pals.

Sheesh, the very latest article for Jebus' sake!

It's really good riddance to bad rubbish

[kindafun]

Nothing but good will come from this. It was once the best browser on the planet but it languished and was passed by many. It's hard to imagine that many users on X were using it. If they were and read about this they'll be so much happier by the change. Use Safari or Firefox on X and see what web pages are suppose to look like!

And Office?

[Ed Avis]

Doesn't Microsoft Office have all sorts of hooks into Internet Explorer? At least on Windows, you need the latest IE for the latest Office, or it installs at the same time, or something like that. What does this say about the future of Office for Mac?

Re:And Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Microsoft Office have all sorts of hooks into Internet Explorer?

I don't think that is the case for the Mac version. I do know that Office for the Mac is a completely different product from the Windows version.

This will get me modded down to negative infinity, but I have to say that in my old Mac days (early 90s), the Mac's Excel was the finest piece of software that I ran at the time.

Re:And Office?

[griffindj]

Unlike Safari, MS Office has no "real" counterpart on the mac... as of yet. I say that owning a copy of keynote2 and pages. Unlike IE for the Mac, MS Office for the Mac has a big lead on that market, and I think they will continue to support office well into your mid-life crisis. I use Office 2004 for my mac, and I haven't seen any tie-ins with IE. Although my install disc did come with msn messenger. Luckily uninstalling IE on the mac is a simple drag and drop in the trash can away.

Re:And Office?

[tsaler]

When I installed Office:mac on my iBook, there was nothing about Internet Explorer. It didn't install, and I don't think it even offered. So, I would say that there will be no impact on Office for Mac except maybe that it will improve because I read in the last thread that Microsoft may be moving the developers off the IE for Mac project and over to Office for Mac.

Re:It makes you think.

[dhasenan]

It's probably not that bad. Most likely, there wouldn't have been anything in its place, just a longer delay.

redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the first person to post that. In this article anyways.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

...Echo...echo...echo...

Who cares at this point?

[Y-Crate]

I'll ignore the dupe aspect of this story to state that IE for the Mac has not received a significant update since the year 2000. Everything between then and the termination of development in 2003, was simply basic maintenance updates that kept it running on each version of OS X and squashed a few security bugs here and there.

IE for the Mac has been very dead for a very long time.

I'm outta here...

[Anonymous Coward]

...just like IE 5.x for the Mac. We can sit around and laugh all day at Microsoft and their crap software, but nothing beats a human that's crap at their job.
 
The cackhandedness of Slashdot editors to not notice duplicate stories on their own site is simply not forgiveable. Do you read each other's stories?
 
I guess it just goes to show the amount of care and consideration that goes into maintaining the site - none. I can't think of another site that duplicates stories, and also does so without acknowledging it, or withdrawing duplicates once they're posted - maybe it's a failing of the underlying Slashcode and the way it works, I don't know.
 
While I can tolerate the odd duplicate story, I know there are both human and machine ways to get around it. The thing is that it's not the dupes that are the thing that annoys me, it's your lack of dealing with the problem and your attitude towards them that I find sad.
 
So, while we'll all be sat here talking about holes in systems and applications and the like, please patch the one in your site; the fundamental, gaping, chronic, duplicate posting hole.
 
This will instantly be modded down as off-topic, but I don't care, just like IE5.x for the Mac, I'm outta here...

Re:I'm outta here...

[Anonymous Coward]

start your own megasite, or stop your whining ...

Re:I'm outta here...

[reiggin]

I agree completely. I just joined Digg and I'm amazed at how well it is done. It's what Slashdot should be at this point. And that's the problem... Slashdot has not evolved at a steady rate. The simple fact that the Slashcode just now stepped up to CSS and HTML 4 screams a lot. Digg shows much more promise. I predict it won't be long before Slashdot has to play catch-up with Digg just to stay alive.

Re:I'm outta here...

[Malc]

It's not so much about competence as it a statement about their respect for their readers .

Re:I'm outta here...

[aconkling]

...except that duplicate stories are much more prevalent on digg than Slashdot. That and the insanely low quality of many digg stories/comments is what keeps me coming back to Slashdot. I'd like to think that digg has some promise, but I just don't. Even with its problems, Slashdot is still the better experience overall.

Re:I'm outta here...

