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IE7 Bug Reports Flooding In

Posted by Zonk on from the experience-them-now-avoid-the-rush dept.

the JoshMeister writes "According to ZDNet, bug reports are already flooding in for Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview. Specific issues include the possibility of arbitrary code execution as well as incompatibilities with McAfee Security Center, anti-spyware programs, and online banking sites." From the article: "... browser testers may already be at risk, according to security researcher Tom Ferris. Late Tuesday, Ferris released details of a potential security flaw in IE 7. An attacker could exploit the flaw by crafting a special Web page that could be used to crash the browser or gain complete control of a vulnerable system, Ferris said in an advisory on his Web site. Microsoft had no immediate comment on Ferris' alert."

7 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Duh! by sparkydevil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course it's got bugs -- it's a beta!

    1. Re:Duh! by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's what I was going to say, bug reports flooding in are a sign of a successful beta test. I wonder how many of them Microsoft will actually be fixing, though... that's kindof the whole point of it all.

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  2. good! by steve.m · · Score: 4, Insightful

    sounds like a productive beta test. end users finding lots of bugs.

    (anyone who would use it - or anything else beta - in a production environment is insane)

  3. This a good thing by Beelub · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Getting bug reports on beta software is good. That's why it's released as beta.

    Why is this front page, unless it's just the usual knee-jerk, let's-find-something-bad-to-say-about-Microsoft thing that makes Slashdot less than useful for info about anything about Microsoft.

    Yeesh.

    1. Re:This a good thing by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is this front page

      This is on the front page for a number of reasons. First, it is somewhat indicative of the quality of the new software MS is planning to release. Yes, betas will have bugs, but no comment has been made about the remote exploit from MS, nor about the myriad failures to implement CSS properly. The number of bugs found in such a small time, is a meaningful metric and of interest to people here. It indicates to many of us, that the final version is still unlikely to properly implement the spec and that whatever new security practices MS is employing are probably not working to stop vulnerabilities. (Gee, big surprise.) The number of incompatibilities with current banking and other Websites is a useful indication to how much work the Web designers among us are likely to have ahead of us.

      Second, because of the design of Windows and IE you can either install this beta for testing, or you can install the current IE, but not both. This means a number of people will install the beta, but end up also using it as an everyday browser, since they don't want to be constantly installing and uninstalling it for testing. Thus, security concerns with this beta may actually be a real concern. Those among us working to secure networks may want to account for this by restricting use of this browser for the time being.

      Finally, the number of bug reports is a useful metric for gauging interest in the product, which is also of concern to people here.

  4. It's.. Beta? by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is this news? Betas are there for finding bugs. If you don't want to risk more than the usual, how about just not using it?

    The past builds were also riddled with bugs, and the IE developers are very involved with testers to fix them. It's not like they're just sitting with their hands over their ears yelling "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you!"

  5. Re:Treat IE 7 as IE 6? by kawika · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't let Microsoft off the hook that easily. Most of the problems I've seen with this IE7 beta aren't the "we messed up the implementation" variety. They are the "we still don't support all of CSS" variety.

    Microsoft has eliminated several bugs that made it easy to identify IE6 and apply hacks to the CSS. For example, the "* html" selector let you apply CSS rules just for IE because it's ignored by standards-compliant browsers. Now IE7 ignores that too. However, the need for hacks is still there. IE7 still does not implement several important CSS features that necessitated the hacks in the first place, such as min-height.

    If Microsoft were to decide that this beta was "close enough" or even if it fixes just the minimum number of things to keep major sites from breaking, that's not going to help. Designers will end up needing an entirely different set of hacks to make up for the fact that IE7 is *still* not a complete CSS2 implementation.