France Tells Its Citizens To Abandon IE, Others Disagree

Freistoss writes "Microsoft still has not released a patch for a major zero-day flaw in IE6 that was used by Chinese hackers to attack Google. After sample code was posted on a website, calls began for Microsoft to release an out-of-cycle patch. Now, France has joined Germany in recommending its citizens abandon IE altogether, rather than waiting for a patch. Microsoft still insists IE8 is the 'most secure browser on the market' and that they believe IE6 is the only browser susceptible to the flaw. However, security researchers warned that could soon change, and recommended considering alternative browsers as well." PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Comments

love the recommendation

[alain94040]

The link to the official French recommendation is here: CERTA-2010-ALE-001

Quoting from it (rough translation): "while waiting for the editor [Microsoft] to correct this vulnerability, we recommend people use an alternate browser.

--
are you a startup founder looking for co-founders?

Re:love the recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much of this really has to do with security, versus the corporate and technological schism that is quickly developing between the EU and the USA.

It's difficult to say for certain, but in terms of population, economy and global political influence, the EU and USA are becoming very similar. There are indeed some power struggles going on now that they are reaching parity.

Take, for instance, the EU's handling of the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, two mainly-American businesses (although they do have operations in the EU). Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, the EU's involvement has indeed delayed the acquisition, and is having an affect on the viability and value of Sun.

Microsoft is, of course, another one of the large, mainly-American companies that is involved in Europe. Likewise, we've seen them put under far greater scrutiny than we've seen them put under in the USA. And now several major EU players are suggesting that Microsoft's flagship (albeit shitty) software be avoided.

It makes me wonder whether this is really about doing the right thing, which of course is avoiding IE, or whether it's about sticking a thumb up the arse of a prominent American business.

Re:love the recommendation

[tacarat]

"Hey, I heard you're running IE6. You know that's there's an alternative that's safer and free? It's called INTERNET EXPLORER NUMBER #(!&#* 8!!!!!"

Forget Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari for this discussion. The people who are running IE6 are either too computer illiterate/phobic to have a clue about alternate browsers or have a specific reason for not upgrading or changing. We can only hope that the folks who won't upgrade get some future cloud OS where the maintaining of security profiles takes place without them. Those that can't upgrade... sorry folks. No PHB killer viruses yet.

Re:love the recommendation

[jedidiah]

IOW, they are so unable and unwilling to upgrade from IE6 that ANY CHANGE WHAT SO EVER would be as equally drastic as another.

You could entirely replace their machine with a Mac and they would be no less traumatized than if you simply installed IE8 for them behind their back.

Re:love the recommendation

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In order to properly answer your question, you'd really have to do a few comparisons:

Examine European treatment of US corporations vs. European treatment of European corporations.

Examine US treatment of European corporations vs. US treatment of US corporations.

There are a few possible outcomes: It could, in fact, be that the EU is playing a game of "trade wars" with the US, and is shafting US corporations preferentially. It could be that, in general, a corporation's ability to achieve high levels of regulatory capture is greater at home than abroad(barring 3rd world banana republic scenarios) and so foreign regulatory scrutiny is always less pleasant than domestic regulatory scrutiny. It could also be that the US simply has substantially higher levels of corporate regulatory capture than the EU does, and all corporations have a freer hand here than they do there.

Re:love the recommendation

[tacarat]

An IE8 installation would be less of a change if you could minimize any cosmetic differences. Changing them to a Mac would probably be more traumatic to your wallet than anything, and then they'd be absolutely useless since there's no start button on the bottom left hand of the screen (ala Gnome vs KDE).

Now then, give them "speak and spells" and /. might rest a bit better :D (A barely 4 digit replied to me? *honored*).

Re:love the recommendation

[sznupi]

EU "gets in the way" of European companies when their practices harm the market, so that suggests it isn't a case of "us vs. them", like you're trying to paint it.

Also, "in terms of population, economy and global political influence" they are already very similar; EU actually bigger in first two certainly. And I guess the third category depends mainly on whether or not you want to count US eagerness to go to wars.

Re:love the recommendation

[stephanruby]

Interesting that it says "while waiting", do this for now. It did not say like the summary implies to abandon IE6 forever. This is still not good news for Microsoft, but it significantly alters what was said.

Personally, I'm getting tired of this Slashdot sensationalistic audience-baiting. It incites more traffic, and therefore more ad impressions I guess, but really how much longer is this going to last? Aren't we all getting tired of this approach? Personally, I know I'm browsing Slashdot less and less.

Re:love the recommendation

[Elektroschock]

The answer is "no".

Re:love the recommendation

[Elektroschock]

You assume the EU is a monolitic structure.

In fact a national agency resp. for It security makes a sane recommendation, another similar body follows. It is not enforced in any way. It is also not "political". Then a journalist reports it as "the government warns".

In terms of competition policy, you just need to obey the rules provided by law. No one is forced to provide products and services on our market. The procedings to not discriminate whether it is domestic or not. Antitrust proceedings are started because competitors complain and the authority then investigates. It is not the European fault that under Reagan US competition law was dismantled and Bush turned the Microsoft case into a bitter joke. Fines and remedies etc. apply to all players in Europe and there are n of these merger control proceedings. The difference is that American companies make so much mad rhino noise instead of simply complying. That may be a reflex on the low status of Us antitrust law as a kind of "consumer benefit" regulation. We don't care for consumers in particular. We care for order of the market. And it suprises us to see companies which don't pay respect to the competent authorities.

Re:love the recommendation

[Fluffeh]

"Hey, I heard you're running IE6. You know that's there's an alternative that's safer and free? It's called INTERNET EXPLORER NUMBER #(!&#* 8!!!!!"

Don't be so simplistic. Yes, I know it's free. There is a good chance that most people know it's free. However, things just aren't that simple. I work for a large company based in Australia (around 200k employees) and the SOE here is Win XP, IE6, Office 2002 (Yes, 2002). We have access from our licensing to upgrade to the latest office versions for free, but the real cost would be massive. We can certainly go out and upgrade our SOE to use IE8 which is free, but again the cost would be massive.

A free download doesn't mean there isn't a cost associated with it. You need to take into account all the things like training users (many of which aren't tech savvy) to use the new functions, ensure that all of our intranet which is mainly created in Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 work with the new browser (there is a LOT of rather funky and archaic code running that, which certainly doesn't work in Firefox for example). Oh yeah, what about all the people who suddenly "lose" all their favorites and links to pages they use? Then look into the costs of raising all the problems with helpdesk, managing those, the time it takes to explain to people again how to do something they need to do for their job.

Now, with all that in mind, you can see how it is difficult to convince upper management that upgrading to something with more security rather then spending that same money on developing something else is a tops idea. However, you might just get them more inclined to agree if the government of your country is saying that even their experts are suggesting it's a worthwhile investment of company time and money.

Re:love the recommendation

[Muros]

I wonder how much of this really has to do with security, versus the corporate and technological schism that is quickly developing between the EU and the USA.

I think that's a bit unfair on two counts. Firstly, there is no major corporate or technological schism between America and Europe. The big european and american multinationals all do R&D, manufacturing, sales and have investors in both continents. Secondly, I find it hard to believe that governments are advising people to avoid a FREE product, which is partly responsible for intrusions into what should be some of the most secure computer networks in the world, as a means to disadvantage a foreign corporation.

Re:love the recommendation

[celle]

Either US or EU is more corrupt, now I have to figure out which one.(~ Klinger & Potter - Mash)

Re:love the recommendation

[tacarat]

I certainly agree. I figured I covered that under the part about those that had specific reasons to not upgrade.

Of course, then there are always people like this...

Re:love the recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

mod me down cock suckers!

Re:love the recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so sure. IE7 (and I assume IE8) breaks several commercial games that my kids play regularly and greatly enjoy.

Granted, the publishers of those games may have used unpublished APIs, but switching to IE7 brings no advantage if you can use a different web browser for web browsing, but switching to IE7 will break several of my kids' games.

The kids opted to learn to use Firefox instead of losing their games.

Tear down

[drDugan]

"Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous"

Actually, IE is not the messenger, its the source of at least one know security hole that participated in this problem.

The article fails to explain how blaming the software with a known exploit is dangerous.

They assert it will create a "false sense of security" because there exist other methods of attack (other software with security flaws). Even if they did have support for other security holes, this reasoning is an absurd logical fallacy. Amazingly, the author doesn't even have support for the premise of the illogic it's based on an *implication* from a quote by McAfee CTO George Kurtz.

  FTA:

The main thing to keep in mind is that these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.

This is completely absurd FUD. IE *was used*, it is insecure, and there is no fix (yet). These conclusions come right from this article and others.

Obvious conclusion: use different software. This conclusion is also supported by the long and consistent history of security issues with IE. I think, after reading this and other articles, it is more dangerous to continue to assert that IE is secure.

Re:Tear down

[93 Escort Wagon]

WRONG!

That's just the sort of cogent, thoughtfully crafted counter-argument I've come to expect on Slashdot.

Re:Tear down

[sakdoctor]

The jokes on them.
I only test my websites in IE6 (IETester) to see how fucked up they look.
Then I LOL.

Re:Tear down

[drDugan]

From the article referenced.

While research indicates that the Internet Explorer zero-day used in the attacks could be used on any version of Internet Explorer, even on Windows 7...

Re:Tear down

[Rary]

BRILLIANT!

I'm convinced.

Re:Tear down

[fermion]

Not blaming MS for IE is like not blaming Ford for the Pinto. In both cases the dangers of the product was/is well known. The consumer knows that, in the case of IE, that one should be careful with dangerous sites,and the user should know those dangerous sites. With the Pinto, it no real rear protection, so the driver should avoid other drivers that will collide with the rear of the car.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

and there's no evidence to suggest that the flaw exists in IE 7 or 8

You need to visit /. more frequently. On today's frontpage you may find this submission, which references this article, which contains this sentence:

But although Internet Explorer 6 has been the source of attacks until now, Microsoft's advisory admits that both IE7 and IE8 are vulnerable to the same flaw, even on Windows 7.

Re:Tear down

[Rewind]

This is completely absurd FUD. IE *was used*, it is insecure, and there is no fix (yet). These conclusions come right from this article and others.

Everywhere I read this I see IE 6. That would seem to contradict everything you just said. Wouldn't the fix be a newer version of IE and the problem be using outdated software?

Re:Tear down

[blitzkrieg3]

I think you're missing the whole crux of their argument. Yes, IE was the source of at least one of the security holes, but France and Germany are mandating switching as though it's some sort of panacea. IE was just one link in the chain of exploits used in the attack. Maybe destroying one link in the chain destroys the chain, but it is more likely that they will find a different link to continue the attack. Like maybe a zero day in Firefox or one of these known exploits.

I truly believe that Firefox and probably Chrome is a more secure browser than IE, and I completely agree with the recommendation from France and Germany. But even if Google had no IE they would not have been completely protected from the attacks, and both countries aren't completely protected by some memo mandating the end of IE. To think so is foolishness. Don't let one poorly written PCWorld article convince you otherwise.

Re:Tear down

[Zerth]

WRONG!

That's just the sort of cogent, thoughtfully crafted counter-argument I've come to expect on Slashdot.

I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
You want room 12A, just along the corridor.

Stupid git...

Re:Tear down

[Deathlizard]

Guess what I did today at work?

I had to test security products. (since we're deciding to change antivirus vendors) So I got three machines (each with F-secure, Sophos and Vipre), went to my favorite site in the world (malwaredomainlist.com) and downloaded the first link in the list, infecting all 3 PC's with a virus in udner 5 minutes.

Guess which Browser I was using?

(Hint. It wasn't IE)

Re:Tear down

[Blakey Rat]

I think the big issue is "people are not upgrading."

There should be zero copies of IE6 in the wild right now. I don't care how big your corporation is, how shitty the "enterprise" software you purchased back in '99 is, but figure it the fuck out and get your people off IE6 right now. And then? There's no excuse for this bullshit, and I don't want to hear any sob stories.

IE7 has been out now for over 3 years, if you can't figure out how to move to it by now, you should be fired.

Re:Tear down

[pete6677]

One reason I don't like to upgrade to newer versions of IE is because they seem to have HUGE memory leaks. Although I almost always use Firefox, I do need to keep IE around for certainly pain-in-the-ass poorly designed sites that require it. IE 7 takes FOREVER to open and close, especially if it has been left open a long time. There must be memory leaks large enough to drive a truck through. What is Microsoft's excuse for this?

Re:Tear down

[Simon (S2)]

The main thing to keep in mind is that these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.

This is completely absurd FUD.

It's not. What they say is exactly correct: hat these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.
FF has flaws too. An adequate defense would be to install McAfee© VirusScan Plus, McAfee© Total Protection, McAfee© Online Backup, McAfee© SiteAdvisor Plus and McAfee© Anti-Theft File Protection.
There! *NOW* you are protected!

Re:Tear down

[drDugan]

but France and Germany are mandating switching as though it's some sort of panacea.

I'm not missing this argument. I disagree. Removing IE is not a panacea, nor is this what the announcement means.

Equating a logical, correct step for a more secure computer (removing IE) as a false panacea is the position in the PCWorld article only, and one that misses the more basic point. IE6,7 and 8, including on Win 7 all have this flaw, and there is no fix yet.

Re:Tear down

[s122604]

It's like saying you might as well keep your money in a wet paper sack as opposed to a guarded bank vault in an FDIC insured institution, because they both can be comprimised. After all, you wouldn't want to have a false sense of security! Now yes, the difference between Chrome/Firefox isn't quite so stark, but it's an analogy dammit!

Re:Tear down

[easyTree]

Maybe destroying one link in the chain destroys the chain, but it is more likely that they will find a different link to continue the attack.

If only they had the power to make it illegal to use IE6 and the rest of Europe followed-suit and if only it was a permanent decision [and I want a pony...] then every web developer would owe the Chinese haX0rs a debt of gratitude for having triggered a series of events leading to their being freed from the eternal-hell that is trying to make websites work in IE6 :D

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm...taking forever to open and close is not directly symptomatic of a memory leak. That's more a thrashing problem, and while it's true that a memory leak could amplify that sort of thing, that's a fairly hasty conclusion to come to.

I'm betting you either have a mountain of sites in your Restricted Zone list or you have a crazy toolbar. But it could just be a weird interaction of your system components.

Regardless, you should use IE8 over IE7. It's really an odd choice to complain about. One possible answer for Microsoft's excuse would be "we fixed it ages ago, it's called IE8". I'm not sure that's the answer, it probably isn't really, but there you go.

Re:Tear down

[maxume]

Go read Reddit for 5 minutes, account name gags are waaaay more popular over there.

Re:Tear down

[tuxgeek]

Yep
More to the point, IE doesn't run on MacOSX; BSD.any.flavor; *nix.any.flavor
IE runs exclusively on M$ Windoz.all.flavors operating systems

IE6 just provides the easiest port of entry for bad guys into anyone's box, than any other version of IE.

For M$ to claim that IE8 is the most secure browser out there is like saying cigarettes cure lung cancer.

Simply put, M$ produces the most insecure products for any box that ventures out from your home and into the tubes of cyberspace. I'm not knocking their products, they are great for computer gaming and locked down isolated corporate networks. But for safe & secure internet banking and general internet exposure, M$ just plain sucks!

M$ has mastered the OS that any bonehead can use. It's the trade off here, simplicity for security.

Another example of the problem is my college student daughter has her notebook badly infected with trojans & malware. I tried to convince her to let me set her system up to dual boot Ubuntu & XP. The XP for her college work & Ubuntu for internet use. Unfortunately her boyfriend is a devoted M$ fanboi and promotes the M$ FUD that you have to compile all your drivers for Linux and it's not worth the time. I couldn't even get them to run a live CD to check it out for themselves.

Re:Tear down

[shog9]

Nice! Though I suppose you could save a little bit of time and just put a bullet through your harddrive...

Re:Tear down

[KarmaMB84]

The flaw exists but the default configurations on Windows Vista and Windows 7 will prevent any damage. My understanding is that Microsoft's policy is to classify them as vulnerable because it's possible to run IE7 and IE8 in configurations where they actually are vulnerable (DEP disabled, Protect Mode OFF) even if the default configuration makes them immune to the current exploit.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible for you to come off as any more of a complete dumbass?

Re:Tear down

[jc42]

WRONG!

That's just the sort of cogent, thoughtfully crafted counter-argument I've come to expect on Slashdot.

RIGHT!

Re:Tear down

[gcerullo]

That's funny. I just did the same thing using a Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Safari 4.0.4. I clicked on a whole bunch of links and guess what? NOTHING HAPPENED! (Hint. Don't Use IE, don't use Windows)

Re:Tear down

[jc42]

More to the point, IE doesn't run on MacOSX; BSD.any.flavor; *nix.any.flavor
IE runs exclusively on M$ Windoz.all.flavors operating systems

IE6 just provides the easiest port of entry for bad guys into anyone's box, than any other version of IE.

Emphasis mine. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction there. IE6 can't provide a port of entry on this Macbook Pro or the two linux boxes on the shelves next to my desk, because I don't run any version of IE on any of these machines. It only provides a point of entry if you're running MS Windows and some version of IE. (Too bad /. won't let you go back and edit your text slightly so that readers don't get distracted by this error. ;-)

M$ to claim that IE8 is the most secure browser out there is like saying cigarettes cure lung cancer.