[rmayes100]

Except the digg system itself does a pretty good job of dealing with dupes usually only one post gets very many diggs while the others languish in obscurity. It would be nice if digg had a commenting system more like /.'s though. Threaded comments would be a nice addition to digg. It seems like both sites could do a better job handling dupes. It shouldn't be too hard to have the software do a check before a comment is posted and display a list of articles already posted that are similar to the one about to be posted. Especially if they link to the exact same site(s). A kind of "Are you sure you want to post this? This article appears to be similar to the following articles:" type of message when you preview or something.

Re:I'm outta here...

[aconkling]

"It shouldn't be too hard to have the software do a check before a comment is posted and display a list of articles already posted that are similar to the one about to be posted. Especially if they link to the exact same site(s). A kind of "Are you sure you want to post this? This article appears to be similar to the following articles:" type of message when you preview or something."

This is exactly what digg does. However, it's system needs a lot of improvement; often you can search for something and get more results than with the dupe checker.

But yeah, the front page usually manages to miss the dupes, but the strength about digg is that you can participate (reading the stories that haven't made it to the frontpage). I've just found that doing so is tedious and pointless:
A. You have to filter through said dupes.
B. There are SO many stories, only a fraction of which I think are worthwhile (think Slashdot-type stories).
C. There's no way to cast a negative vote. That'd be useful if the story were a dupe. As it is, you either vote or stay silent... and that's no choice!

Don't even get me started on comments, either the system or the users....

Holy shit!

[aug24]

We got an apology for a dupe... the editors can read!

Justin.

Infinite Loop

[lbmouse]

Wonder if Neowin will start posting slahdot dupes and then someone from slashdot can start posting the Neowin dupes that are dupes, etc.

Re:It makes you think.

[King Babar]

How many good stories which could have gotten a good converstation going got rejected because of this dupe.

Probably not so many. My last story got rejected, but it was just the latest ThinkSecret rumor about Yonah-based notebooks and minis. To be honest, there aren't that many real Apple stories these days. That should change as we get closer to MacWorld Expo. They might be able to use a real story on the G4- and G5-optimized builds of Firefox, but other than that...I'm not thinking of much.

So much for Mac

[W.Mandamus]

D*mn, we have to use an industry specific website that generates documents that there are no other options to get. The site only runs on IE. I was hoping to migrate the office to Mac next year. If we can't get these docs though we aren't in business.

What I hate most about open source is that the developers don't seem to get it. There is industry specific business critical software out there that will only interface with microsoft products. We can't use OpenOffice because no document assembly program will interface with it and OO.O's developers don't care to put in document assembly. We've been using firefox for everything but one website because firefox can't work with an IE only website. I'd love to use more open source in my business but you don't make it easy.

Re:So much for Mac

[WinterSolstice]

I have a similar issue - SAP's NetWeaver Portal is IE only (and actually *is*, for admins). They use all kinds of stupid DOM tricks that simply don't work under firefox, and they don't even use them intelligently. They use it for a stupid right-click menu that shouldn't even have been implemented that way. Hello? Java? The whole thing requires Java 1.4.2_08 or higher anyway.

I'm pissed off about it, and I have opened SAP OSS notes regarding it :)

I do wish there was a way to get firefox to be more 'crapatible' so I didn't have to use IE at all. It's annoying, since most of the admins use Unix here. We have to run an IE session just for this.

-WS

Re:So much for Mac

[CastrTroy]

That's not something you should blame on open source software. You should either blame the developers of the website that only works on IE, or blame it on Microsoft for making a browser that is not standards compliant. In the case where saying firefox can't work with an IE only website, well, that's really not Mozilla's fault. Maybe it's activeX, maybe it's something else. You can't expect Mozilla to copy ActiveX, or some other non-standard technology that microsoft has built into the web browser. And maybe you shouldn't have bought into a solution that relies on some proprietary piece of software. It really sucks that many things require Microsoft products to work, even though we know that they don't need MS to program similar software. The best thing we can do is to stop buying solutions that require things such as IE and MS Office.

Re:So much for Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be ... wrongheaded, to think that the blame for this lies in the hands of the open source developers who wrote a browser to be standards compliant. Instead, perhaps you should ask Microsoft why they have made it impossible for anyone else to design and implement a browser that is compatible with their super-secret IE only tricks and traps.

