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Microsoft Blames Add-Ons For Browser Woes
darthcamaro writes "Running IE and been hacked? Don't blame Microsoft — at least that's what their security types are now arguing. 'One of the things we've seen in the last two years is that attackers aren't even going after the browser itself anymore,' Eric Lawrence, Security Program Manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, said. 'The browser is becoming a harder target and there are many more browsers. So attackers are targeting add-ons.'
This kinda makes sense since whether you're running IE, Firefox, Safari or Chrome you could still be at risk if there is a vulnerability in Flash, PDF, QuickTime or another popular add-on. Or does it?"
You forgot the "embedded video frequently doesn't play even though it's a Microsoft codec" bit.
Konqueror runs flash elements and java applets in a separate process with low privileges and high niceness. When flash crashes, it does so by itself.
This is bull. I'll make an analogy for you with sex and condoms, since you suggested it, and it is a fairly apt analogy.
Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom. Using it with an insecure browser is like having sex without a condom. But in the end, condoms or no condoms, if you have sex with a person you know is carrying every kind of STD known to man (or is likely to be), you're the fool. And whether or not you use condoms, the best defense is being smart about your partners.
Of course you should use condoms, that's just prudence. But the first line of defense is knowing who you're having sex with.
And you'll note I said that the technical side of the issue shouldn't be ignored. The fact remains, though, that the most effective thing we can do is user training.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
There are many sites that bring the whole system nearly to a halt when konqueror loads the page. Looking into the CPU usage with top shows that 99% of the CPU time is being used by kde-gnash. Doing a "killall kde-gnash" brings everything back to normal, with a grey square where the flash was.
You are right that konqueror does not crash the whole computer, but that's still very far from the desired result.
IE7 is definately a standard-ignoring bastard. And assuming you're an FF advocate, remember it didnt pass Acid2 until FF3. And IE8 is shipping in a standard-complaint mode by default, which should help all browsers out.
Complaining that Firefox didn't pass Acid2 until v3 doesn't make a lot of sense if you understand why the test was made. No browsers adhere to all standards 100%, but all the browsers except IE do a fairly decent job of rendering pages the way they're supposed to. So when Acid2 was created, the idea (AFAIK) was to put together a complex rendering that would expose a selection of bugs that would cause every major browser to fail it. It was supposed to be a sort of test that said, "even if your browser is doing a pretty good job, here are some places where it might fall apart."
So it's not supposed to be the end-all be-all test of standards compliance. You can pass the Acid2 test but still not render normal pages properly, or you could generally do a good job rendering pages but fail the test. The fact that it took Firefox some time to pass isn't an indication that it took them a long time to figure it out, but rather that they fixed in in their new rendering engine and took a while to put that rendering engine into their release version of the browser. There wasn't much reason to rush because it wasn't terribly urgent.
But the question is still whether the browser will generally render pages according to the HTML and CSS standards. Most browsers do far better than IE. As for "standard-compliant mode", I still wonder how standard-compliant it will be. Right now, if I make a page, I generally have to design it to the standards, which will make it run in most browsers, and then figure out how to make it display properly in IE. If IE8 makes it so I don't have to do that anymore, a lot of my complaints will go away.