Actually, it would be a better simile if you were to say that a particular brand of low-tar cigarettes cures cancer. As far as I know, no tobacco company has actually claimed this in their ads, though I've seen some ads that contain "weasel words" that will imply that to most listeners.

In any case, MS seems to have admitted that the hole is in all versions of IE, so it would really be more like the tobacco company admitting that their cigarettes might (in rare cases) cause cancer, but their low-tar brand will cause fewer cancers.

OTOH, someone has already posted a pretty good automotive analogy, so I won't do that.

Re:Tear down

[Fluffeh]

The jokes on them. I only test my websites in IE6 (IETester) to see how fucked up they look. Then I LOL.

Actually, I would have thought a good developer would be trying to make sure that their pages looked exactly as they wanted them in any browser within reason. It's just as wrong to use IE only code that will work only with some of the customer's browsers as expected as it is to write code that the other half of your market won't be able to view or it will look terrible.

Re:Tear down

[Elektroschock]

"France and Germany are mandating switching"

---> no.

ICT agencies just communicate that IE is insecure and should not be used unless the critical security flaw is fixed. Basically the same Microsoft said.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, You're protected! Viruses can NEVER run on your computer now, because there are no clock cycles or memory locations left for them to run on!

Virus protection is a broken band-aid. The whole idea of it originally was to protect against a few viruses -- not the 750,000 that we have today. Case in point: I do some 3D animation on the side for fun. I have a scene in Maya that takes four minutes to render a frame. I turn off my virus protection, and it takes a minute and a half. Virus protection takes so much of your system resources that it nearly makes your computer useless.

And yes, IE is the problem (or at least one of the biggest problems). I manage 45 computers, and I've been a network admin for twelve years. My experience with spyware, adware, viruses, and the like is this. I've had users get inundated with them time and time again. I'm talking ten or fifteen viruses and hundreds of spyware programs. I clean it off, and they get it back. I scrape it off again, and they get it back. I scrape it off yet again, switch them from IE to Firefox, and the problem disappears. And yes, it is IE8.

Explain that away, IE fanboys. IE is the biggest security hole in the computer industry. I could have probably gone with just about any of the other major players like Opera, Chrome, and Safari, and gotten the same results. Microsoft should be taken to task for false advertising if they're claiming that IE8 is the "most secure browser on the market".

Now, I don't like to complain about something without offering something positive. If anyone is wondering, I've taken to installing Firefox and making them use it, and also I don't give out admin privileges. Everyone on my network runs as a normal user. If the software demands admin privileges, we replace it with something that doesn't. The other thing that I do is I use entries in the hosts file on each individual machine to block known bad websites. I've managed (knocking on wood) to make virus problems nearly nonexistent. I consider antivirus to be a last-line defense. Oh, and I also have users flogged for opening unknown email attachments. (Interestingly enough, the captcha word for this post is "repress". LOL)

Re:Tear down

[drsmithy]

One reason I don't like to upgrade to newer versions of IE is because they seem to have HUGE memory leaks. Although I almost always use Firefox, [...]

Firefox is at least as bad. Here I am with 3 separate Firefox instances, each chewing up over 500MB of RAM (admittedly with about 100 tabs open in each, but still...).

Re:Tear down

[Unkyjar]

Nothing happened? Pssst. Press the power button! There, much better.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's like the difference between a blue car and a red car. How, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't be slashdot without a car analogy. :)

Re:Tear down

[LordVader717]

This is just the same logical fallacy that Microsoft keep repeating. Regardless of hypothetical attacks on alternative browsers and regardless of what their long-term browser interests are, there is a major vulnerability in IE explorer which could possibly affect newer versions. While this vulnerability exists, it is downright negligent to recommend people not to switch and imply greater risk if they do. I really hope some major institution is attacked running IE7 before a patch is released, just to expose these liars.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care how big your corporation is, how shitty the "enterprise" software you purchased back in '99 is, but figure it the fuck out and get your people off IE6 right now.

I'm sorry, could you please explain how corporations, educational institutions, etc are supposed to pay for the upgrades to the software which they purchased in 1999? Because, honestly, you sound like one of the lucky fucks who still has a job in a company that's willing to spend money.

Re:Tear down

[Dynedain]

You're right, people aren't upgrading - because that costs money and the mantra "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" trumps all when it comes to finances.

There are plenty of machines and tasks out there that Windows 2000 is still perfectly adequate for. Replacing Win2K with WinXP or later is a non-zero cost (both in labor and licensing) and may trigger many other software and hardware upgrades or replacements. IE6 is the last version available for Win2K and I'm sure many Win2K installations won't be replaced until complete hardware failure occurs.

Granted, at my office we can get away with installing Firefox on all the Win2K boxes - but that's not a solution for everyone as many of those stupid "Enterprise" level web apps only work on IE.

Re:Tear down

[xxuserxx]

Networking costs money. I dont care what platform your running. There is no excuse to not run IE8.

Re:Tear down

[SpaceLifeForm]

Were you running with admin privileges?

Re:Tear down

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

The simplest solution to the problem would be the following:

Insert a drive by download into a popular webpage that will cause IE to download, install and set to default Firefox. Extra points for disabling IE.

I am sure that someone here is able to do that ;)

Disclaimer: The above is merely me thinking out loud. I accept no responsibility for anyone doing anything like this.

Re:Tear down

[selven]

I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
You want room 12A, just along the corridor.

Stupid git...

Your comments seem awfully... subversive.

Re:Tear down

[molecular]

I think you're missing the whole crux of their argument. Yes, IE was the source of at least one of the security holes, but France and Germany are mandating

sorry, but I have to object to your choice of word here (mandating): as you say yourself later in your post, they are merely "recommending" to dump that browser.
Needless to say this was long overdue and likely not merely based on the latest exploit.

Re:Tear down

[shallot]

You're right, people aren't upgrading - because that costs money and the mantra "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" trumps all when it comes to finances.

When people don't upgrade, they by and large eventually become hosts to all sorts of abusive and/or outright illegal behaviour, that ends up hurting the rest of us - financially. Ultimately the question is how long does the society tolerate this kind of a dissipated financial loss before it becomes intolerable, and then acts to force that loss back to the people whose behaviour is unacceptable, in the form they understand best - fines.

Re:Tear down

[mister_playboy]

Why the heck do you need to keep 300 tabs open? Do you also complain about the gas mileage of you car when dragging a 3000kg anchor behind it?

Re:Tear down

[ajlisows]

Seriously, I love Firefox and use it almost exclusively, but I'm pretty sure Firefox has more major memory leak problems than IE 8

Re:Tear down

[10101001 10101001]

There should be zero copies of IE6 in the wild right now. I don't care how big your corporation is, how shitty the "enterprise" software you purchased back in '99 is, but figure it the fuck out and get your people off IE6 right now. And then? There's no excuse for this bullshit, and I don't want to hear any sob stories.

IE7 has been out now for over 3 years, if you can't figure out how to move to it by now, you should be fired.

I see. So, because IE6 is so horrible, people should...use a newer version? Why not uninstall it? Oh, that's right, you can't without hacking the installation and/or directly deleting OS files. And if you do, you break all sorts of that "enterprise" software. Meanwhile, if you do upgrade, you're generally just as at risk with IE even if you don't run iexplore.exe.

So, for a different reason, I agree with PCWorld. Not using iexplore.exe would give companies a false sense of security. The only solutions to solving the long-term problems with IE is to either rip out its components as best you can and deal with the consequences (like making sure updates don't reconstitute parts of it later) or stop using Windows. I don't think most companies are really in a position that the latter is a viable option, and I'm not really should how viable the former really is.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't moved past IE 6 because I use Firefox. I have used IE to browse perhaps thrice in the last six years, and that was restricted to Windows Update. Some of the vulnerabilities in IE can still affect me because of how Microsoft has lovingly entwined it so intimately with their operating system. I could update IE and (possibly? probably?) get rid of this problem. I take the risk knowing the cost and fully prepared to clean up the ensuing chaos should the shit hit the fan.

Re:Tear down

[LO0G]

The MSRC also classifies them as vulnerable because it's possible (but REALLY hard) to craft an exploit that can get around DEP, ASLR, GS and Protected Mode and all the other IE/Windows security features.

The MSRC is very conservative in their vulnerability ratings even if it makes MSFT products look bad.

Re:Tear down

[indi0144]

You know, thank God I'm no programmer, If I were one I would make a very annoying worm, a very graphical one so clueless IE user would GET IT, like an animation of a worm coming out from the IE explorer icon "--IS THAT TIME OF THE DAY BIATH!!! you keep using the internetz as your default internet browser, this is the time of that day when you pay for the suffering souls of million of web developers" then the worm make a random antic, I have a preliminary list:

- the worm eating your latest edited word or excel document.
- torturing a kitten with pliers,
- peeing in on an image of Mother Theresa
- shooting darts to the pope (not this one, the tender one)
- loading a random youtube video fs that starts with lol, emo, or 1337 and cranking the volume up to 11
- Rickrolls
- Zippo cat its fine too
- Random lecture about the DMCA
- Setting up a Quake3 server and output the sound to speakers
- Lois Griffin voice, reading HTML for dummies 1st ed.
- Random noise metal music
- Changing background to a random /gif/ image
- Change wallpaper to "I <3 watching gay porn"
- Forcin user to read random /. dupe
- Forcing the user to comment on Digg until they get 100 ups mentioning Bush and good in the same phrase
- "Ima let you finish" at every doc save and mail send

all in beautiful randomness, AND IT WILL BE OPEN SOURCE!!1 so anyone can contribute routines, I'd outsource the wiki to 4chan, for the lulz.

Thank God I'm no programmer. Whatever happened to creative p0wnage.

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I agree with Pc World

Man the pitchforks!!!

No really, don't you recognize a sponsored article in the second paragraph?

Re:Tear down

[indi0144]

It's a McAfee© PB Enterpirse 9 bullet? I would not settle for less.

No joking, in my country you get a McAfee license for opening an account in the citybank, I don't know whats worse and how something can be wrong on so many levels

Re:Tear down

[Deathlizard]

Yes. Default Setup of XP using Default Setting using the latest and fully patched software. Primarily since this was a test of the Anti-virus vendors rather than OS Hardening.

The main reason I used Firefox is because that's what the students use on their laptops. Since we require a specific AV vendor to connect to our network and they can bring in their in home PC with them, we have to run the test considering a default OEM windows install.

On another note, I ran across a PHP file one time that under analysis did no less than 20 exploits ranging from current to old IE, Firefox, Java, Acrobat, Flash and Quicktime exploits. After all 20 exploits ran, it then popped up one of those "YOU GOT A VIRUS!!" message and attempted to hack YOU. That was the point of the PCWorld article; These Virus vendors are going past the browsers and are now attacking the plug-ins that 90% of browsers use.

Re:Tear down

[Deathlizard]

First off, how do you know nothing happened? do you have a Virus scanner? Do you monitor all of your processes every time time you turn on your Mac? Did your Safari Browser pop up a warning. Would it even pop up one?

Let me tell you how a Black hat would write an OSX virus if they were smart. It would start as a malicious PHP script. It would detect your OS and what browser you were using and choose carefully scripted attacks based on the version of Safari You use (thank you Agent-String) and plugin exploits that you most likely have. (such as Flash, Adobe, Quicktime, ETC) From there I would exploit the hole to install a carefully written malicious package that would start as you login, not being a deep infector but a shallow one so it would be trival to remove and not prompt for an admin password, and then redirect you to another site so the user thinks it was harmless. (maybe a 404 site, maybe Google). This program would run at the lowest priority, so that it can take full advantage of your processor, but would easily give processes to other apps calling for it, so you would have no idea it was running unless you were monitoring performance. It would never prompt you, or show itself. From there, it would contact a server to tell the Virus Inc. that your infected. which adds it to a botnet, and then it would be used to do whatever the bad guys want; Spamming, DOSsing, cracking other people's passwords, and if it can without alerting you to it's presense, Spying, Keylogging, You name it.

My experience so far has taught me that while Many Windows and Linux users are aware of security issues, Mac users have No Idea, None whatsoever, When it comes to their security and literally expect Steve Jobs to bail them out when the going gets tough. The only thing I can think of why this is like this is because Apple for the better part of 10-20 years have been pontificating that Mac's don't have viruses and that your safe where Windows never claims this and Linux promotes safe practices. The problem with that is that there's this unpatched hole called a Human which is cross platform and tends to be exploited a lot these days.

Re:Tear down

[oh_my_080980980]

Great post. Agree 100%. Couldn't believe the author of the article was trying to make the case to stay with an un-secure browser.

Worse yet, the same exploit effects all versions of IE, 6 through IE 8. But somehow the author said the exploit was lessoned using IE 8 on Windows 7. Other articles begged to differ.

Re:Tear down

[ais523]

Actually, the issue with Firefox isn't leaks, it's just large usage generally. Memory leaks are when a program allocates memory but doesn't use it, then keeps allocating more and more to use instead (eventually running your system out of memory); Firefox is actually using most or all of the memory it requests, leading to a different sort of problem (being utterly bloated, rather than leaking your computer to death).

Re:Tear down

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, because MS decided not to support IE7+ on older operating systems, not everyone *can* update to later versions. For those people the choices are continue to use an insecure browser or switch to a non-MS product (and of course, those on corporate networks might not even have the second option). The simple way to get users to update to the later versions of IE is for MS to actually support them across their own platforms.

Re:Tear down

[gcerullo]

Now you're just making stuff up.

Despite all the people who like to quote Charlie Miller and your own "Let me tell you how...", it is not trivial to crack a Mac...period! Ten plus years of Mac OS X proves it. What's Windows' track record been over the past ten years...yeah, I thought so!

Regarding your opinion of Mac users...give me a break. The average Mac user is no different than the average Windows user and that's because both operating systems are marketed to the same user base. The problem is that the average Windows user has a false sense of security because they think that if they run anti-virus they'll be safe whereas the average Mac user doesn't run anti-virus but they also know better than to click on any link sent to them or download and install any piece of software that comes their way. Regarding Linux users, of course they're aware of security but then again, it's not your average user that runs linux on the desktop.

As for Viruses on the Mac, Apple is correct...there are none. And no, Apple hasn't been pontificating this for 10-20 years. They alluded to the fact that Windows was susceptible to hundreds of thousands of viruses and that they did not affect the Mac and this was in a commercial back in 2006. Go look it up, the commercial is called Viruses. There is nothing in that commercial that wasn't true back then isn't still true today.

The truth of the matter is that there have been a couple of Trojans that barely registered a blip on the Mac and, as you've alluded, required user intervention to get installed but the kind of drive-by infections that have plagued Windows users for years just don't happen on the Mac.

Re:Tear down

[tuxgeek]

Emphasis mine. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction there. IE6 can't provide a port of entry on this Macbook Pro or the two linux boxes on the shelves next to my desk, because I don't run any version of IE on any of these machines. It only provides a point of entry if you're running MS Windows and some version of IE. (Too bad /. won't let you go back and edit your text slightly so that readers don't get distracted by this error. ;-)

I had hoped any reader would have read the previous sentence: IE runs exclusively on M$ Windoz.all.flavors operating systems

Re:Tear down

[jc42]

I had hoped any reader would have read the previous sentence: IE runs exclusively on M$ Windoz.all.flavors operating systems

Hey, you're not only making the mistake of expecting /. readers to have read the (entire) f'ing article; you're expecting them to remember the sentence previous to the one they're now reading!

You need to find a forum with readers able to do all that.

Re:Tear down

[Worthless_Comments]

It has been reported repeatedly that IE 6-8 all have this exploit.

Re:Tear down

[Deathlizard]

Despite all the people who like to quote Charlie Miller and your own "Let me tell you how...", it is not trivial to crack a Mac...period!

From Threatpost post about 12 serious OSX Flaws that were patched today

Flash Player plug-in (7 vulnerabilities) -- Multiple issues exist in the Adobe Flash Player plug-in, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution when viewing a maliciously crafted web site. The issues are addressed by updating the Flash Player plug-in to version 10.0.42

That's just one that could be exploited without user intervention through Safari, and you wouldn't even need to go somewhere malicious since most black hats target third party Flash Ad providers on a legitimate site (Google "Gawker Ad Malware"). I'm sure you'll tell me how Apple patched them (IE: Steve Bailed me out) but what about when I originally posted the exploit example two days before the patch?

The problem is that the average Windows user has a false sense of security because they think that if they run anti-virus they'll be safe whereas the average Mac user doesn't run anti-virus but they also know better than to click on any link sent to them or download and install any piece of software that comes their way.

The difference is that as long as the Windows system has an AV system that is functional and can get updates, it's going to tell the user somethings wrong at some point. The Mac user without the Virus scanner happily runs his infected box until either his ISP steps in and blocks his account.(Because he's spamming or DOSsing) or Apple sends a patch killing it. As for the point of not downloading or clicking on anything suspicious, Google "Gawker Ad Malware" Again.

What's Windows' track record been over the past ten years...yeah, I thought so!