Why has your website provider not gone to a more interoperable design? It seems to me, that you must be trolling. No one could be that dumb.

Re:So much for Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man, I feel your pain. But instead of hating open source and their
developers who "don't seem to get it" why don't you try blaming the people
who locked you in to their shitty products, or youself for being so stupid
as to allow them to lock you in.

When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing to do is to
stop digging.

Geez ... so many hissie-fits about dupes...

[scheming daemons]

So it's a dupe.

Big farking deal.

Simple solution... ignore it.

The anal-retentiveness of the MUST-FRET-ABOUT-ALL-DUPES crowd in here is incredible.

Damn, you guys sure fit the engineer stereotype to a T. Relax.

LET IT GO. Take a deep breath. Repeat to yourself "Dupes cannot hurt me, it is best to ignore them" 100 times. Then take a puff on your inhaler, straighten your glasses and pocket protector, and get back to work.

Re:Geez ... so many hissie-fits about dupes...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were a slashdot editor, I'd post a dupe once every couple of days just because I like to troll, and it ALWAYS works. The fools, they can't help themselves. DUPE! IT'S A DUPE! Over here! Quick! FP DUPE DUPE DUPE lololololololol fucktards.

Don't worry folks..

[Lihtan]

...I'll try submitting this story again tomorrow. Third time's the charm.

Dupe? How about Tripe?

[erroneus]

...uh...no, that doesn't work does it...

Anyway, how about we try for three and a bunch of us submit this story AGAIN!

Re:Give 'em a break

[Durandal64]

You're misunderstanding why Internet Explorer causes security problems. Safari is no different from any other Mac OS X application in that it uses frameworks to do its thing. So if there's a security vulnerability in any framework, every application which uses that framework is vulnerable. WebKit is no better off or worse off. It's just a framework for managing HTML connections and rendering HTML content.

This is not analogous to what Microsoft has done with Internet Explorer. Windows Explorer uses the MSHTML DLL to browse the file system, and Microsoft's HTML integration with the file browser runs so deeply that security flaws which would normally only be minor browser irritants become flaws which can execute arbitrary code in the file browser's memory space. Witness the security travesty that is ActiveX. A browser technology laden with security flaws suddenly becomes an operating system-level problem because of ActiveDesktop.

Apple does not use WebKit for the Finder, and the Finder is far less tied into the underlying OS than Windows Explorer is. The Finder has some special features over other applications, but at the end of the day, it's just another application which can be quit if you don't like it without really losing much. In Windows, it's a different story. For example, it's impossible to manipulate the Control Panel without Windows Explorer because that interface is guarded by private APIs. Mac OS X uses a separate application to change system settings.

Re: site support for non-IE browsers

[rewinn]

> because sites need to start supporting web browsers in general if they want to keep their mac users instead of assuming that mac users will want to install IE.

Yep, and we're not talking insignificant sites. My credit card company (one of the Big Three) site has important functionality that doesn't work except under IE (...according to their tech support and my attempt to use Safari.)

One assumes MS considered the cost of keeping IE/Mac barely alive was worth more than the risk of forcing such sites to broaden their browserability, which in turn suggests something about MS's acknowledgement of the market role of non-IE browsers.

Two negatives make a positive, correct?

[rolfwind]

So IE work on the Mac must be continuing!

Re:Two negatives make a positive, correct?

[ickoonite]

"Two negatives make a positive, correct?

Are you foreign? Sorry, but I just read the title, re-read it, and couldn't help but think it sounded like the stuff of a Babelfish translation, maybe translating something like "Two wrongs make a right, right?" from, say, Korean into English.

iqu :P

Hmm...

[omeg]

Am I the only one in the world who kind of likes the vertical tab side-bar in IE for Mac?

Not again!

[roman_mir]

So let me get this straight. They ended IE support of Mac, then they restarted IE support for Mac and then they ended IE support of Mac all over again and all of this within the course of 2 days? Sneaky bastards!

It looks even better...

[Anonymous Coward]

...here.

my IE on Mac support ended

[psbrogna]

when I installed Suse. I'm not exactly all broken up about this.

Sad

[nuremon]

What's sad about this is that I still need to use IE on MAC to make silly things work on Disney's website and a couple other places. I love web standards...

Re:Sad

[Dan Ost]

Let Disney know about the problems you have with their site. The more feedback they get, the more likely they are to consider alternative browsers in the future.

IE 5 no tabs. Forget IE. IE 6 no tabs. Forget IE

[alfredo]

When other browsers offered tabs, IE was pitched into the trash.

So tabbed browsing is in beta, eleven years since the technology was introduced. I wonder if they will lead users to believe it is one of their innovations?

Dupespotting

[djdavetrouble]

And, why must all 12 readers insist on posting "DUPE" in ALL CAPS?

Obviously you have not yet read the rules of the Slashdot Dupespotting Association, aka the SBA.
To qualify, you must post DUPE in all caps within 15 minutes of the article
appearing (front page only).

First place gets 3 points, second place gets 2 points, third gets 1.

So, you see, even if someone has already posted DUPE, it beehoves you to still
try to qualify as second or third. At the end of the year, all of your points are added
up by a leet slashdot crawling script, and the winner is announced on digg.com.
Get with it !

Re:Dupespotting

[Anonymous Coward]

you know me and a dozen others are writing that script right now.
actually, the results should be posted christmas day ;>

d

Re:Give 'em a break

[generic-man]

My point is that IE/Mac is more secure than Safari. IE/MacOSX was a lousy Carbon job so it's not tied into any framework besides Carbon. In much the same way as any malware app on Windows can embed an IE control to download files, ads, rootkits, etc., any Mac app can embed Safari to do the same thing. I agree that a WebKit app can do much less damage than an IE/Windows app assuming everyone's system is patched up, since most Windows users run as Administrator all the time, but both Safari and IE/Windows have had flaws that opened up users' systems in unexpected ways.

IE/Mac by contrast has just sat there for years, untouched by even long-time Mac users, never used by even IE-only web developers, because of its lousy quality as a browser.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Are You Kidding Me?.echo echo

[fury88]

Wow, that had to be one of the quickest dupes every!!! CONGRATULATIONS!

People still use IE?

[olddotter]

Really, your telling me people still use IE? Why?

CT Deja Vu 'eh? Sorry.

[Eightyford]

CT Deja Vu 'eh? Sorry.

He's Canadian?

Again?

[Stan Vassilev]

Ok, Microsoft, we got you the first time!

IE on Windows

[sbirnie]

If they would only stop supporting IE on Windows - then we'd ALL be safer!

Re:IE on Windows

[Fnord666]

If they would only stop supporting IE on Windows - then we'd ALL be safer!

Doesn't that assume they support it to start with?

Re:IE on Windows

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Oh no. That would be one of the worst possible things that could happen.

At least with IE supported and updated, the most-exploited vulnerabilities and goatse-sized security holes are patched sooner or later. If they stopped supporting IE on Windows, you'd have the equivalent a few years down the road, of Melissa destroying computers today.

Re:IE on Windows

[chawly]

They haven't ?

Re:Give 'em a break

[Durandal64]

My point is that IE/Mac is more secure than Safari. IE/MacOSX was a lousy Carbon job so it's not tied into any framework besides Carbon. In much the same way as any malware app on Windows can embed an IE control to download files, ads, rootkits, etc., any Mac app can embed Safari to do the same thing.

So? How is this any different from using the Core Foundation API to do the same things? Any API can be used toward malicious ends. Apple had an API for establishing network connections long before WebKit, but I didn't see anyone whining about that one. Microsoft's error wasn't in including an HTML renderer library as you seem to think. Their error was making low-level OS components reliant on that library. Apple has not made that mistake.

I agree that a WebKit app can do much less damage than an IE/Windows app assuming everyone's system is patched up, since most Windows users run as Administrator all the time, but both Safari and IE/Windows have had flaws that opened up users' systems in unexpected ways.

And the same is true of any library. Security exploits are not exclusive to HTML renderers.

Deja vu?

[tomcres]

Yeah.. especially since I recall reading this yesterday, right here on Slashdot!

The horse is dead already. Please stop beating the poor thing!

Change in Slash Editor Policy

[mattwarden]

In related news, Slashdot announced today a change in editorial policy. Starting in December, each Slashdot editor will approve a different version of the same story.

Asked about the decision, CmdrTaco pointed to tension amongst the editors. "ScuttleMonkey was whining about only having a chance to approve **Beatles-Beatles linkwhore articles, while Zonk and others get to approve stuff that matters (sometimes more than once, even). This change in policy will hopefully get rid of this tension, which has distracted all of us lately from our bird watching activities."