Not once did I mention Windows Security. My point, and it's been my point all along now, is that it can happen to anyone, anywhere using any OS and any software on that OS. Windows and IE (and especially the older versions) are horrendous security wise, but going down the "Change your OS" or "Change your Browser" bandwagon is only a short term solution at best because eventually the Virus Inc's will start punching holes in whatever the next popular thing is. It's all about proactive protection (Anti Virus) and system hardening (User rights management and sandboxing) to protect your computer from yourself. Doing it right will make any system, Including Microsoft, rock solid. Ignoring it, or denying that it exists or is necessary, will get you hacked in the end.

BTW, Thanks for Proving my other point.

Better Yet: Abandon

[Anonymous Coward]

MIcroslop completely.

Yours In Novosibirsk,
Kilgore Trout

Everybody knows OTHERS are stupid...

[viraltus]

duh!

False sense of security

[sunderland56]

PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Well, of course they'd say that - they are running a PC/Windows/Microsoft magazine, after all.

AppleWorld, on the other hand, has been blaming hacker attacks on Microsoft Windows for many years now - and the general population seems to agree with them, even though it does lead to a false sense of security in OSX.

Re:False sense of security

[Stratoukos]

PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Well, of course they'd say that - they are running a PC/Windows/Microsoft magazine, after all.

Well, yes, but what they're saying has some merit. I've known many a novice user that thought that because they used firefox they didn't need an antivirus program or common sense.

Re:False sense of security

[MichaelSmith]

PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Well, of course they'd say that - they are running a PC/Windows/Microsoft magazine, after all.

Well, yes, but what they're saying has some merit. I've known many a novice user that thought that because they used firefox they didn't need an antivirus program or common sense.

They told you they don't need common sense?

Re:False sense of security

[shabtai87]

Yes, Apple, more to the point Apple users, live in this wondrous world where they are safer from hackers and viruses. The truth is that most of the world is/was on a PC and that skews the statistics because most hackers and viruses know this and target PCs. I'm sure that if the people responsible spent the same number of man-hours on apple software, the numbers would be a lot more even. Note: I'm not saying that Microsoft doesn't have a responsibility to fix their software, only that the skewed numbers have to be kept in mind when comparing these types of statistics. If anything Microsoft should know that they're the biggest target and code appropriately... Otherwise, yes, of course magazines with an agenda will be spinning the story appropriately (meaning I do agree with you).

Re:False sense of security

[aarenz]

Once IE has less than 15% of the market share, it will become the safest browser available. Anyone who assumes that other browswers are really that much safer are diluded. If the majority of people use a product on their computer it becomes a target. Once the market has flipped, whoever is on top will be targeted and will show all of its holes to the world.

The only way to protect a computer from attacks is to never attatch it to the internet, or train the user not to go to websites that are not trusted. OS issues are the same problem, no one would ever think of writing a hack/virus for a commodore today.

Re:False sense of security

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They said they had common sense, but they were wrong. Sort of like when they said they were secure, but they were wrong.

Re:False sense of security

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Just because a browser becomes a target doesn't make it more in-secure. Security is a result of how the development process. A good development process will ensure good quality products.

MSIE has a very bad history concerning security. So as long as Microsoft continues in its old habits of development it will continue to deliver products with mediocre security.

I remember when Gartner suggested that people stop using it several years ago. Sadly still people use it.

Given the fact of it's bad support for webb standards I am puzzled why people still use it. Hopefully this scare will help to lower the number of people forced to use MSIE.

Re:False sense of security

[Anonymous Coward]

They told you they don't need common sense?

Frighteningly enough, that sounds about par for the course. Never underestimate the stupidity of a user.

Re:False sense of security

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that if the people responsible spent the same number of man-hours on apple software, the numbers would be a lot more even.

You know what? This argument makes no sense. Let's look at the percentages.

There are approximately 1.05M viruses for Windows. Of those, approximately 750,000 of them work. (I'm including spyware and adware in those figures.) That works out to about 71%.

There are about 61,000 viruses for Mac OSX. Of those, ZERO work. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that's 0%.

The problem is that it is so bloody easy to write a virus for Windows, and Microsoft drags their feet in fixing the security holes that they exploit.

Let's quit perpetuating the "bigger target" fallacy. Windows and IE are both pieces of junk that Microsoft desperately needs to rewrite.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm no Apple fanboi. They have a lot of things that I hate about their operating system and their way of doing business (can't turn off mouse acceleration? Bah). But right now, OSX is WAY more secure than Windows is. Hopefully, in ten years, Microsoft will get its act together and do a rewrite. I really hope they do. I want to see some real, honest competition.

Re:False sense of security

[Anonymous Coward]

OS issues are the same problem, no one would ever think of writing a hack/virus for a commodore today.

And how much market share does the Commodore Amiga have?

Once you answer that, follow this link to see how many viruses there are for it. So much for the "smaller target" fallacy. Note the dates on those viruses. It's up-to-date. Some were updated just today! (19 january 2010 - the "angel" virus is one.)

Now, that said, let's look at the caveat. No operating system is secure in the hands of someone determined to get a virus. If you have an idiot using the computer, it's far more likely to get infected. There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system.

But 750,000 working viruses? Seriously? C'mon Microsoft. Do better!

False sense of security?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where is the fix?

Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[LWATCDR]

Not because Microsoft sucks per say but because computer security is becoming a classic monoculture problem.
IE is such a valuable target because of the number of users.
The greater the variation in software the less valuable each exploit becomes.
Let's face it most people will not change so saying that everybody should change will probably get you 30%
A very real problem is there is only three browser engines at this time Geko, Webkit, and IE.

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[janek78]

Minor correction: it is spelled "per se" (by itself).

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[sakdoctor]

The two faces to this argument are that IE on windows gets hacked left right and centre because it's popular, and that (picking a browser at random) KHTML is ONLY secure because it's very obscure.

OpenSSH has a massive user base, and is practically a monoculture in remote access on the *nix platform. An exploit would be extremely valuable ... Oh right, it turns out security is a physical property of a system, and not just some statistic.
Bottom line is that IE really has sucked all its life; and not just statistically.

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[amicusNYCL]

FYI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presto_(layout_engine)

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[rattaroaz]

Bottom line is that IE really has sucked all its life; and not just statistically.

Remember back in the days competing with Netscape, IE was actually good for the time. It wasn't until Microsoft held the browser monopoly that it remained stagnant, while the rest of the browsers moved ahead.

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[molecular]

parent hit nail on the head, mod up!

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[LWATCDR]

The Monoculture of OpenSSH is also a vulnerability. OpenSSH is different from a browser in a few ways.
1. It has a much smaller user base than IE
2. It has a much smaller code base than any of the major browsers.
The smaller the code base the easier to secure.
That being said OpenSSH is still a great example of a well written and very secure program. However if there ever was a serious security issue in OpenSSH the monoculture nature of it would make that issue far worse than if there was a great variety of SSH clients.
But IE gets hacked left and right because of a number of reasons.
1. It has vulnerabilities.
2. Because it is so common it is a prize target so people hunt out the vulnerabilities.

My point is that even if Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari are no secure than IE increasing the variety of browsers will decrease the value of exploits and the impact of the exploit.
Also have a large and thriving choice of browsers means that when an exploit is found in any one of them it is easy to stop using the vulnerable one until it is patched and use one of the good alternatives.

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[LWATCDR]

I thought Opera had moved to webkit. Thank your for the information.
My bad.

Importance of Competitive Choices

[reporter]

This incident underscores the importance of fighting monopolies and ensuring the availability of competitive choices. If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

We should applaud the recent work by the European Commission in demanding that Microsoft design their European version of Windows to allow users to choose the browser that they want -- thus, allowing them to never install Internet Explorer. The European Commission has been better advocate of free-market competition than the American Federal Trade Commission.

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

This incident underscores the importance of fighting monopolies and ensuring the availability of competitive choices. If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

We should applaud the recent work by the European Commission in demanding that Microsoft design their European version of Windows to allow users to choose the browser that they want -- thus, allowing them to never install Internet Explorer. The European Commission has been better advocate of free-market competition than the American Federal Trade Commission.

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

Hell No! Microsoft is an American company - AMERICAN!

WE are the only ones that can pick on them - not those cigarette smoking - wine sipping - half-assed socialist - high tax - cowardly - freedom hating - Europeans!

It's one thing for us to bitch and moan about MS -we're Americans - but the Europeans!? Hell no! MS brings MONEY into the US! They provide jobs to Americans!

Wait a tic, I think I'll change my mind.

Ah, fuck'em.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jgtg32a]

I'm sorry but was there a new instance of anticompetitive behavior from MS? I seem to remember MS getting punished from their BS a few years back. Unless I missed something this new round of foolishness was because Opera was complaining because no one uses their browser.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt you are an American (you forgot the SarcMarc), but neither am I, however, is a free market defined as being regulated and dictated by governments or by a company freely being able to compete (with the goal to beat the competition) through superior products and/or marketing? I'm really confused...

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

Microsoft didn't driver browsers out of the market, Opera was "in the market" the entire time you're referring to.

Microsoft's (serious) competitors gave up, once that happened, Microsoft had no incentive to work on improving IE whatsoever. If Netscape had continued to put out products instead of doing their bullshit rewrite crap, none of this would have happened in the first place.

That's not to say Microsoft has no blame, but on the other hand if Netscape had stopped releasing products *regardless of the reason*, we would have ended up with the same problem.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to add a reference to the French being cheese-eating surrender monkeys, for that extra jingoistic cherry on top.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jadin]

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

You just disproved your own statement. A free market would allow a monopoly to continue it's anti-competitve behavior even to the detriment of the market. You're arguing for better regulation not a freer market.

[note: unless my definition of free market is off, which is quite possible]

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

How about we define "free market" before we continue. Well, according to Wikipedia, "A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud." The fact that the US government does not interfere in the market (by attacking Microsoft) makes it less of a free market?

As a disclaimer. I hate M$ and want it to die (I have strong FOSS beliefs). I just fear the government more than M$. Why? Because they have a monopoly on force. And that is scarier than any mega corporation.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[sznupi]

US government market interventionism:

corporations -> lobbyists -> government -> "free" market

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[sznupi]

Ah, yes, because Opera wouldn't have any market share otherwise.

Never mind that it's the number one browser in Ukraine, number one alternative to IE in Russia (and look like it will be number one overall in a few months), and in my backyard that I know about (post-Soviet EU memberstates) it is usually #3 browser hovering between 5 and 10%. Heck, in quite a few of them Opera Mini (the j2me one) is ahead of Safari...

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[icebraining]

Just because some anti-competitive behavior wasn't stopped long ago, doesn't make it right.

How is distributing IE with Windows any different than the distribution of Window Media Player, which was considered anti-competitive years ago?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[SydShamino]

Microsoft didn't driver browsers out of the market, Opera was "in the market" the entire time you're referring to.

That's the "If" in "If Microsoft had succeeded".

Netscape gave up because their business model was completely undercut by the fact that Microsoft made IE mandatory on every computer sold. Opera survived as a niche, and Mozilla was born from Netscape's ashes, both of which are signs that Microsoft didn't succeed.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[nmb3000]

If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

This is a completely invalid argument and I can't believe you're at +5 already. The rabid anti-Microsoft/IE crowd is out in force today I suppose.

Even if every single browser other than IE stopped development in 2000, what bearing at all does that have on potential future development? Firefox was released in 2004, some four years after your hypothetical extermination of all other browsers. Are you suggesting that if IE was the single available browser that Firefox wouldn't have been developed? I suggest the exact opposite - if IE stood alone development would have been accelerated. The funny part of your claim is that for all intents and purposes IE did drive all other browsers out of the market circa 2000 if you consider pure market share. This fact alone pretty much nulls your argument.

For you car enthusiasts, it's like saying that if Henry Ford had driven (ha ha) all other car companies out of business back in, say, 1905 with the Model T then the only choice we'd have today for a vehicle today would be a Ford. Obviously this is completely bogus.

We should applaud the recent work by the European Commission in demanding that Microsoft design their European version of Windows to allow users to choose the browser that they want

No, we shouldn't. Users of Windows were already free to choose any browser they wish to use; there was no increase in "freedom" due to the EU's meaningless requirement. You can argue that giving the user the option to remove IE from their system is good, but even that is of marginal value considering the technical aspects (only the UI is removed, the core rendering engine remains to support applications that rely on it).

If Microsoft was preventing users from downloading or installing alternative browsers I would applaud the actions of the EU. Unfortunately this isn't even close to reality and all they've really done is make using the operating system more confusing for new users. Every single modern operating system comes bundled with software and users now expect this. They want a web browser and a multimedia player out-of-the-box, both reasonable expectations. I've yet to see a situation or practical explanation which shows that requiring a "ballot box" for either application has any meaningful bearing on user freedom or choice.

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union.

You do realize that in a truly free market there wouldn't be any governmental oversight, right? As soon as the government starts throwing its weight around a certain amount of freedom is lost. Sometimes this is a good thing, but don't try to twist that into being more free.

Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

Has Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the past? Yes. Is their current bundling of IE and WMP with Windows anti-competitive? No.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

"Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior."

It's only "irony" if you assume that Washington and the punditocracy aren't a bunch of liars.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it was said below, but a Free Market economy is one that is devoid of Government regulation. The majority of the markets in the world are regulated free markets. That is to say, the markets compete with each other to a healthy point, but are regulated so as to not erase all competition in particular field or product. Thus your comment would have been better stated as "The EU is better at regulating anti-competitive behavior."

That being said, generalizations about the EU being superior to the American FTC by citing a single incident are absurd.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

[note: unless my definition of free market is off, which is quite possible]

Some people define it as free of artificial barriers to entry.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding of a free market implies the absence of a monopoly (free market means choice, monopoly means no choice). This also means that a true "free market" requires a certain amount of regulation in order to remain free.

An unregulated (no rules) market is most certainly not "free."

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Elektroschock]

Your definition is "off".

Free market != laissez faire.

In a Free market there could not be a monopoly.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Korin43]

So in other words, Microsoft "conquered" the market by making the best product, and then once they stopped producing the best product, other companies began reentering the market? It's almost like the free market destroyed a monopoly, but of course that's impossible because everyone knows that the free market props up failing businesses.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[clang_jangle]

Well, according to Wikipedia,

Fail.

Obviously, there is more than one definition of "free market". Though actually, I prefer "free enterprise", which once went hand-in-hand with "land of opportunity". Ah, the good old days...

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Elektroschock]

Competition policy moves a market towards a "free market" that is the whole point.

Free market != laissez faire.

When there are barriers to competition and lock-in it is not a free market. Basically when you enable more competition the market becomes more free.

Companies don't like a "free market", they prefer a dominant market position because it is more profitable.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Muros]

You just disproved your own statement. A free market would allow a monopoly to continue it's anti-competitve behavior even to the detriment of the market. You're arguing for better regulation not a freer market.

[note: unless my definition of free market is off, which is quite possible]

The definition of a free market depends on who you ask; different people will have different views on what exactly you should be "free" to do. The ideal you seem to subscribe to is one where the market is free from any form of intervention. I prefer the idea that the "free market" refers to the freedom of anyone to participate in the market, without having to deal with anti-competitive practices and monopolies; that form of market necessitates some degree of regulation. Like so many other areas in life, instead of taking well defined opposing views on a subject, people just agree on a fairly nebulous term and then make wildly different interpretations of it and claim they broadly agree.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

if i had mod points, i'd give you a +5 funny, sir!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[aczisny]

Your definition of a free market is the commonly accepted one by economists and that you will find in economic texts. (I knew my econ degree was good for something).

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

by your definition of "free", cotton farmers in the south of US would still be allowed to keep slaves too.

"freedom" is a relative term, it depends on your point of view.

in microsoft's POV, "free market" probably means "free to continue anti-competitive behavior". in opera and mozilla's POV, it certainly means "free to make deals with OEMs without we or the OEMs suffering sanctions from MS".

in the latter, regulation and enforcement is necessary for their freedom, just like regulation and enforcement was necessary to give the slaves their freedom.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[bargainsale]

No, they conquered the market by abusing their dominance of the desktop OS market to crush competition, by twisting the arm of vendors to make them ship all their computers with the MS inferior product preinstalled.

If it had really been a superior product, nobody would have been making a fuss. It wasn't.

Possibly you also believe that Windows' stranglehold on the desktop is due to the intrinsic virtues of the OS too?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[LordVader717]

They conquered the market by dumping their product and abusing their OS monopoly. They never made the best browser, and Netscape was generally the better option. Only years later, when the OSS community had created a browser which was substantially better than Internet Explorer, did a competitor slowly start to crawl upwards.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[RightSaidFred99]

Free market doesn't mean what you think it means. Maybe you're thinking of a "tightly controlled competitive market"? It cracks me up when proto-eurosocialists make the argument that an economy where the businesses are more controlled by the government are more "free", contrary to the simple _definition_ of free.

So please, if you're going to butcher something let it be your own stagnant, unsustainable economy and not the English language.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[plasticsquirrel]

You do realize that in a truly free market there wouldn't be any governmental oversight, right? As soon as the government starts throwing its weight around a certain amount of freedom is lost. Sometimes this is a good thing, but don't try to twist that into being more free.