Some have speculated that most Slashdot users will notice no difference from their previous site experience.

Super Dupe!

[eigerface]

Courtesy of Google News.

IE on the Mac: Bubbye
CNET News.com- Dec 19, 2005
News on Monday that Microsoft plans to discontinue support and development of its Internet Explorer Web browser on the Macintosh hardly came as a surprise.
MS pulls plug on Mac IE Register
Microsoft Drops Support for Mac IE TechNewsWorld
VNUNet.com- InformationWeek- Techtree.com- ZDNet UK- all 112 related

Redundant Department of Redundancy

[Trails]

Actually I suspect that like me, Taco has had to support this blight on web development (yes I realise this was once a shinning beacon of hope, but that was like 8 decades ago, get over it). Like me, he's just so giddy that he can't keep from singing this from the rooftops because it means the end of so much pain.

In the long run...

[ursabear]

this is A Good Thing. If Microsoft isn't interested in (or doesn't have financial interest in) maintaining and improving IE Mac, then it is much better if they publicly announce IE EOL.
Mac users do have alternatives. People will eventually switch (or, in many cases, their computer will die and they'll have to transition because IE won't be the default any more - oh wait... I can't remember the last time I heard someone say that their Mac died...).

conspiracy teory

[nazsco]

1. apple pays tac0 a buttload of money. tax free
2. apple control what appears on /. behind some expensive design curtains
3. apple gets tons of zealots creating another zealots
4. apple can have a truplicated news when some "injustice" is done to her busness
5. ???
6. PROFIT!

Uninstalling Mac IE

[rjamestaylor]

Luckily uninstalling IE on the mac is a simple drag and drop in the trash can away.

True, and coming from a Windows background this was of particular joy to discover. Amazing what happens when business rules don't get in the way of computer owner preferences. (However, I haven't and wouldn't want to try to remove safari to see if Apple allows it so easily.)

Re:Uninstalling Mac IE

[stewby18]

I haven't and wouldn't want to try to remove safari to see if Apple allows it so easily.

I'll save you the trouble: yes. You'll still have the WebKit framework, since that's an integral part of several other bundled apps and a whole bunch of 3rd-party apps, but Safari itself is trivial to remove.

Re:Uninstalling Mac IE

[v1]

However, I haven't and wouldn't want to try to remove safari to see if Apple allows it so easily

"Uninstalling" safari is just as simple. drag to trash, empty. done.

Unlike IE on windows, safari is a stand-alone user-level application that is not used for anything besides web browsing, so removing it does not cripple anything.

Crap reply bashing /. below

[Anonymous Coward]

Reason #42901 to retire slashdot to insure a spot in the Interweb hall of fame. Its time has come.

Re:Give 'em a break

[wtmcgee]

well you've convinced me.

I sense a disturbance in the Force

[Phoenix666]

It's as if a half dozen users of IE on Mac cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

How Old Is This?

[thunderpaws]

MS hasn't done anything with IE Mac for a couple of years now? Since when is the news, especially duped and again?

Re:Give 'em a break

[techwolf]

Well, can't argue with that kind of logic, can you?

Good Ridance!

[thecpuguru]

IE is only good for playing games on yahoo anyhow, so good ridance!

ONE DOWN

[furry_wookie]

Well.. thats ONE OS down.......... ONE MORE to go.

Plain English?

[twitter]

IE for Mac is discontinued and vulnerabilities for it will never be fixed.

This is functionally different from Windoze in what way?

oh i get it

[Anonymous Coward]

if u didn't get the good news the first time lets be crystal clear: their is no more ie (or as I call it AYEEEE) for the mac

Dialog at 7:30 in the morning

[Qbertino]

Jules: 'Why did you post that dupe? Again.'

Slashdot Admin: 'What?'

Jules: 'Do I look like I'm stupid?'

Slashdot Admin: 'What?'

Jules: 'Do I look like like someone who needs to be told everything twice?'

Slashdot Admin: 'What?'

Jules: 'Don't you understand what I'm saying? What country are you from?'

Slashdot Admin: 'W...? What?'

Jules: ' "What"? "What" ain't no country I ever heard of. Do they speak english in "What"? '

Slashdot Admin: 'What?'

Jules: ' Say "What" again. SAY "WHAT" AGAIN! I DARE YOU, MOTHERF*CKER, I DOUBLE DARE YOU. '

Vincet: 'How do you read our submitions and the articles posted?'

Slashdot Admin: 'W... w... we ... we don't actually.'

Jules: 'So you think we're stupid?'

Slashdot Admin: 'What?'

*BLAM!* *BLAM!* *BLAM!* *BLAM!* *BLAM!* *BLAM!* *BLAM!*

In other news...

[grumpyman]

Microsoft has released its WinFS 0.98a and Windows Media Center XXX betas. Users are encouraged to download and use the software free of charge.

**Requires Internet Explorer for Mac.

Now maybe another company will back HTML standards

[BelaHedgehog]

... and IE only websites will only occur on Microsoft servers. Is this the beginning of a downswing for Microsoft, or just another harsh business move designed to kill off Macintosh?

We as a community of "enlightened" people need to inform our employers/friends of the difference between "public site doesn't follow public standards" and "I wanna go here and it wont load on my browser".

Re:It makes you think.

[krewemaynard]

You're story didn't get rejected...They're just holding out till Beatles-Beatles submits it.

Re: site support for non-IE browsers

[jedidiah]

Which one of the "big three"?

Discover, American Express, MasterCard, Visa?

Or did you mean someone like MBNA or Chase?

I've been happily using non MS browsers for sites such as those for a number of years now.

It may be dead...

[mrbarkeeper]

It may be dead...

but it sure refuses to die on Slashdot.

no big loss

[Wansu]

It ain't like many Mac users were running IE. Heck there's plenty of browsers available for the Mac.

Safari
Firefox
Mozilla
Opera
iCab
Omniweb

to name a few.

Re:no big loss

[Johnny Mozzarella]

I run a computer lab full of Macs and you would be amazed how far out of the way PC users will go to use IE.
Every Mac has Safari(in the dock), Firefox, Opera and IE.
Many PC users still think Internet Explorer IS the internet.

If Internet Explorer isn't on the desktop then the computer must not be working properly.

Carnitas!

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrTaco = Ground Beef for Brains

Good riddance, I say

[gnud]

heh.
Good riddance to that Bug ridden crash prone piece of junk

ie ends on mac

[Anonymous Coward]

finally, now I feel secure in finally purchasing a mac.

Re:Give 'em a break

[Anonymous Coward]

"For example, it's impossible to manipulate the Control Panel without Windows Explorer because that interface is guarded by private APIs." - by Durandal64 (658649) on Tuesday December 20, @10:40AM

You sure about that? Try running cmd.exe (%comspec%, the default commandline interpreter) & then from inside it @ the commandline, type:

control.exe sysdm.cpl

(OR, any other %WinDir%\system32 *.cpl file for that matter...)

* See what happens...

APK

-5, Dupe

[sabat]

Your score is now -10, taco.

Accerlate Google Earth for the Mac

[fstayloriv]

Great, hopefully this will only accelerate Google's development of a version of Google Earth for the Mac (a test version has already leaked out on the Internet).

re-subitt the same story a thousand times!

[Danathar]

The users on slashdot should use this story to get the editors attention. EVERYBODY should submitt the same story if we can get at least a couple of hundred people to submit (or maybe a couple of thousand people to submit) the same story day after day maybe they'll get the message.

It could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

They could throw in some gratuitous Flash.

How secure?

[argent]

IE on the Mac doesn't take part in the ActiveDesktop Cluster**** that's been the biggest security problem on the net for the past 7 years, so...

Out of curiousity, just how insecure has IE on the Mac been?

About as insecure as any other normal browser, and maybe a quintillion times as secure as IE on Windows.

Dear Taco,

[sootman]

You must, must, MUST post a story telling us what your days are like. I'm not trolling, I'm being totally sincere--what is going on in your world that you didn't recognize a story YOU posted YESTERDAY?!? Married life? Horrid in-laws? Kid on the way? Early-onset Alzheimer's? Spending too much time boinking supermodels on top of a mountain of OSTG cash to notice? Seriously, what's going on?

Re:Dear Taco,

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that completely pointless and assholish jest. Maybe he has a life? Perhaps you should try that sometime, might be good for ya.