Freedom lost for who? For corporations like Microsoft? For small businesses who want to compete? For customers? For people who are not customers? Freedom is not some magic buzzword that trumps everything else. The term should be accompanied by a designation of exactly whose freedom, and how this impacts others. Personally, I doubt people would be so sympathetic if we suddenly started speaking of the precious freedoms of corporate tech companies.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Low Ranked Craig]

Because if you don't ship a browser with the OS most people would never find the Internets. I never understood this from an anti-competitive perspective. If I remember correctly, a significant factor in the MS case was that you couldn't uninstall the browser, which I again, don't really understand. A browser is integral to most computers. If you don't ship the OS with a browser, most users wouldn't be able to get on the net to find a browser. I suppose that not allowing an FTP client on the system would be next? The whole "distributing IE with Windows" is anti-competitive is predicated on the fact that if IE exists on the system most users will be too stupid to make their own choices, which in fact may be true, but I'm not a big fan of protecting people from their own stupidity by making life harder for others. I HATE IE. Do I want Windows to ship without it? No. That would make downloading Firefox that much more difficult. Using this logic cars shouldn't ship with stereos installed because that is anti-competitive vis-a-vis aftermarket manufacturers.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[mjwx]

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

But the US is a freer market then Europe, in the US the government is not allowed to punish companies even if they break the law, so companies are free to do as they please.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Low Ranked Craig]

In a Free market there could not be a monopoly.

In a free market there can absolutely be monopolies, and monopolies are not in and of themselves illegal.

In a free market everyone can decide to purchase services or products from the same vendor. That's not a problem. The problem come into play when the monopoly starts using their position in an uncompetitive manner, like by requiring system builders to install only your browser, and punishing them if they do otherwise. This behavior is perfectly acceptable in a fragmented market, but not in a monopolized one.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Thinboy00]

Because if you don't ship a browser with the OS most people would never find the Internets. I never understood this from an anti-competitive perspective. If I remember correctly, a significant factor in the MS case was that you couldn't uninstall the browser, which I again, don't really understand. A browser is integral to most computers. If you don't ship the OS with a browser, most users wouldn't be able to get on the net to find a browser. I suppose that not allowing an FTP client on the system would be next? The whole "distributing IE with Windows" is anti-competitive is predicated on the fact that if IE exists on the system most users will be too stupid to make their own choices, which in fact may be true, but I'm not a big fan of protecting people from their own stupidity by making life harder for others. I HATE IE. Do I want Windows to ship without it? No. That would make downloading Firefox that much more difficult. Using this logic cars shouldn't ship with stereos installed because that is anti-competitive vis-a-vis aftermarket manufacturers.

That has nothing to do with what the EU is actually asking MS to do (it isn't going to be another Windows XP N). The EU is going to have Windows come with a "which browser do you want to use?" screen when you first launch "the internet" (i.e. the world wide web (i.e. a browser)).

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

If it had really been a superior product, nobody would have been making a fuss. It wasn't.

I'm sorry, do you *remember* Netscape 4? IE was a far superior product, on both Windows and Macintosh. (And on Macintosh it won the market fair and square, there being no "stranglehold.")

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

in short you are saying socialism, which is ok, just say it :)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

> [note: unless my definition of free market is off, which is quite possible]

Indeed.

Absence of rules (id est, total freedom) is what anarchists preach -- and we know how good this has been throughout history.

Capitalism requires rules... the invisible hand is a consequence of them, not a supernatural entity...

Well, IMO.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

Microsoft's behavior isn't anti-competitive. It's pro-Microsoft. In a truly free market, there's no such thing as anti-competitive behaviour. There's nothing you can do legally at 5% market share that magically becomes illegal at 95%.

The lack of browser options in 2000 was definitely caused by Microsoft's actions -- but any law that calls those actions illegal because of their 95% market share is bad law. The reason Microsoft's actions bore fruit is becuase their competitors conceded the market to them. It's really that simple. Netscape did a piss-poor job, and IE4/5/5.5/6 was light-years better than Netscape at the time. Same case with Opera. They can scream about standards, default installs, or whatever they wany -- they did nothing, absolutely nothing to build a compelling case for end users to care. It's really that simple. If the rest of the industry thought it was such an important battle-ground, then they should not have conceded it to Microsoft -- it's just that simple. The EU is, genuinely, a less-free, over-regulated market compared to the US.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[supremebob]

That said, if Netscape actually made a browser that was worth a damn during the reign of Internet Explorer 5 and 6, it might still be around today.

Keep in mind that Internet Explorer is STILL bundled on almost every new PC that's been released in the past ten years, yet competitors like Firefox and Chrome have taken significant market share from it. Why? Because Mozilla and Google finally put out a better product that was faster, more secure, and and cooler features.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

Your definition isn't off. Competition-law pertains to the 'efficiency' of the pricing mechanism in a market. It actually does make the market less free, to preserve the pricing efficiency (I might be slightly off with the exact term here). But a free market in the strictest sense of the word is one in which the market self-regulates, and hence there are no restrictions like competition-law in a truly free market.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[kiddygrinder]

Bundling IE and WMP et al with windows is anti-competitive in that it leverages their windows monopoly to promote market share in other areas, you must admit that some percentage of users will choose IE simply because it's already there.

Whether or not forcing users to pick a browser to download via a separate app (ballot or whatever) is making it harder or less useful for new users is a good idea is a completely separate issue.

To be completely honest i can't see how it's hard for a user to click on say a desktop icon labeled "Internet" click on a browser from a list of 5 or so popular ones, have the OS download and install it and be on their way, but maybe i'm giving users too much credit.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

The problem come into play when the monopoly starts using their position in an uncompetitive manner, like by requiring system builders to install only your browser, and punishing them if they do otherwise.

Such an arrangement does limit choice -- but it limits choice irrespective of market shares/monopoly status. Either such deals should be legal (at 5% market share or 95% market share) or they should be illegal (at 5% market share or 95% market share). Same rules for all players, and no need for antitrust-law and all the associated politics. Same case with protocols, file-formats, etc. Either everyone is required to license their formats/specs/IP at some pre-determined cost, or nobody is. It makes no fucking sense to always wait for someone to become 80%-of-the-market big and then introduce all kinds of retarded special-cases under which they need to operate.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm not sure there is a standard definition of a free market. i personally don't consider a market bogged down by monopolies to be very free at all. so to my view some regulation is required to keep a market freely working.

it's kind of like this, most citizens would say they are free. yet our behavior is restricted in certain ways. we can't kill, or steal from, or purposely cause harm to other individuals. technically a restriction, but is society not free because of it? i don't think so.

i severely dislike the use of catchphrases and buzzwords in serious discussion. when one mentions 'free market' it is useful for one to specify what they mean at least once during that discussion. (this isn't meant as a criticism of the thread i'm replying to, just a general nitpick of a trend that's destroying political discussion on a global level)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[hairyfeet]

BWA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh wait, you were serious? BWA HA HA HA HA HA! Vader the FLOSSie koolaid must have a little too much lead in it pal, because it is damaging your brain. Here, from an old greybeard that actually lived through that time, let me give you my impression of NS4-

All right! I've got my dialup cooking and I'm ready to go! /launches NS4/ and here comes my web...../curses as NS4 shits itself and crashes hard/....Okay, must be a bad web page, I can avoid it./launches NS4 again/ And here comes my...^%$^%$&^%$^&$^%! /curses up a blue streak as NS4 not only crashes hard, but manages to lock the ENTIRE OS smooth up.

Sorry dude, but anyone who had to deal with the original NS4 didn't have to wait long before they sounded like the angry German kid. It was slow, crashed if you looked at it funny, was about as stable as Britney on coke, yeah....it wasn't good dude. Was IE the second coming? Nope, there really wasn't anything great or fancy about IE5 at all. But unlike NS4 I could actually surf for several hours at a a time without it shitting itself or locking the OS up. So sorry but NS4 deserved to DIAF, as any user of it will tell you. It got better later, but by then it was too late and too many folks had moved on.

While I am sure you would like to put its death into "teh evils M$" column, I'm afraid that anybody that used that POS can tell you, what killed NS was their retarded rewrite. It turned what was a decent browser into a flaming hunk o' shit. Sorry, but it's true.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[babyrat]

IE did drive all other browsers out of the market circa 2000 if you consider pure market share. This fact alone pretty much nulls your argument.

No, Microsoft's anti-competitive practices drove other browsers out of the market. Computer manufacturers wanted to include other browser onmachines they sold. Microcost prevented them from doing this, by threatening to increase the cost of windows to them and/or refuse to allow them to install windows at all.

Has Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the past? Yes. Is their current bundling of IE and WMP with Windows anti-competitive? No.

Sorry, but judging from their past behaviour, they don't get the benefit of the doubt this time.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Capsaicin]

I'm really confused...

That's because the real world comes in shades of grey. A free market cannot exist without some intervention of the state. Minimally a state has to defend against Viking raiders and to establish legal property relations.

Moreover the free market obeys the dialectic of things tending towards their own negation. That is to say the goal of participants in the free market is to eliminate the competition creating a monopoly in a market and thus to defeat the freedom of that market. Rather cruelly, this is when the state is once again required to step in move the goal posts. You've got to feel sorry for successful corporations, don't you?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Mongoose Disciple]

Eh. Netscape kept making a browser for a while after that. It just wasn't any good.

Which you can blame on their not having so much income anymore if you want, but still.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Mongoose Disciple]

Honestly, if you believe that, then you skipped several versions of Netscape.

I only very grudgingly and unhappily moved to IE during that era because Netscape fell so far behind. I'd go so far as to argue that new releases of Netscape managed to fall behind even previous version of Netscape.

I'm glad that Firefox eventually resulted from that mess and provided real competition again, but let's be honest: IE (temporarily) won the browser wars by default, not because Microsoft strongarmed Netscape out of the market, but because Netscape reached a point where they couldn't even release a browser as good as the last browser they released. It takes a special kind of mismanagement to get that far gone.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Capsaicin]

Your definition of a free market is the commonly accepted one by economists

Yes, I think what is happening here is that some people (myself included) are conflating the definitions of 'free market' and 'competitive market,' perhaps because of the greater freedom a competitive market ensures.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[BitZtream]

I'm so sick of this argument. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but there were no guns to heads. There were alternatives, just nothing better according to the guys who decided to go along with the bundling.

They created a superior product (not by your definition, but by those who decided what goes on the PC). They did so by bundling and discounts and a lot of other things that were taking advantage of their market position, but thats just the way the world works and always will.

Once you've been around technology long enough you notice and realize that 'the best' technology is never the one that wins because there is a hell of a lot more to somethings value and usefulness than its technical superiority by your definition (whatever that may be) or mine for that matter.

Stop making excuses and do something to change the situation, and no, posting your bitches on slashdot doesn't actually count as doing something since you aren't doing anything but talking to a crowd of people who mostly agree with you already and account for an absolutely trivial part of the market place, even when you include their 'influence on others'.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Andrew_T366]

I remember Netscape 4. In fact, I was using it semi-regularly (albeit on my Windows 3.1 computer) as late as 2003.

Although it wasn't quite as lightweight as Netscape 3 (which was undoubtedly their high-water mark), it was generally stable and ran just fine on a 486.
It had none of the security issues that Internet Explorer 4 invited by going above and beyond the definition of what a web browser should do.
If it crashed, it seldom took the whole system down with it as IE would always do.
It didn't take the entire system hostage. It left the Windows shell well enough alone. It was uninstallable, like a normal application.
Its rendering capability was no worse than IE 4's. (If it seems worse now--and frankly, most people haven't used IE 4 in years so they don't really know--that's only because IE got ahead of it in rendering capability after Netscape had its air supply cut off and was in a mad scramble to do anything other than fade away without a trace.)

It was a more robust browser than IE 4 in practically every way. And if Netscape had been able to develop the software in a more natural manner (a la version 1-3) without a monopolist breathing fire at their heels with blatantly-illegal marketing practices, I'm sure it would have been better still.

(And before you claim that IE won the Macintosh market "fair and square," remember that Microsoft threatened to discontinue Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE as the default browser on its systems.)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

He was talking about the operating system itself, not applications that run on it--and don't try to claim that IE was a part of windows at the time, it was demonstrably proven false during the anti-trust case against Microsoft.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[The End Of Days]

Some people like to reach for the top. Other people would like the top to be brought closer. I won't speculate as to reasons in either case.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[The End Of Days]

Anarchy isn't possible and has never existed outside of imagination. Too many people crave someone giving them limits. Fortunately for the people who like limiting others, I guess. Lots of them as well.

Same fate as every other ideal, basically. Reality shrugs them off as cute.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[TheRaven64]

Because if you don't ship a browser with the OS most people would never find the Internets

You seem to be confusing the OS with the computer. There is a difference between the software that is included with the OS, and the software that is included with the computer. Back when Windows 95 was released, a lot of computers came with Netscape Navigator (or even Mosaic) preinstalled, along with various office suites and other third-party software. Just because something isn't included with Windows doesn't mean that it won't be installed on the machine end users buy.

Even without a browser as part of the OS, every ISP that I used in the '80s gave you one when you signed up for a trial, first on floppy disks (remember Netscape 1.0, which fitted on a single floppy?) and later on CD. Most ISPs today give you a CD to configure your connection with and there's no reason that they couldn't include a browser with that; some do include FireFox or Opera.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[techno-vampire]

Once you've been around technology long enough you notice and realize that 'the best' technology is never the one that wins

So what you're saying is, Windows doesn't have almost complete control of the PC OS market share because it's the best OS but because it isn't?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[The End Of Days]

When do these mysterious claims come in? Are you confusing ridiculous political arguments on Slashdot with official US statements?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

[note: unless my definition of free market is off, which is quite possible]

While it once meant this, because of the "free" in "free market", the term can be rather nebulous. Understandably, it has evolved over time. "Free market" hasn't matched your definition since the the late thirties.

A free market allows the market to choose a certain commodity or service based on its merits (as a commodity or service--not 'a package deal') versus its cost. A monopoly allows a business to use their strength in one market to undercut a competitor in another. While you are probably mostly familiar with horizontal integration (essentially; mergers) and horizontal monopolies (e.g., say one corporation owned a vast majority of individual car companies). Bundling is analogous to the practice of vertical integration (expanding your business into areas at different points of the same production process).

Note that vertical integration, like horizontal integration, is not necessarily a 'bad thing'. It will often lower prices while simultaneously increasing profits--all without prevent a competing service or commodity from winning out through sheer merit. It only adversely affects the free market once a vertical monopoly created; managing to create a market failure due to it not being a natural monopoly.
PROTIP: a natural monopoly's existence is (barring incompetent management) a good thing, though they are scarce to the point of near non-existence. It takes a very unique set of circumstances for an industry to better meet supply and demand whilst simultaneously providing a better service or commodity than could be done through competition. They're usually public utilities.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[inode_buddha]

I guess I'm the only one. I did just fine with NS Navigator 4.72 on slackware, on a 486 with dialup no less, back in 1998. I had *no* crashes due to netscape, although X was somewhat of a bitch at times.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

News update: it's 2010. An operating system without a browser is officially ridiculous. Lots of things were true in the 80s that shouldn't be repeated now. We shouldn't be made to jump through hoops just because people are too weak to exercise free (as in speech) will and instead blame it on the company who gave them something because they can't see any difference between not being forced to take a decision, and having that decision taken away. Hating the thing that people aren't choosing not to use doesn't change that.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

"If it had really been a superior product, nobody would have been making a fuss"

Do you even know where the word "sabotage" comes from? What an absolutely biggest load of crap ever, ever, EVAAH. Welcome to mankind. You must be new here. People make a fuss because they wanted a slice of the "people want to go online" pie, and by MS releasing a free browser, the only others that have been able to truely compete have had to switch to a F/OSS model... oh no, how terrible!

You know about the phrase 'spanner in the works'? How about the guy who designed a safer way to transfer light bulbs, causing fewer to be broken in transit. People who had made their living out of selling insurance against this were proper up in arms about it.

It doesn't even have to be an actual physical thing. Ideas too. People fight evolution just as people fought taking earth out of the center of the universe. No one cares about what's better or what's right, just what's most convenient... unless that convenience later becomes an inconvenience in which case they complain about the fact that things were made convenient to begin with.

I remember netscrape, without the nostalgia. Even its creators threw it out.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[blarkon]

So best advocate for free market capitalism is the one that imposes the most regulation on the free market? Isn't that a regulated market rather than a free market? Cognitive Dissonance Error.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Artifakt]

In the theoretical free market, everyone has perfect knowledge of the values involved. For example, the person signing a mortgage knows everything relevant to the same extent as the bank issuing it. Obviously, that fits your shades of grey model. When a state, for just one example, makes efforts to require people with inside knowledge to reveal it to the people they are negotiating with, that is actually a move towards a perfect free market. Let me repeat that for the people who think they are capitalists but are really Mercantilists or something - State involvement is a fundamental method of getting and preserving free markets, not an anti-market force.
      The theory behind antitrust law is the government has to step in when a monopoly is being abused, not merely because it exists. This can include both situations where a monopoly is damaging other businesses and, alternatively, where it is damaging the public at large.
      Microsoft's influence over the hardware market might be considered an example of damage to other businesses - either established businesses such as Gateway or AMD, or possible startups we may have never heard from. This story, on the other hand, is about a case of possible damage to the public, and has little or nothing to do with the other possible abuses.
      Many of the EU/Microsoft claims have involved damage to other businesses. They don't really prove anything about what Microsoft has done to the public one way or another - this claim has to stand or fall on its own. France's publicising the vulnerability is a move to provide more perfect knowledge, so it's arguably an effort towards a more perfect free market. In fact, it's up to the people criticising France to show how there's a flaw in the action - it's normally what a State should do, some would argue what a State is required to do, and moves things closer to a free market, unless there is a substantial falsehood in France's claim.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[icebraining]

The EU doesn't want Windows to come without a browser. It wants Windows to come with *multiple* browsers, so that you can choose one in a nice little panel.