Re:Dear Taco,

[Ohreally_factor]

Thanks for that completely pointless and assholish jest. Maybe he has a life? Perhaps you should try that sometime, might be good for ya.

Maybe he does have a life, but it would be nice if he pretended he had a job once in a while.

uhhhhhh...

[skintigh2]

So, millions of mac users using old, unsupported, unpatched versions of IE = more secure?

Er, are you stupid or what?

[Kroc]

"And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts"

TPM isn't in every computer yet, IE/Mac can't just delete itself off people's machines because it's expired.

Re: site support for non-IE browsers

[rewinn]

Discover. The main part of the site worked o.k., e.g. making payments. But when I tried signing up for "Bill-Pay" it kept bombing. Their tech support's first question: what browser are you using? Their only fix: IE, alas!

Re:Give 'em a break

[mr100percent]

IE did however use the iTools plugin, opening server connections in the Finder for you.

Not more secure

[Anonymous Coward]

And with this change, every mac on the internet will become even more secure than their Windows based counterparts.How does a more monolithic software environment improve security? Hmmmmm?

Maybe a bad move for MS

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen several web applications that simply do not work under Firefox or any other Mozilla variant. One of these was an application required for a university program. As I recall, it depended on some very specific javascript and layout behavior that made the pages display ok, but were not usable, except in IE.

Since IE is (was) available for Mac, the people behind websites such as that one, can simply say "it works in IE" and the only people shut out are, e.g., the linux folks, unless someone plays the accessibility card.

But with no IE available for Mac, there will be an actual statistically significant part of the population not using IE, in the microcosm of the internet where people still feel comfortable making applications that *only* render properly in IE. Maybe you're the only linux user, but maybe there are 5 Mac users in a hundred.

Waste of breath

[Khabok]

The internet was not made so that people could speak ignorantly, regardless of what it has subsequently evolved into. If you want to argue that Windows is a superior OS to Mac, then by all means, do so. At this point, however, you have failed utterly and completely.

I call shenanigans. You've made no effort to back up your claim, despite the fact that you support an opinion that does not seem to be shared by any significant number of people on this site. Taken literally, it seems as though you have a point to make. If there is some marvelous secret to Windows that can repair the hours of cursing and outweigh the nice browsing and security features of more progressive systems, then I for one am eager to hear it. Teach us, if you will.

However, I am seeing evidence that your only genuine intention is to make noise cause trouble for people intending serious discussion, in much the same way as disgruntled teenagers cause pointless destruction with bricks and spray-paint cans. If you want to prove me wrong, please do so. I am eager for strong evidence that people so uselessly foul-minded are better people than they appear on the surface.

CT Acknowledged the dupe...

[Anonymous Coward]

K...CT acknowledged the dupe you illiterate shits. Stop whining now and move on.

Ty for the note, CT, shit happens and people are assholes as we have all learned today.

I TOLD THEM IT WAS A DUPE!!!!

[FyRE666]

For christ's sake! I'm a subscriber and get to tell these clowns when they're about to post a dupe. So not only does Taco not bother reading any articles posted the previous day, he doesn't even bother reading emails telling the idiot he's about to post a damned dupe! What's the point?!!

Re:Dupespotting (Watch my karma plop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the fact that this is a comment about dupes on a dupe story, I must dupe it: And, why must all 12 readers insist on posting "DUPE" in ALL CAPS? Obviously you have not yet read the rules of the Slashdot Dupespotting Association, aka the SBA. To qualify, you must post DUPE in all caps within 15 minutes of the article appearing (front page only). First place gets 3 points, second place gets 2 points, third gets 1. So, you see, even if someone has already posted DUPE, it beehoves you to still try to qualify as second or third. At the end of the year, all of your points are added up by a leet slashdot crawling script, and the winner is announced on digg.com. Get with it ! also, MOD PARENT UP!

Re:Re:Dupespotting (Watch my karma plop!)

[rdoger6424]

Troll!

In case no one already said it:

[mkiwi]

Taco, you are lame. iPod lame.

IE Only Sites

[nurb432]

Bad thing is that when you hit a IE only site, now you wont have an alternative ( other then taking your business elsewhere )

One reason this is bad news ...

[kitzilla]

... is that IE for Mac remains the fastest, most stable browser on OS 9.