And this is not directly to protect the Windows users - this is to protect the competition in the market, which in turn will help *all* consumers. Or do you think non-Windows users weren't hurt by the dominance of the IE, after defeating Netscape?
All the web standards had been broken and a great majority of the sites required IE to be viewed correctly, which was kind of difficult if you used IE. This is changing now because of competition.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[icebraining]

Sorry:

*which was kind of difficult if you used Linux

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Artifakt]

The reason monopoly matters, is it's a precondition for success at anticompetitive or abusive conduct.
        Imagine a situation where somebody makes a threat against another person, specifically a threat to beat them up bare handed. If the person making the threat is an 87 lb., wheelchair bound person with a known heart condition, threatening a normally healthy adult who could evade the attack by simply walking away, what does the law say about the normally healthy person claiming they were so threatened they had to draw a pistol and empty it into their 'assailant'? Now, let's flip the situation - the person making the threat is a 245 lb. linebacker, he has already picked up a 2x4 with nails in it, and he is blocking the only exit. What does the law say now?
        Monopoly is somewhat like that - it's a claim that the business had the power to be able to act badly successfully, when without that power, whatever it was doing doesn't need the law to stop it, because it would have failed, or done so much damage to the company that it wouldn't have been worth it. If a company with a 5% market share tells vendors "We won't give you a discount rate unless you don't bundle our competition." the vendor laughs and walks off. At 80% or more, apparently they give in. The law doesn't need to act in the first case - a threat that has no teeth resolves itself.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

"Windows doesn't have almost complete control of the PC OS market share because it's the best OS but because it isn't"

So you're saying that people are naturally drawn to lesser products, so to compete and win, other vendors need to make their OS's less-good?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

It didn't get the nickname "nutscrape" just because it sounded alike! And it didn't have its entire codebase thrown out for nothing. But, I had no choice but to use NS to browse with, that was the non-free-(as in "cough up, or tough") browser days, and NS has the monopoly on what ISPs would spend some of your monthly fee on to bundle a browser so you could do something other than look at the "connected" time going up. Then all of a sudden, there was this free alternative that I could choose to use instead.

Funny how history seems so different when you actually remember it.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[mstahl]

The problem wasn't that a browser is really important and everyone needs one; the problem was that Microsoft had integrated their browser into the operating system in such a way that the operating system itself could not work without it, effectively making it impossible to uninstall it even if the user preferred another browser. Part of what makes other browsers more secure than IE de facto is that they don't have their tentacles as deep into the system as IE does. I'm sure someone will shoot back that it's not true, but really if you have a browser that's able to change system settings like IE can without asking for a password first, you're doing it wrong.

Nobody's really proposing that windows ship without a web browser; I think the current idea is to force them to give users a choice of web browser when they install it.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[mr_death]

Bullshit. No action of the EC granted Firefox its ~30% market share -- the mozilla folks earned it, competing head-to-head with Microsoft. There is no monopoly in browsers, no matter what the whining management of Opera and the EC claim.

"Free market", at least in the EC, typically means "giving unearned advantages to anyone but Microsoft".

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

"Some people like to reach for the top. Other people would like the top to be brought closer"

haha love it

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

For a 'free market' you need for people to not be weak 'n spineless 'n never stand up for what's right. Can't have a monopoly that people don't use. Monopolies... by the people, for the people.

But yeah, that is quite a funny notion (it's funny because it'll never be true!) ... better just get the guvvamunt in instead.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[afabbro]

No, they conquered the market by abusing their dominance of the desktop OS market to crush competition, by twisting the arm of vendors to make them ship all their computers with the MS inferior product preinstalled.

As a slightly less foam-mouthed observer, I'd note that IE was generally as good as Netscape, and it was free. That may be abuse of a monopoly - IANAL. However, even if it was not as good, the choice was either a free Chevy (IE) or an expensive Buick (Netscape). Consumers took free.

Ultimately, Netscape would have gone out of business anyway. If not Microsoft or Mozilla, someone else would have come along with a free web browser. Netscape's business model didn't really have a chance to succeed in the long term.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Sounds more utopian than anarchist... you don't need hierarchy to have rules, so rules and anarchy aren't mutually exclusive, however anarchists get portrayed. A small non-hierarchical (ie, anarchy) community can work very well, but it does break down in larger numbers, as structure's needed to overcome entropy, at every level; atoms, cells, animals, packs, communities, civilisations. When they get too big, they will divide into smaller structures, where entropy can be managed.

Lots of people call themselves anarchists meaning "I should be allowed to do what I want". These people are in fact not anarchists, but your plain garden variety idiots.

Haha I love anarchists on the internet... oh no! Can't do a DNS lookup!!!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA has never really been that free market. Americans just think they are.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[the_womble]

I would define a free market to mean that prices are set by supply and demand in a competitive market place. Therefore the existence of a monopolist or cartel would mean that the market is not free.

You could argue, but I notice that people who advocate "free markets" in the sense of "no regulation" are those who think that monopolies and cartels cannot successfully exclude competition.

To put it another way, I define free market to mean the sort of market that Adam Smith advocated, rather than what neo-mercantilism advocates.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[the_womble]

The reason is that if someone with a 5% market share offers a product that uses a proprietary protocol I can easily say "no thanks" and move to the next alternative.

If someone has 90% of the market, I may have to use their product to be compatible with everyone else - i.e. because of network effects

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[the_womble]

Are you suggesting that if IE was the single available browser that Firefox wouldn't have been developed?

Yes, because it would have accelerated the move towards IE only sites (which were already common at the time). If losts of websites required ActiveX, VBScript, .NET and whatever else MS would have come up with given a complete monopoly, any other browser would be useless (unless it used IE's rendering engine etc.), and other desktop OSes would be unusable.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[the_womble]

I'm sorry, do you *remember* Netscape 4? IE was a far superior product

Yes, but Opera was better than either at the time, and got nowhere.

And on Macintosh it won the market fair and square, there being no "stranglehold."

Not true: IE4 was bundled with MacOS as the default browser as part of a deal between Apple and MS. The crowds reaction to the announcement this was clearly not what users wanted.

Notice:

1) The cross licensing deal (cross licensing is bad because it blocks new entrants)
2) MS also bought this by promising to keep developing MS Office for Mac (i.e. they were trying to leverage the Office monopoly).
3) MS also bailed Apple put financially as part of the deal: i.e. they actually bought market share for cash.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Standards are a joke. An excuse. A nice idea at best. Pre-IE, websites all just said "best viewed in netscape" on them instead. People need to get over this idea that non-standard defaults to bad. If standards don't do what you want/need them to, then a solution must by definition be non-standard. <frameset>'s, shockingly, weren't the answer to everything. Iframes, being a non-standard microsoft/IE invention solved a lot of problems.

At it's height, I was seeing 98-99% of traffic for customers sites being Internet Explorer. Official (ie, larger sample) figures had it a little under. That makes it pretty damn standard where I'm sitting, you don't get more standard than "everybody". But, the mozilla folks have always been resistant to additions, citing "not the standard" as their get out clause for not being arsed or having code that couldn't support the features. Safari/Chrome prove that that doesn't need to be the way, by striving for "real world compatibility" instead of "not the standard", sites actually work using them, they work quickly, and they work where firefox is now the only one that won't. IE might have a lot to answer for, but it has a lot to be credited for too.

As for the non-windows users argument - when there's enough of us, my clients will be interested in paying to make sure they're catered for. Otherwise, the onus falls on the other side. Be compatible with the other 98% of the world, or be excluded from it. Of course, that 98% has shrunk and fragmented, Chrome 'n Safari are giving compatibility of their chunks towards the rest, and *all* while MS is still bundling a free browser with their OS, because now, the competition is actually competative. Netscrape deserved the death it got, and left us in a much better place to build from.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[hairyfeet]

Thank you! It is nice to see that even though I have been modded down for daring to oppose the "NS was a saint and IE was teh evils!" groupthink that there are others that actually REMEMBER their history! I wonder how many of these "FLOSSie yay!" kiddies were actually old enough to run NS4. News flash kids, it was NOTHING like Firefox or Mozilla proper. It was JUST as proprietary (remember the blink tag? Oh God how I hated the Geocities twerps that would splatter that everywhere!) cost money, and worst of all after the rewrite fiacso was about as stable as Vb written by 10 year olds with ADHD.

It is nice to see that I am not the only one that remembers the real NS4. Was IE great? Nope, it was about as boring and fugly as could be, and of course security was nonexistent. But oh Lord Jebus after dealing with a couple of dozen NS4 crashes and lock ups (And yes kiddies, NS4 could lock both itself and Windows smooth up, as in hard reboot time) it was like a cool drink of watere in the desert. Finally I could surf for hours without a single hard reboot! Yay!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Capsaicin]

In the theoretical free market, everyone has perfect knowledge of the values involved.

Just to get our nomenclature correct. As I conceded in a post further down, "some people (myself included) are conflating the definitions of 'free market' and 'competitive market'" There's a little water under the bridge since I last sat in an Econ class (though Competition Law classes were more recent), so I can be forgiven for making this mistake. If memory serves me correctly what you are describing here is technically called the 'perfect(ly) competitive market' as opposed the the merely 'competitive market' which Competition Law (aka Anti-Trust Law) seeks to maintain (or at least did until Bork, Posner et. al. got hold of it).

State involvement is a fundamental method of getting and preserving free markets, not an anti-market force.

s/free/competitive/ and yes, that's exactly what I was pointing out. It probably goes without saying, but like most things in life there is a cost-benefit problem. Too little intervention and the "free" market degenerates into an oligopoly ridden generator of unfreedom, too much and the efficiency and information which markets bequeath are defeated. Again not B&W.

The theory behind antitrust law is the government has to step in when a monopoly is being abused, not merely because it exists.

Yes that is true, but it's actually a fairly modern, post-Chicago school view of role of antitrust law. As is clear from reading the speeches which accompanied the passing of the Sherman Act, for example, the very existence of cartels and monopolies was the mischief intended to be cured. The framers of this legislation were apparently motivated by a, perhaps romantic, vision of a capitalism or more of less equal craftsmen-proprietors (a nation of Joe-the-Plumbers) willingly bound in contract to one and other, in contradistinction to the emerging reality of a nation of employees facing big capital, in what can barely be described as a free choice to contract.

There is, despite the modern view that monopoly is not bad per se, a reasonable economic argument, that the ability, in the absence of competition, to charge way above the marginal cost of production (ie. the "monopoly rent"), is of itself a dangerous distortion of market mechanisms.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Name one other browser that even makes an attempt at supporting Group Policy.

Now you know why MS is the number one browser in enterprise today.

If you are naive enough to believe that MSIE stole the game from Netscrape, then I have to hope that you are simply too young to remember Netscrape 4.0. IE crushed the market because 'Netscape' simply SUCKED. IE keeps the enterprise because nobody else has bothered with GP. Change is *hard*. As a sysadmin, any time you can be certain that 90%+ of all settings for an app are the same across your enterprise, you JUMP at the chance.

If you are naive enough to believe that ANY browser is "secure" then you are simply an idiot, and age can be no excuse at all - unless you're 12 or younger, I suppose. If you, personally, are targeted by a remotely skilled script-kiddie, your secrets belong to the world. Unless you PAY ATTENTION, and keep your entire environment up to date, patched, and locked down to the highest degree you can manage. And then you stand a *chance*.

Finally: This has absolutely nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. While we could argue if it is just an idiotic knee-jerk reaction, YOU would come up short, should you search for evidence supporting any argument that relates to monopoly practices. Choice. Exists. Period. Chrome, FF, Opera, Lynx. Three of those are all various degrees of 'better than' the current version of IE. ALL FOUR are various *orders of magnitude* better than IE6 on XP. Which is what this breach is about.

Yeah. IE6. Can't think where I might pick me up something better than THAT.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Ah, actually gp post is right. What he/she refers to is called 'capitalism'. As opposed to what 'our forefathers' argued for, which was 'well regulated capitalism'. There's a very, very large difference.

Freedom, as touted by free market folks, has a very well defined meaning*.

*Anything which makes me more money, regardless of how much it actually restricts true freedom of world markets.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Windows Freedom.

(shoot me)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Anarchy is the absence of the *need* for rules. Anarchists ala the stereotype are just a bunch of idiots and the occasional hopeful fool wishing for simpler times.

If you miss the part about need, and just take away the rules, you simply end up with survival of the most heavily armed/armored.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

+1 to parent.

It became commonly known as 'Nutscrape' for a reason. And that reason started with 'version 4' and ended with 'communicator'. 'Of disease' was left implicit.

I jest. Netscrape Communicator crashed far to often to allow a virus any time to take over your PC.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[techno-vampire]

I'm not so much saying it as asking if that's what the OP meant.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

"Anarchy isn't possible and has never existed outside of imagination"

Not for a whole country, no that is a bit far fetched an idea, humans are a bit too complex and wanting of too different a things for self organisation to occur as it does elsewhere. A small number of like minded enough people can easily exist without hierarchy though, and often have a better existance, as true teams of people can perform really rather well. As the numbers of people get bigger though, you become more likely to have someone who isn't on board with the plan, at which point anarchy would usually be replaced by hierarchy (or have that person removed by consensus of the other people), either by act of having a mediator or by having someone being told "no".

Anarchy's kinda become impossible on this planet by act of us filling it to the point where there's just no room left to get away from people who are going to want something else of you or of where you are. I think if you tried hard enough, you could probably find somewhere, a small island or something, problem is most "anarchists" are only anarchists in theory, and could never give up the benefits that living in a civilisation affords.

As for the "cute" statement... I know you mean the idea, not the people, but after rescent clashes with some "anarchists", I just can't help but picture them alongside the word, they're basically what I imagine anarchists to look like, they sum it up... it's not a pretty picture! If they were cute, I might've been less willing to rile them by pointing out the hypocrisy in their suggesting that fascists shouldn't be allowed free speech. I like cute. Rough, however, doesn't even begin to describe it!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Most people who tell you they feel free it's because they don't want to do those things and so those restrictions to them aren't technically restrictions.

Also, most people can steal, most people are even free to kill, with said freedom ending shortly (one hopes) after that point. Freedom doesn't guarentee consequenceless.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

"Sorry, but judging from their past behaviour, they don't get the benefit of the doubt this time"

That's assuming that this is subjective. Reality doesn't bend to the fact you've been burnt in the past. Quite frankly, reality doesn't care what you believe or doubt. I don't get rained on just because where I live now used to be trees, and it would be dumb of me to act as if it was.

"Microsoft's anti-competitive practices drove other browsers out of the market"

I remember them. I'm truely grateful. The alternatives were crap IMO right up until Konqueror which I liked 'n wasn't ugly 'n showed potential from an early age, and am most happy to see how far it has come thru forks etc to become safari 'n chrome. Netscrape though, yuck, good riddance.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Aww, you could've taken a bit of my post, copied 'n pasted it out of context into a new reply completely misrepresenting what I was actually saying, and then ask if that's what I was saying, and we could've kept the whole thing going!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[notrandomly]

I suggest the exact opposite - if IE stood alone development would have been accelerated.

It pretty much did. And what happened? Microsoft disbanded the IE team! Did that accelerate development? Heh.

The funny part of your claim is that for all intents and purposes IE did drive all other browsers out of the market circa 2000 if you consider pure market share. This fact alone pretty much nulls your argument.

The argument isn't invalid just because the year was wrong. Desperate much?

Users of Windows were already free to choose any browser they wish to use; there was no increase in "freedom" due to the EU's meaningless requirement.

There was, because the user now gets to choose what to use from the start. Further to that, the browser ballot both punishes Microsoft for its wrongdoings, and helps prevent it from happening again.

If Microsoft was preventing users from downloading or installing alternative browsers I would applaud the actions of the EU.

Microsoft actively tried to prevent people from using other browsers, using anything from bullying of OEMs, to tying web technologies to IE and Windows. I suggest that you educate yourself on Microsoft's abusive history.

Every single modern operating system comes bundled with software and users now expect this.

And Windows still comes bundled with browsers. Your point?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[notrandomly]

I remember them. I'm truely grateful.

What a great argument for taking away the choice from everyone else!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Stuart Gibson]

Opera was also not free at the time.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Haha I love how if you look at my recent posts screen they usually have insightful/interesting/funny, and then whenever there's a story about IE, it's all "troll" *lol*

When I first got online I think was pre NS4 days, and whilst I already knew computers to a point (with programming under basics and assembly) I didn't really get the internet bit, with things like domains ending in .com confusing me with dos programs that ended in .com... so I didn't even really know the concept of "different browsers". The ISPs dialer was on the desktop, and that would connect 'n launch NS, which I think also had a desktop icon. No "choice". No "freedom".