There are still LOTS of OS 9 users out there. I migrated to OS X early, but did an OS 9 install as a weekend project on a vintage Beige G3 Powermac last month.

The last version of Mozilla on OS 9 was positively glacial. While it's true that IE for Mac is obsolete and renders some sites badly -- MSN.com, for instance -- it is by far the best browser remaining on Classic. The only real competitor is Opera 6.03, which serves primarily as an example of how much Opera has come along in the past few years. Outlook Express for Mac is also the perkiest and most finished-feeling mail client I tried, though I know there are a lot of die-hard Eudora users still out there. IE/Outlook Express really wasn't a bad offering on Mac. Worlds better than its Windows counterpart.

On OS X, I find fewer and fewer sites that I can't access without IE. I have plenty of disk space, but quit loading IE for OS X with the last releases of Omniweb and Safari. As other posters have pointed out, we should noisily refuse to use the sites which don't support a current-release Mac browser at this point in the game.

But the end of IE for Mac is a loss to the OS 9 holdouts. I'm sure a lot of us will download copies for the archives. And to keep Classic alive a little bit longer.

CT Deja Vu 'eh? Sorry.

[Shanep]

How hard is it, to at least click on "Apple" under sections (and see that it was the LAST Apple story) or do a search?

Don't these /. editors even read the headlines? If they're making a living out of this, why does the readership know whats going on, but the editors don't?

Well?

[IntergalacticWalrus]

So, is it on the Mac or for Mac?

App stops working on Jan 31, 2006?

[GPS Pilot]

TFA says, Mac subscribers can continue browsing with IE for a month after the support ceases.

Since support officially ends Dec. 31, the article is implying that the app will somehow stop functioning on Jan. 31, 2006.

Does Micro$oft have some kind of "remote-controlled self destruct mechanism" in the app? Unlikely, but why else would the article mention a one-month time limit? This doesn't seem to be the type of thing one can blame on Engrish.

Re:Give 'em a break

[werewolf1031]

You sure about that? Try running cmd.exe...

Quite correct. The Control Panel GUI is rendered by MSHTML.DLL, and is intended as an easy-access interface for the average end-user, but it's not the only way to access the Windows Control Panel applets. All that's needed to access those are a command-line interface and RUNDLL32.EXE. In fact, you can bypass CONTROL.EXE entirely by simply entering the *.cpl applet's name (sysdm.cpl, desk.cpl, etc.) in the command line, which in turn recognizes the file type (by extension) and invokes RUNDLL32.EXE, passing the *.cpl name as an argument, to execute the code contained in the CPL applet. In fact I'm wondering why they even keep CONTROL.EXE around anymore...

No problem

[Busy]

I hate testing for IE Mac enough I don't mind being told twice. Now I finally have a better excuse than, "Screw that %1 of users"

Ya!

[maccw]

This is good news!

slashdot dupes are out of control

[sycamore_days]

Can we please delete this duped story? Common slashdot get your act together and start monitoring the dupes!

Re:Give 'em a break

[heinousjay]

Apparently if you say something with authority, people think you're right.

In case you were wondering, you aren't right, authority be damned. You're close, though. Just not quite there.

That's funny

[Servo]

I could have sworn I removed IE from my Mac on December 31st two years ago.

Jeez this is dull . . .

[ElephanTS]

I look after about 25 Mac users and only one of them uses IE (and they are an accountant that has to do banksites - surely this will change next year?). IEs been dead for years as we all know. There's more interest in the story dupes than IE being discontinued. Just in case you don't know: IE is a *PoS* when compared to any other browsers available for OSX. Good riddance, another little nail in Bill's silly little coffin etc.

Disease Vectors

[Ohreally_factor]

The market share of a browser has nothing to do with it's vulnerability, but it has everything to do with how fast a worm propagates, and thus how fast it can take out all or large portions of a network. This is a major problem with the computing world's monolithic dependence on Redmond. If there was an even spread, say 30% Windows, 30% Linux, and 30% Mac, virus and worm propagation would be much slower, and damage control would be easier, quicker, and more effective. This hold true both within organizations and on the larger internet.

Re:Disease Vectors

[Ohreally_factor]

I meant to go back and change that from browser to OS in the first line.

Call now and

[Rebelgecko]

reserve the ultimate software bundle:
IE6 for mac and Duke Nukem Forever!