One day I saved an html file to disk for some reason. At a later point, I double clicked the file, and it opened up in some weird (I guessed) offline viewer, which was cool cuz it did it in a fraction of the time NS would open up. After seeing it randomly a few times, I got more curious, and started trying things, like typing in addresses into the URL bar while I was connected (haha my cluelessness was comical). In those days, nothing here was flat rate, phone calls were billed by the minute, so having a browser that started up in no time was a big plus. Having a browser that didn't crash as often, giving you less reason to have to keep starting it up was a big plus. Plus we only had one pop3 mailbox with our ISP, by which I mean my parents, so I signed up for HTML mail (or "HoTMaiL") and so didn't want to be loading up something that had another mail client bolted onto it as well.

No anticompetativeness there, that was pure and simple, I was won over by a product being significantly and noticably even to someone as clueless as I was, being the better product... despite the other product getting a leg up 'n a head start, with desktop icons, and it being hidden away and found only by chance.

Not opinion. Not fanboism. Not contrived. Not nostalgia. As much as ppl on here try to convince otherwise, you just can't argue with reality!

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

My Mom had gotten used to netscrape and didn't want to switch, so she stuck to netscrape. She still uses some mozilla variant now (not firefox, can't remember its name).

So /I/ know that no choice was taken away. I physically saw it, a piece of software being run by someone, who's not a big techie or anything, just a causal user, that wasn't IE. If choice was, as you say, taken away, then I would not have seen that. The only thing that happened was that using a browser become more convenient, and netscrape lost out because it wasn't.

Proof is this little thing called "reality", as much as you think it sucks. I know a great many people who run firefox, who searched for, downloaded, and installed it themselves, despite being absolutely freakin clueless with everything else computer wise. Despite having IE on their desktop. Despite USING IE to search for it and download it.

Sorry to say, but if you think people all used IE instead of netscrape because "they had their choice taken away", you're a spaz.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Xest]

"Netscape gave up because their business model was completely undercut by the fact that Microsoft made IE mandatory on every computer sold."

No, that's simply the excuse Netscape gave for giving up. The real reason they gave up is because not many people used their browser because it was quite simply inferior. In fact, it was really quite shit.

"Opera survived as a niche, and Mozilla was born from Netscape's ashes, both of which are signs that Microsoft didn't succeed."

They're signs that it really didn't matter what perceived advantage Microsoft had, what mattered at the end of the day was that to begin to dethrone IE, you need something worthwhile to dethrone it with. You can't enter the market with a shit browser and expect people to switch to it when even IE is better. Mozilla realised this, they simply produced a better browser and have been chewing away at IE's marketshare ever since as a result.

Really, no one gave a shit about what Windows has installed already, if you give someone something better, for free, they'll gladly take it, but being better is absolutely key. I had plenty of opportunity to use Netscape back in the day as my main browser, I had it free on magazine CDs, my ISP would send me it on CD, I downloaded 4 when it came out, but I always ended up back with IE, not because it was already installed, as that was no big deal, I'd already installed Netscape too, I always switched back because as crap as IE was, it was still better than Netscape.

IE has the same advantage it's always had even now until the EU ballot screen comes into force, and yet Firefox has been happily chewing away at it's marketshare despite the supposed idea that IE being installed by default would prevent anyone switching. The only reason Firefox hasn't taken over faster and more marketshare is because it's historically not given much support to corporate users- for too long the tools to deploy and configure via Active Directory and so forth were 3rd party and lacklustre.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Tim C]

Netscape shot themselves in the foot by deciding to scrap their existing code base and make version 5 a complete rewrite. That gave MS all the time they needed to release IE 5 and then 6 and eat Netscape's market share.

Netscape Navigator 4 was a buggy, unstable piece of crap, but it was still better than IE4. IE5 was better than it, and so was IE6. That (to my mind at least) is why Netscape failed, and I speak as someone who has never used IE as their primary browser and most likely never will; I went from NS4 to Mozilla (which should tell you that I put up with Netscape for a long time despite its faults).

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[vegiVamp]

So do you also feel that minimum-wage workers should be taxed at the same near-50% that well-payed IT blokes get taxed ?

Special cases can be a good thing, too.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[grahamm]

No, only desktop users need a browser. Many (probably most) servers have no need of a browser and many will be headless. Neither do most (things like PDAs and phones being exceptions) embedded systems (some of which run Windows) need a browser. However all of these need an operating system.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[rtb61]

'ER' Netscape is still around today, AOL, bought it then open sourced it and it evolved into Mozilla (see AOL is most definitely not all evil), which in tern created the known offshoots of Firefox and Chrome. So 'hmm', is Netscape. or what it became the dominant browser or not.

Open source creates all sorts of competition which people forget, lines of code compete to continue to exist, features and functions compete, modules of code struggle to survive and of course variants always vie for end user attention. It's that core level of competition that drives efficient, stable and secure code, which when added together create high quality applications.

There is a great deal of concern out there now about what other more dangerous exploits the government of China likely has ready to deploy as you can be certain, they would definitely not used the one and only zero day exploit for this breach of the peace.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Dilligent]

Obviosly troll, but the point youre missing is that if you don't adhere to standards, your product only works out of the box for one single browser and, if widely used, has to be supported by following generations. Why taint a perfectly good standard with abominated things that are required to correctly display websites built in the distant past...?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

nevertheless the free market theory is based on unlimited growth model and total customer information, both of wich are wrong.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[JAlexoi]

In short: Free market is as much a utopia, as much as communism is a utopia.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

It's a troll because I disagree with you?

"Why taint a perfectly good standard with abominated things that are required to correctly display websites built in the distant past"

That hinges on there being "a perfectly good standard", and that's just not the case, never has been, and the day it becomes true will be the end of mankind, because it will be the day we stop striving for progress and advancement, and just settle. If the standard was "perfectly good", people would have used it, and not used any of the nonstandard features, because there would have been no need.

But yeah, just write that off as a troll, I'm sure that helps with the keeping your opinion stuck to "the standard", regardless of how well reality matches with it.

HTML5 is the first one in a long time where the standardising body are more interested in standardising on what browsers are and are going to be implementing. Others have been grossly incomplete at best, purely academic at worse. Becoming too "omg standards obsessed" gives you people arguing that letting a filesystem trash your files when there's a powerfailure or crash, unnecessarily, is fine because "posix allows this". It leads to 11 years and still no goddamn fully working perl6 goddamnit! In the real world, sometimes people just need to get things done, and have no time to waste on waiting for the mozilla slowpokes to get round to deciding that it might be brought up at the next meeting and then being unable to decide on it even then. Look at the state of video... browsers couldn't agree on a video format (or codec) so html5 dropped putting it into the standard (so that this time, the standard will actually reflect reality) and so how at 95% of people watching videos online? Yep, the completely unstandardsy Flash, because they went and made a multiplatform in-the-browser video player available years before browser makers even decided to start not being able to decide on how to do it in a "standards" way.

So now what... reality's a troll? And yes, I know, flash + linux, it's not been a happy story, but you can't wait for everyone or you'll be waiting forever... sometimes you just gotta go with reaching the majority of the population, and however annoyed we've gotten after each time of checking out the latest flash files and now konqueror crashes with that annoying nsplugin fault just by any random flashy advert on a webpage... that's our problem, I'm not gonna blame other people becaues they haven't written software to some fit basically a niche with the same kind of priority as they write for 99% of the rest of the population. Why? Because I'm not a whiney spoilt little kid.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[JAlexoi]

Heck, in quite a few of them Opera Mini (the j2me one) is ahead of Safari...

Well, duh!!!!! Opera Mini is basically on all new Nokia phones starting with price above 50Eur.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[TheRaven64]

Are you stupid, or did you just not read my post at all?

A computer without a browser is ridiculous. An operating system without a browser is not. Anyone capable of installing an operating system is more than capable of installing a browser. Most users don't install an OS though, they use the one that their OEM installed. The OEM also installs other software, and there's no reason for this not to include a browser.

As was the entire point of the post that you replied to, just because Windows doesn't come with a browser doesn't mean that computers that people buy from PC retailers won't. Windows doesn't come with an office suite either, but lots of PCs have one bundled.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[DarkOx]

So let me get this stait NS4 was a buggy unstable pice of crap but deciding to do a rewrite was a mistake? That rewrite might have given MS the time the needed to flesh out IE into a feature complete browser but it also provided a usable code base for Mozilla and Later SeaMonkey/Firefox + Thuderbird.

Here is a hint in general if you have a project as large as NS4 and its fundamentally a buggy unstable pice of crap (if that is true and I am not sure it was) you for the most part can't fix it. So if you write an the code was that bad they did the only thing they probably could. Well writen code can be refactored and hammered into something else as requirements change, less solid code just gets even more messy when you attempt to modernize it, and brings all your old problems with you, often ones you never even knew about as modules and interfaces take input that should be ok but was never really used and therfore largely untested before.

Ultimately you spend more man hours trying to fix it than a rewrite; and the final result is something that is still hard to maintain, still hard to add new features in and without potential the gain from lessons learned the first time around.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Opportunist]

Communism does work. If people prefer working to earning money.

Free market does work. If people prefer to learn everything about a product's qualities and the differences between the competing products instead of going "ohhhh, cheap!"

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[delinear]

It's probably more of an issue to developers than end-users. It's fairly trivial as an end-user to switch browsers if one doesn't work, the main reason standards are important is that they prevent companies pouring money down the drain implementing the same thing on 5 (if you're lucky) different platforms. Wins which can then be passed on to the consumer.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

Opera wasn't superior at the time because it wasn't free, also it had terrible usability.

Now it just has terrible usability.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

And you missed the point of my post. It's 2010. The browser's become such an intrinsic part of the functionality of the operation of a computer that we even have the beginnings of an operating system that's basically just a browser on legs, and not even as just some guys pet hobby, but that super massive all seeing all knowing being that lives in the clouds whose name begins with G. The browser's such a useful platform for quickly developing interfaces on, that it's become the runtime environment for many "apps" that people use, and even takes over many other functionality, such as for displaying help files, or used for the rendering of forms etc for underlying system configuration. Such to an extent is this true, that much of the Windows interface itself, and much 3rd party software, rely on it being there, just as they would any other subsystem, like win32 or qt or gtk. For basic Office type needs, the browser is completely fine. I and many many others don't even need office software installed on our local machines because using something like google apps in the browser is completely fine. An operating system without a browser is like an operating system without a GUI... sure you've got the choice of which GUI you install, whether you use X, whether you run gnome or kde on top... but it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have everything all packed together and integrated well so it Just Works. That's the entire(/a v.large) reason why people go for windows, and not ((linux/hurd)/gnu)/(free/open/net)bsd)+X+kde/gnome/lxde/etc/etc/etc. Path of least resistance is very attractive when you're busy and just need to get stuff done.

Perhaps, I must concede, you may view things differently if you are the end user and everything's done for you, and yeah I guess you wouldn't care who installs the browser for you... but computers are my line of business, and I seem to like (as I keep choosing to) working with people who can't afford a lot, and that includes not being able to afford to pay someone to set their machines up for them. I've worked with an underfunded school who just had the head IT teacher guy who had a nightmare having to upgrade the OS's on all the systems he was doing as it was, without having to add adding a browser on top of that. Yes it can be automated, answer files etc, I know this because it's my profession (windows isn't, I do nearly all my stuff on Linux, but it's handy for me to know as windows is what people run)... other people tho will run unstable systems for -ages- after too many 3rd party software packages didn't install/uninstall properly, *because* of how much time it is that they don't have for a full reinstall of the OS and everything else they need on top.

It might not be important to you who installs it, but that doesn't make it not important. I'm trying to give people their time back. Telling Microsoft that they can't make something a little more convenient because netscrape was crap is not on.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed IE8 and soon after I wrote this note, my computer exploded! Nonetheless, I installed Opera and it magically repaired itself. The only reason IE was a target is its widespread use. All browsers are vulnerable to some extent. Although I'm not an MS fanboy, we need some perspective here.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

I'm a developer, and yes I know it so very well, my last project nearly completely sunk me, cross browser stuff was one of the big problems. Many things IE introduced are actually really handy things that "the standard" lacked or still lacks, and have allowed me to implement solutions in a shorter amount of time, which has been great for people with less money who just need something quick and useful that can free up an ongoing chunk of their time. If you come at it from resourceful attitude ("I need a solution for this problem, I have just this to work with, how does it work...") rather than as a dogmatic idealog ("I will learn 'the standards', and then fight till I'm blue trying to make reality fit with it") then IE's not the big pain to develop on, because they have implemented many ideas, not just stuck with the safe old "standards". Safari & Chrome are also pretty good, and their speed! Computers are my tool, they don't inspire a whole lot of emotion, just ideas for solving problems, but they actually got a wow out me. I am impressed with those. And, they take the code that works in IE, and have barely needed any tweaking to get working. Next up was Opera, which... yeah I wasn't expecting a lot, but was actually not too bad. Firefox?? That was an ordeal. Frustration was so high, I could've killed their developers had I've met them while fighting with it (*exageration, naturally :-p).

Why? Because Chrome, Safari and Opera are written with the idea of being able to show sites that exist, out there, in the real world. They have implemented things that IE invented that people decided they liked and use. They have their own motivations too of course, Opera wanting to be miniscule, Chrome wanting to be super fast for running webapps, Safari for catering to OSX users, and compatibility is important because achieving their primary goal without it is a waste of time. Firefox tho? No, they just don't wanna know, they want to do it their way, screw how people in the world do it, just scream "standards" at them and then implement a whole load of features and things so far off the "standards" it makes the IE team look like they wrote the freaking bible.

So yes, I know all about the cross browser compatiblity problem, and before it was basically MS vs Mozilla, the battle was pretty much over opinion over whose fault it was that some things worked in one browser but not the other. Now others are involved, and they have no problem with stuff FF refuses to even consider supporting, and writing webapps that support FF takes as much of my time and causes more frustration and stress than all the others put together. So yes, real life experience, and that's the reason why I disagree, not loyalty or fanboism or anything like that.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Troll? Really?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[findoutmoretoday]

<quote><p>Opera wasn't superior at the time because it wasn't free, also it had terrible usability.</p></quote>

Opera had a free version.  And yes, those terrible usability problems with tabbed windows. Anything else?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Richy_T]

Nice idea. The problem is, Microsoft has a history of continuing to change the way things work to keep others from catching up. Given the choice between "Product X, industry standards compliant" and "Product X, only 6 months behind Microsoft" or "Product X, we'll never catch up", it's become clear which is the best to aim for.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.
The US basically told Microsoft to feel free to do
whatever damages to competition that makes you feel happy.

Though, EU didnt hit Microsoft hard. I'd use the word, 'fair'.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[JAlexoi]

That is why it is an utopia.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

"the internet" (i.e. the world wide web (i.e. a browser)).

(i.e. IE)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

Opera had a free version.

Not when Netscape 4 was current.

If Opera is so great, then why didn't it gain any marketshare even when it was the *only* browser competing with IE6? You can be blind to the usability issues it had at the time if you like, but the simple fact is that the web-using public obviously agreed that the browser sucked... otherwise, it might have gained a little bit of marketshare.

Opera's usability is much, much better now. But we're not talking about now.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[findoutmoretoday]

It is a long time ago but I thought that Opera was ad-sponsored when now it is google-sponsored.  I still have have a license number somewhere.

You mean 'usability issue' like in: "If Mac is so great, then why didn't it gain any marketshare even when it was the *only* OS competing with Windows ME? You can be blind to the usability issues it had at the time if you like, but the simple fact is that the PC-using public obviously agreed that the OS sucked... otherwise, it might have gained a little bit of marketshare."

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir have it backwards - it is a monopoly that can only exist because of a the fact that government has a monopoly on the use of force (by definition mind you) and lacking force free markets reign - again by definition.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Your premise is incorrect and therefore your conclusions are irrelevant. A free market does not require perfect knowledge of the values involved - only that the participants are free to engage or not engage in the transaction. Obtaining knowledge of the value is the participants *duty* or responsibility but it is not a requirement in order to have a free market. And it's totally unreasonable to expect or require perfect or even complete knowledge! All that is required is freedom to engage in the transaction which is why it's called "free market" and not "free market with perfect knowledge of value". And it is demonstrable that that man is free to not get that mortgage as he was doing just fine without it.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Richy_T]

Hard not to concede a market when your competitor has cut off your revenue stream by providing an equivalent of what you sell for free and by default.

Though Netscape certainly was not faultless in the whole thing.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think just using NS4 qualifies you for "greybeard" status. If you're commenting on your age that's one thing...but taking some sort of IT claim from it would be another. I at least would only consider someone a "greybeard" if they had been working in the industry back in the 80's or very early 90's before this new fangled Internet thing came along. NS4? Come on now....AppleIIe with a modem maybe?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jp10558]

As a slightly less foam-mouthed observer, I'd note that IE was generally as good as Netscape, and it was free. That may be abuse of a monopoly - IANAL. However, even if it was not as good, the choice was either a free Chevy (IE) or an expensive Buick (Netscape). Consumers took free.

I'm not sure I buy this argument... I mean, Microsoft isn't currently really threatened by OpenOffice, even though it's free and generally equivalent to Office as far as I can tell. At least as similar as Netscape vs IE were...

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Korin43]

Possibly you also believe that Windows' stranglehold on the desktop is due to the intrinsic virtues of the OS too?

Oh definitely. Windows is amazing. Have you seen how amazing Windows 7 is? Totally not just Vista with a different taskbar. (Sorry have to annoy as many fanboys as possible in this thread)

Anyway, I don't use any Microsoft products, but that doesn't change history. Netscape was a bloated piece of crap. Opera was expensive. In the land of shitty browsers, IE was "not so bad". Now we have better browsers, but honestly IE7/8 aren't that bad either. I prefer Firefox and Chrome, but most people don't care about fast Javascript, SVG, and fancy new tags.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

I'm not sure I buy this argument... I mean, Microsoft isn't currently really threatened by OpenOffice, even though it's free and generally equivalent to Office as far as I can tell. At least as similar as Netscape vs IE were...

OpenOffice isn't even close to equivalent to Office. I mean, it is for Slashdot-posting geeks who don't use a word processor or presentation software at all, but for those who do? Night and day. OpenOffice is still missing features that were perfected in MS Office in 1997, like "Normal View" or a split scrollbar. Far bigger gap than that between, say, Netscape 4 and IE4.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jp10558]

I'm sorry, but I think you're overstating the actual use of word processors by most people. And Netscape 4 had if I recall correctly 3 entire programs that IE didn't - mail/newsgroup clients, web page creation software, and some other thing I forget (push screensavers?). Now, you might point to outlook express, but back in the IE4 days, I don't recall it being obvious that was related to IE... It certainly wasn't integrated like the mail client was to Communicator.

And if you want to get into nich groups, then you're talking a whole different ball of wax anyway.

And for the education of people like me, what the heck is "normal view" or a split scrollbar, and why the heck would I want it? As in, how is this a feature I'm going to use for writing up a letter or report?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

I'm sorry, but I think you're overstating the actual use of word processors by most people.

Think what you like.

And Netscape 4 had if I recall correctly 3 entire programs that IE didn't - mail/newsgroup clients, web page creation software, and some other thing I forget (push screensavers?).

Yeah, or as I like to call them: "Crash", "Hang", and "WTF is This Doing in My Browser?" Also, are you posting from some parallel universe where Outlook Express and Frontpage didn't exist?

Now, you might point to outlook express, but back in the IE4 days, I don't recall it being obvious that was related to IE... It certainly wasn't integrated like the mail client was to Communicator.

Oh, it doesn't count that every computer with IE also had an email client because Outlook Express wasn't "obviously related" to IE... of course! That makes perfect sense and you are truly a genius!

The last version of Netscape you could get as *just* a browser was 4.0.8. The last version in the 4.x series, IIRC, was Communicator 4.7.something. Since I didn't need all that other bullshit Netscape crammed into their browser, just in case it wasn't buggy enough on its own, I was stuck using an ancient version until I finally just bit the bullet and moved to IE.

In short, Outlook Express not being obviously related (or related at all, really) to IE was a BOON. That was the best reason to use it instead of that crashy, unstable Netscape Communicator.

And for the education of people like me, what the heck is "normal view" or a split scrollbar, and why the heck would I want it?

Normal View is a display mode which gets rid of stuff extraneous to writing-- for example, embedded media or page breaks-- so you can simply concentrate on the process of getting words from your brain to the page.

A split scrollbar is exactly what it says on the tin. You can grab a little handle on the scrollbar to see (and edit) two parts of the document at once, very handy when you're writing text that refers to another piece of text you've already written, but are too far apart to see at once.

Oddly enough, OpenOffice Calc has a split scrollbar, but Writer does not. They don't even give a crap if their features are internally-consistent or not.

As in, how is this a feature I'm going to use for writing up a letter or report?

You might also be interested in Word's vastly superior Outline pane if you're writing a report. It lets you change the structure of your document in seconds without having to copy and paste huge chunks of text around.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Capsaicin]

You sir have it backwards - it is a monopoly that can only exist because of a the fact that government has a monopoly on the use of force

No, that is not the reverse of what I'm saying. I just go further, not only a market monopoly, but any ownership of property over and above what you are personally able to defend, depends on the monopoly of force being excercised by the state in favour of legal property relations.

lacking force free markets reign

Reign what? In any case, the free (or even the 'competitive,' as I should have written) market, does have force, it has the force of the state.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

And on Macintosh it (IE) won the market fair and square, there being no "stranglehold."

Not entirely true. Part of the agreement that Microsoft and Apple had in 1997 was to bundle IE and make it the default browser. This was when Apple was "beleaguered", and when Microsoft held the threat of pulling Office off the Mac platform over their heads.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jp10558]

Yea, I come at this from a different direction - I currently use Opera, so for me, I liked the mail client in Communicator. I have to say also that I've never had embedded media in my text documents, so I guess I never had any knowledge of normal view - again, though, I've managed to get this far in life with about 5hrs of Word use, so I don't match the discussed demographic.

Now I do most of my serious document work on Wikis so others can collaborate easily and it's very easy to make available to users. I wonder if that's starting to happen for a lot of users, the ones who don't use e-mail clients and prefer web based everything...

My digression over, my point is you're talking about features in Office that seem to fix something (embedded media) that have me asking, what the heck is this doing in my word processor? Why would you put video or music in a text document? So why then would you need a mode to remove that?

I can see we're going to disagree, so I'll agree to disagree, and return to my original point that Consumers definitely are basing purchasing on more than just being free. The obvious case in point would be bottled vs tap water. But you've also gone far beyond the original point that IE and Netscape were
equivalent - you strongly believe that IE was a lot better.

That's a very different argument than people too IE because it was free, which was my original disagreement.

And the better browser certainly has had a minimal and slow effect on market share against IE vs the decline Netscape had - IE6 was by almost any measure far worse than any other browser - crashier, lacking features like tabs, horribly insecure and not updated for forever. So if we're going to argue that monopoly power didn't play a role, why did it take 6 years for Firefox to reach ~30% marketshare when IE did it in a year?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

The analogy isn't useful. Just make threatening people illegal instead of saying that issuing threats is only illegal if you are physically superior, or possess superior weapons, or have real malicious intent, or are definitely not joking, or other such bull-crap.

Bundling should either be legal or illegal. Closed protocols/file-formats/IP should either be illegal or legal. It's really that simple.

Even your second analogy isn't useful. Just make exclusivity contracts illegal -- problem solved. Doesn't matter if you get lauged at with a 5% market share or taken seriously with a 95% market share. It doesn't matter at what share they give in. If I (as the big player) negotiated that agreement at 49% market share, was it illegal? No? So as my market share grew, an action that I might have taken say 5 years in the past, which was completely legal at the time, becomes illegal now? What the fuck kind of retarded law is that??

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

Netscape had all the mindshare and all the marketshare when it all started. They just had to stay one-step ahead of IE all the time, and IE would never have become relevant. Instead they released crap. They got what they deserved, and they should not get any artificial protection for their mistake.

They were not the only party guilty of 'conceding' the market. Are you telling me that everyone had the foresight to see what an important battle ground it would be, but nobody had the engineering resources to create a compelling browser? Bullcrap -- the entire freaking computer industry worldwide laid a goose egg, and then blamed MS for wanting the market badly enough to actually go out there and win it.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

If someone has 90% of the market, I may have to use their product to be compatible with everyone else - i.e. because of network effects

Obviously. But what makes that illegal, or even unethical, or even unfair? Those are the breaks. The incumbent always has an advantage. Deal with it. If not, if you want to use antitrust laws etc. -- at least call it what it is -- a semi-free, regulated market, in which success beyond a point will be punished.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

How is that a special case? Did you single out an idividual minimum-wage worker for a tax break?

In antitrust law, you literally find a company that has been successful past a point, you figure out the unique individual circumstances that led to that success, and enact special rules on that company making those actions illegal -- but you completely ignore the fact that while stunting this company, the exact same actions taken by other companies could have the same outcome, and you leave them free to operate in the exact way in which you have banned the one company you singled out. Never mind that the 'singling out' is usually politically motivated, after the other companies make sufficient campaign contributions etc.

Face it dude -- antitrust law is bad bad law. Anytime people are playing by different rules, it's a bad thing. If somebody has done something that you consider damaging, but they did so while completely operating within the confines of the law, then don't you think you should fix the freaking law, instead of enacting special cases? Fixing the law, prevents similar future situations. Special cases just fixes this one, but hastens some other company's path to perpetrating the same so-called excesses.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

I have to say also that I've never had embedded media in my text documents, so I guess I never had any knowledge of normal view - again, though, I've managed to get this far in life with about 5hrs of Word use, so I don't match the discussed demographic.

Hello! Thanks for demonstrating my exact point!

People who don't *use* office applications should not be judging the quality of office applications. If you've only used 5 hours of Word, how can you come here and say OpenOffice is just as good? You have no idea what Word even does!

But you've also gone far beyond the original point that IE and Netscape were
equivalent - you strongly believe that IE was a lot better.

Because it was. Even if you don't agree IE4 was, it would be an extremely hard case to say that IE 5 and 5.5 were as well. (Those also competed with Netscape 4, due to Netscape giving up.)

IE6 was by almost any measure far worse than any other browser - crashier, lacking features like tabs, horribly insecure and not updated for forever.

You're like Mr. Selective Memory here. No, IE6 was more stable than Netscape 4, was patched a hell of a lot more often than Netscape 4. (Of course, Netscape 4 wasn't patched at all.) And while it didn't have tabs, neither did anything else except BeOS's browser and possibly Opera.

Was it un-updated? Yes... but:
1) That's due to the points I made in this very thread
2) It was still more maintained than Netscape 4, which wasn't maintained at all

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Elektroschock]

In a "free market" the market is perfect. So goods are like commodities. You would not care about the provider.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Elektroschock]

The case is about bundling.

If you have a monopoly, that is fine.

But you may not abuse your monopoly to get another one.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

I understand that -- I'm saying that law doesn't make sense. You call it 'abuse'. I call it 'leverage'. Why is it legal at 5% market share and illegal at say 90%? Why can't we have consistent laws instead of these silly piecemeal "you've gotten too big for your boots" patchwork antitrust cases?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[vegiVamp]

I agree that singling out is bad. You generalised that it's bad if some people play by different rules, though, so I took a generalised example against that :-)

On the other hand, maybe it isn't so bad to not burden currently-innocent companies with extra regulations, just because they *might* do something bad in the future. Shall I have you wear one of them fashionable ankle bracelets, because you might commit a murder in the future ?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jp10558]

Yes, I admit that I shouldn't judge Word, but I certainly can comment on all the wordprocessors I've used for quite some time. I'm not unable to comment on word processing, which is a separate thing that Word. Heck, I was wordprocessing on a stand alone smith corona, and on a Commodore 64... And for wordprocessing that I've done across many separate platforms, Open Office fufills my (and many of my users and friends) needs. I also know people who prefer Word, but the implication that you can't actually use Open Office, or anything but Word as a word processor is false in my opinion.

You're again missing my point that people used IE for more reasons that it was free. That was my basic point to the GGGGGGPP...

I'll even allow that many users found it better, while I found it worse until IE6, when I was basically forced to switch because, as you said, Netscape had given up and I couldn't hold out any longer. Of course, in 2001, as soon as I seriously tried Opera, I found it better in about every way, and haven't looked back since. But from whenever Firefox came out, what ~2004? Why did it take so long to hit 30%? I can't think of any way that IE6 was objectively better than Firefox, and I don't think it got close to parity till maybe IE8 this year, and that's pretty arguable. And it's been widely known that IE is a major vector for getting your PC infected since 2007 or so, though techies knew it back in 2000.

IE's ride down has been quite a bit slower than Netscapes was, and that's why I think there's more going on than it's "just that good". Pretty much anyone I know who uses IE does so because it's what is there by default. They didn't objectively choose it. They didn't know that there was something to *choose*. Their ISP or OEM didn't provide a browser unless it's AOL. A vendor can't choose to NOT install IE, it's now part of the OS. So this even could block out an OEM choosing to build a software package that's touted as more secure or some such as it's installed browser is Firefox, or Chrome, or Opera, or whatever.

Then again, OEMs aren't selling the whole experience anyway, except for Apple. So it's all probably a moot point.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

I also know people who prefer Word, but the implication that you can't actually use Open Office, or anything but Word as a word processor is false in my opinion.

Except nobody ever said that. You have to read the posts in the thread, you can't just listen to the whispering voices in your head.

The claim I made is that OpenOffice isn't nearly good enough to replace Word, despite the fact that it's free. Which is true, demonstrably true, since it hasn't displaced Word.

You're again missing my point that people used IE for more reasons that it was free.

Yes, and one of those reasons was, "it was better than Netscape 4." Which was my entire point that started this thread.

But from whenever Firefox came out, what ~2004? Why did it take so long to hit 30%? I can't think of any way that IE6 was objectively better than Firefox, and I don't think it got close to parity till maybe IE8 this year, and that's pretty arguable. And it's been widely known that IE is a major vector for getting your PC infected since 2007 or so, though techies knew it back in 2000.

Security issues aside...

1) Since Netscape binned all of their old marketshare and bred a ton of ill-will towards their brand, there was no way any browser from Mozilla would succeed if it was named "Netscape." Releasing Netscape 6 was a complete waste of time, and doesn't count towards their "return" to the market.

2) Netscape 6 and Mozilla made the same mistakes that Netscape was making towards the end of the Netscape 4 era: they threw in everything and the kitchen sink, but people just wanted a web browser. Mozilla was a bloated monster that did everything from tune guitars to load shipping containers, but one thing it didn't do well was browse web pages.

3) New products (and we might as well consider Firefox a new product, due to point 1 and 2) take a long time to gain marketshare. How fast did you *expect* it to grow? It's actually doing quite well.

4) I would argue that IE and Firefox was in parity when IE7 came out for all intents and purposes. Remember that the feature even Firefox-head crows about "plug-ins!!" has been in IE since something like version 5 or 5.5. The only difference is that IE called them "toolbars", but other than that they were identical. The only other feature unique to Firefox was tabbed windows, and IE7 added those.

Right now, the only thing that sets IE8 apart from Firefox are:
1) Firefox has a faster JS engine
2) Firefox is faster at opening new windows/tabs, but...
3) IE8 has real process separation, so it won't lose all your work when one window/tab crashes. (Note that Firefox is about the LAST browser to have this feature.)
4) Firefox has more plug-ins than IE8.

IE's ride down has been quite a bit slower than Netscapes was, and that's why I think there's more going on than it's "just that good".

Yes, that's because since it was the only browser for so long, people used it as an applications platform. Those applications are universally poorly-written "enterprise" pieces of crap that can't be ported to IE7 because they rely on quirks/bugs specific to IE6, or they rely on the old Microsoft Java plug-in which doesn't exist for newer versions of IE.

Pretty much anyone I know who uses IE does so because it's what is there by default. They didn't objectively choose it.

If you're talking about home users, that's partially from habit, and partially because IE7/IE8 are just as good as Firefox.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

No -- you merely make murder illegal. For everyone.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Technology should stand still to give people time to catch up??? Erm, no. Best tool for the job in hand. If Microsoft are the only ones who offer it, I'll use MS. If lots of people offer it, I can use someone else. I'm not going to ignore any options, especially over some illusion of there being an industry standard that's anything more than some academic papers that don't describe reality.

The day all of our problems start following "standards", our solutions will be able to too.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[jp10558]

I'll concede most of your points, but I don't think you've demonstrated that Word is better...
The claim I made is that OpenOffice isn't nearly good enough to replace Word, despite the fact that it's free. Which is true, demonstrably true, since it hasn't displaced Word.

By that logic, nothing affects marketshare buy quality/goodness. I'd argue that in many cases, that's demonstrably false. Word may be better than Open Office, but there's many reasons someone might use Word other than it's better than Open Office.

1) Network effects
2) Habit
3) Brand awareness ...

You've listed 2 rather obscure features in Word and claim they're why Open Office can't compete. I disagree.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Elektroschock]

It is basically that you get awarded the status of dominance first and then you have to be more cautious in what you do. And IE bundling is a very clear case. It is just that the case was a bit late.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[dhavleak]

Not really -- you never get awarded dominance -- you have to work for it. The dominance you work for has a halo effect.

The IE case isn't that clear either. These days everyone and their brother-in-law is talking about the browser being the OS, the network is the computer, etc. etc. The definition of an OS (as pertains to the consumer) is not the pedantic one -- a task scheduler + command shell type thing to control a computer -- it's a fully functioning machine with all the basics for browsing, email, etc. So the line between bundling and good foresight is pretty blurry. In any event, however you want to rule on that line, just be consistent about it. Either it's legal or illegal. It's BS to find all kinds of special cases to bring down the incumbent.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Richy_T]

It depends. If I go to Target and buy a toaster and the plug has four prongs, I wouldn't be too happy.

When interoperability counts, standards are essential. It's when they are abused that the problem arises. And if you don't like standards, why are you using the web anyway?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[x2A]

Plugs are different in different countries, and the mains voltage varies too... batteries, now they're consistant wherever you go, so by your argument, a battery powered toaster would be the best. Sounds like a pain in the ass if you're a cafe or something and you're going to be making a lot of toast. If you've got a load of four pronged wall sockets around though to use, maybe one of those four pronged *powered* toasters mightn't actually be such a bad idea.

If by "don't like standards" you're implying adverse to them, no I'm not. I'm adverse to the idea of failing to give the best solution just because it's nonstandard. For example, a client of mine was interested in switching to exchange email server. I told him it'd have to be without me, and gave him details of someone else who would support it. He's sticking with me and an open solution. In that instance, what I can implement on top of oss software 'n open standards is by far a better solution for his business, and for me to be providing.

However there is a vaste amount of stuff I've been providing my clients and by proxy, their customers, for many years now, that used features available only in IE. Was this a problem? No, it allowed them to connect with >95% of people who'd come to their site. The loss of the remaining few % was considered to be offset by the increase conversion rate they were getting by making these features available. Other browsers are now starting to implement those features, which is great because they have more of the market now. It's good that there are more choices of software that provide the solutions people wish to use. But the thing you're obviously struggling with the notion of, is that before then, while there was only one piece of software providing the solution, DIDN'T make the PROBLEM go away.

You try telling someone that an implementation for a solution they want to implement for their business or for their customers is waiting standards ratification and so they're going to have to wait three years, because the solution available at the moment doesn't have an ISO number, and you'll be laughed out the place, and someone else will be brought in, quite rightly so.

Technology is not going to stand still for bureaucracy, however much you want it to.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Richy_T]

I'm not "struggling" with anything but snideness duly noted.

Given that some of what Microsoft implemented was genuine advancements in browser and web technologies but so, so much was just implemented to provide lock-in to a browser that could so dearly have benefited from that effort being put into security and stability first.

After all, where did all that "advancing technology" go once Microsoft felt they had won the browser wars?

PCWorld, kindly STFU

[girlintraining]

Hey PCWorld -- a vendor refusing to patch a product that has a major security hole in it that's very publicly known is criminally negligent, and yes, the correct answer is to stop using that product and punish the ever-living crap out of the executives and the company that isn't taking something like that seriously.

Don't switch?

[mounthood]

"You may also have web-based applications that don't work well, or even at all, unless they are accessed with Internet Explorer. That's not going to be good for productivity. And finally, what if your replacement browser itself turns out to contain a vulnerability? Are you going to switch again?"

That's the sort of shallow, thoughtless attitude that got you stuck with IE6 in the first place.

Re:Don't switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You may also have web-based applications that don't work well, or even at all, unless they are accessed with Internet Explorer. That's not going to be good for productivity. And finally, what if your replacement browser itself turns out to contain a vulnerability? Are you going to switch again?"

That's the sort of shallow, thoughtless attitude that got you stuck with IE6 in the first place.

Hey now, careful with the way you talk. That quote you mentioned sounds awfully similar to someone being shaken down for protection money. Are you saying your local mob bosses have shallow, thoughtless attitudes? Would you say that to their faces?

Re:Don't switch?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I guess having more than one browser installed is apparently something that would cause the universe collapse. It's not something that really takes much work either, if there's a known bug, use something else until it's fixed.

Re:Don't switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little known fact, but the big bang was actually caused by a side-by-side installation of Internet Explorer 10 and Firefox 5 in the last universe.

Re:Don't switch?

[nschubach]

It sounds a little like this site I ran across that at first appeared to be a very extreme "right-wing conservative" website, but the more I read, the more I thought that it must be a very [b|s]ad sarcastic humor site or a poor attempt at astro-turf from the "other side." They go as far to say that anyone using Firefox or any open source software is a communist and/or a fascist and "God" hates them for it. Microsoft is the only appropriate software distributor, unless you want "God" to hate you too. They have a list of people "God" dislikes and they strike out the name of the person when they are dead and put "(God won)" after it.

I know it's bad to spread the URL around to give them more attention, but it's one of those things that are "so bad you have to watch"

shelleytherepublican.com

Re:Don't switch?

[kent_eh]

"You may also have web-based applications that don't work well, or even at all, unless they are accessed with Internet Explorer.

And I ask yet again, why does business use any mission-critical web-apps that can only deal with a specific browser (or worse, a specific version)

*sigh*
My employer's payroll department still won't answer this question. Idiots

Re:Don't switch?

[nschubach]

It's cheaper to develop for only one and it should be the one with the most share. (Just my observation of the mentality.)

Re:Don't switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

While browser specific app's are not as common any more and should continue in to fall in numbers as IE becomes more standards based as it has over the last few years, what many people forget (or never knew because if they actually managed to work in IT department never made it past 1st line helpdesk support role) is these IE only apps are are in many cases nearly a decade old, sure they are dated but companies will not upgrade without very good reason (aka app no longer works) , because while the cost to upgrade/replace browser might be free, the cost to upgrade/replace the IE dependant app can run into the 10's of millions and that does not include possible ripple effect costs

Re:Don't switch?

[maxume]

Even if it is 100% parody, the intensity is still a bit towards the far edge of sane.

Re:Don't switch?

[Rockoon]

The same reason that FORTRAN is still used worldwide. You pick a theory, and then you run with it. Changing theories willy-nilly along the way is, far more often than not, stupid.

So after Gizmo #1 requires Thingamajig 6.0, Gizmo #2 is best to also require Thingamajig 6.0.

...after all.. you have Thingamajig 6.0 deployed everywhere to support Gizmo #1.

Re:Don't switch?

[VJ42]

I've seen that site before and I believe it's a parody site. The fact that you couldn't tell if it's real suggest both that it's good parody, and scares me (I'm a Brit, are there actually people like that out there?). Check out what she has to say about Linux...

They're both right... or wrong

[kent_eh]

Calling for the abandonment of IE isn't the whole answer. But it will help make more people aware that it's not the only browser out there, and that it is possible for the average user to make the change to another browser easily.

On the other hand, if they only suggest one alternative, then that only creates another monoculture.

Ultimately I'd like to so no one browser with more than 25% market share. Make the scum work harder for their exploits.

IE or IE6? whatever...

[Darfeld]

On one side, I don't like the fact that peoples can't make the difference between two versions of a software.

On the other side, browser diversity can't be bad, so I guess anything that can make people try something that is not IE is good.

Wait a second....

[Qubit]

France and Germany agree on something?

The IE threat must be greater than previously imagined. Or...something.

Re:Wait a second....

[mewsenews]

France and Germany agree on something?

France and Germany were both bitterly opposed to the invasion of Iraq and said so numerous times as members of the UN. Rumsfeld dismissed them as "old Europe".

While China seems to be the boogeyman du jour for America, people should keep in mind that the Euro is competing very successfully against the greenback.

Re:Wait a second....

[Hurricane78]

Nah, it goes like this:

France: Germany! Do as I say!
Germany: Yes, yes, dear god yes, just please don’t call us Nazis!
Same thing with the USA, UK and doubly so with Israel.

And then some German comes, and calls the government Nazi anyway! ;)

It drove them so far off the left that we can basically say that with the recent totalitarian tendencies, it “wrapped around”. ^^
(Talking about the p.c. media and politics reality here. Not about what the man on the street thinks. We’re pretty normal. :)

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

nah, that's not that far fetched. Now if *England* and France agreed on something... Well, thats one of the signs of the apocalypse

Re:Wait a second....

[Strudelkugel]

While China seems to be the boogeyman du jour for America, people should keep in mind that the Euro is competing very successfully against the greenback.

Don't be too sure about the Euro

Another link with the famous Milton Friedman comment about the Euro and a currency crisis.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Greece

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this count for Godwin's Law?

Re:Wait a second....

[Elektroschock]

The French and the German IT security agency.

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

Je suis entierement d'accord.

Re:Wait a second....

[mister_playboy]

It could be argued that the EU as it exists today has its roots in the cooperation between Germany and France that has been going on for nearly half a century. WWII was a long time ago, things change.

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree.

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

things change.

Accordingly to TFA, Microsoft doesn't.

Simple answers for simple people...

[jofny]

Really, it's both: IE should be avoided until there's a patch and yes, blaming one software package does give people who dont know any better or dont think about it a false sense of security when they switch. They're not mutually exclusive positions...

PCWorld is ignoring security

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would a website like PCWorld recommend it's users NOT to ban Internet Explorer? It's both foolish and stupid, still recommending Internet Explorer that is short sighted.

It seems like me this is just Microsoft propaganda, seriously their is not a single reason why you should use Internet Explorer above any other modern browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

Re:PCWorld is ignoring security

[couchslug]

"Why would a website like PCWorld recommend it's users NOT to ban Internet Explorer? "

"It seems like me this is just Microsoft propaganda,"

You just answered your own question.
Paper computer mags are targeted at noobs who still get their info from dead tree media, and they are not in the business of attacking their advertising base!

Re:PCWorld is ignoring security

[Thundarr Trollgrim]

PC World make a lot of money providing malware / virus removal for non-tchies, selling anti-virus software and more importantly, selling new computers to people whose old computers have slowed down due to misuse, rather than cleaning them up.

It's not really in their interest for people to use more secure browsers.

please stop using ie6

[chentiangemalc]

yes people should stop using IE 6, besides the horrible interface, many new websites don't display correctly in it, it is a browser dating back to 2001 and outdated by now, 2 versions behind current Microsoft product. People with windows updates should already be using a more secure browser IE 7 or IE 8, or one of their choice. And although IE6 has been significantly attacked - switching to other browsers does not make you immune, Chrome, Safari, Firefox have all had security flaws. IE8 holds up well to other browsers re http://nsslabs.com/test-reports/Q309_Browser_Security_Summary_Final.pdf Also there are some social engineering style attacks that no browser currently protects against completely - sites that people are fooled into believing they are legitimate and passing personal details/etc.

Re:please stop using ie6

[Andy Jensen]

Well, most people are using IE7 or 8. It's just that it is still Internet Explorer, which isn't the optimal browser, regardless of version.

If only the US could...

[Andy Jensen]

That makes Germany and France. If only the US would do the same, as there are too many naïve people who don't even know there are other superior web browsers.

This just in...

[FF8Jake]

France, Germany, Russia, and the fucking Queen of England recommend not to use Blender due to it's overly complex interface. Thank you government, for stepping in.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in: the Queen of England is head of state, not head of government. ;)

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the regular Queen of England? What does she recommend?

Re:This just in...

[deepershade]

US Gov recommends citizens not to question anything, ever, and promptly bend over and take it. FF8Jake complies and his farts are never audible again.

Re:This just in...

[FF8Jake]

How did you know I was doing my taxes?

Air-wall is the answer

[MrEricSir]

Instead of doing all your web browsing on a computer that's connected to a network -- which is inherently insecure -- consider only using the internet on systems which are isolated from the network with an "air-wall."

This security solution is effective at preventing viruses, trojans, worms, clickjacking, DNS spoofing, and most other malware as well.

Next up: avoid cancer by not breathing.

Re:Air-wall is the answer

[stuckinphp]

Except even that is not secure enough for some hacks.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/07/12/0259246/Stealing-Data-Via-Electrical-Outlet

I know you said malware etc but this is still a good point.

Re:Air-wall is the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume the Air-wall also comes with superglue to seal usb/firewire/serial/parallel/NIC ports, floppy, and optical drives.

Healty variety of browsers

[Kyusaku Natsume]

It helps to force web developers to design their sites based on standards, not for the browser with the largest market share. I have many friends with Apple computers that use exclusively Firefox even when Safari on OS X is a very good browser. This helps a little to keep the overall security of the plataform up, since you can't be sure that all users of OS X also are users of Safari.

But which browser to use?

[Anonymous Coward]

As many I escaped IE long time ago, however I am getting regular infections via Firefox and Seamonkey and am really tired of running ComboFix for some nasty rootkits installed after Firefox gets into its knees. Anyone can tell me which browser to use? I use Chrome solely for Google stuff, I don't want to be monitored everywhere else. Playing also with Safari due to its HTML5, but have no clue about its security...

Re:But which browser to use?

[couchslug]

If you are getting pounded that hard, don't use your main Windows install on the internet.

You can download free VMWare browsing appliances and effortlessly browse using another OS, or load an expendable Windows installation in Portable VirtualBox that can be replaced with a complete backup copy (install Portable Vbox, install Windows, .rar a copy for safekeeping), or load Linux in a VM.

All easy to do, all free, so no excuse for a geek not doing them as needed.

Re:But which browser to use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Firefox with NoScript, and only turn scripting on for sites that you trust to be secure (should be a pretty short list) or that you need to access and do business with. Be similarly protective with cookies. If you're aware of what's trying to run on your computer, then it's easier to notice XSS attempts when you see a script attempting to run from a different server than the site you're accessing.

The first time I ran across Verified by VISA, I noticed it had behaviour very similar to a classic XSS attack. It ran a script from a different site which, since my bank had outsourced the back-end authentication, wasn't recognizable as my bank. Attempting to do the same from IE or Safari didn't indicate a problem. I think that the security analyst and the technical architect who signed off on that disaster should be unemployable because the approach enforces bad browsing habits on customers. However I expect that they are actually probably more successful with that big a project on their resume.

I refuse to do business with vendors that use Verified by VISA because the extra hoop is for their benefit, not mine. If they use it, they get a slightly better rate from VISA because user fraud is lower, but there really is no benefit to me as a user. There is no improvement in my expectation that their systems are more secure with my banking info, particularly if that's the best design/implementation they can come up with.

Re:But which browser to use?

[sproot]

However I expect that they are actually probably more successful with that big a project on their resume.

If they show up here looking for work, they'll leave carrying their resumes without having to use their hands. The only bigger clusterfuck than VbV is Mastercard Securecode, which was probably written by the same cretins.

As AC

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Dont Kill the Messenger?

[smd75]

In this case, the messenger was the one who compromised and betrayed the system. Saying IE isn't to blame is just simply wrong and uneducated. IE is a terrible browser on so many levels beyond security. Yes, this is Google, and no they shouldn't only be using Chrome, because you cant uninstall IE from XP. Some people just click on internet shortcuts or links without even caring which browser it is. This isn't the fault of Google. This is the fault of Microsoft for neglecting their shoddy products, even if it is 2 generations old now. This isn't a (real) reason to jump ship on XP, Microsoft just wants to get rid of XP, which is another mistake. I am losing more and more respect for Tech Columnists every day.

I blame the IE 'mentality'

[brxndxn]

I remember Steve Ballmer screaming 'Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!' and that has been the IE 'menality' ever since. The mentality is "Give the developers (especially big huge companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Google) complete control over the users' computers just by clicking 'ok' in Internet Explorer one time." That has got to be seen as a security hole. Every goddamn piece of software now wants to run as a service, check for updates, annoy the user, and prioritize itself. For example, once you install Adobe Flash, it is there.. on every web page.. despite whether the user might want to choose not to load the annoying flash for that particular web page. I am not complaining just about flash - just about the lack of options to make installed software optional. Why can't I have an option to 'right click, show flash' on all my flash animations? and for that matter.. all other software that wants to open by default without giving me an option to save?

Here's how I would make IE more secure in a general sense:

1. Program the 'stop' button as the highest priority. IE is useless if it decides it has to load an entire complicated web page (or malware site) before I can click 'stop' and cancel all of it.

2. Put options in IE to disallow resizing of IE windows by script, removing of toolbar buttons, preventing the user from resizing windows, and using 100% of system resources to process a web page.

3. Remove the ability for a 'Windows popup button' to prevent the user from stopping a script. How asinine is it that a web page can merely repeatedly pop up system messages forcing the user to click ok before allowing the user to click stop? IE screws this up royally with Java helping.

4. Put a 'cookie tracker' right inside Internet Explorer.. Allow the user to control whether a site can modify a cookie. Notify the user (at the bottom status bar - not in his fucking face) that 'a cookie was created or modified' when visiting a web page. User might get suspicious when his favorite porn site tries to modify the 'gmail' cookie.

5. Never allow web pages to stop me from right-clicking. Fuck you. It's my computer.

I'm sure there's a whole lot of other things I could say that Microsoft will continue to ignore..

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[DigiShaman]

Well, you can lock down IE to some extent. Hope the following link helps.

http://www.nwnetworks.com/iezones.htm

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[pyrbrand]

Actually, any add on can be enabled for only a specific set of pages. For instance, to restrict the use of Flash in IE8, to go Tools->Manage Add-Ons then under the Adobe published by section, double click the "Shockwave Flash Object" (I don't know why Adobe can't just call it Flash), then under the text field titled "You have approved this add-on to run on the following websites:", click the button "Remove all sites". Now you'll get a gold bar on every site that uses flash in which you can allow the site to run flash or not. Not quite as nice as Flashblock, but still pretty good.

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[Anonymous Coward]

this post is full of technical error

yet it is modded Insightful

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: #1 -

Having a more responsive stop button, to kill runaway JS code, etc, would be nice, but I'm sorry... relying on the stop button to prevent malware is like relying on the "pull out" method of contraception to prevent pregnancy and STDs.

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't I have an option to 'right click, show flash' on all my flash animations?

It looks like you are searching for this:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[tokul]

User might get suspicious when his favorite porn site tries to modify the 'gmail' cookie.

You don't need user for that. Browser should freak out when some site tries to inject or modify cookie which belongs to other site.

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[Anonymous Coward]

And also add a button so I can complain when the web-pages don't look right with all the content missing!!!

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[DaFallus]

I don't know why Adobe can't just call it Flash

I believe this has to do with the fact that Shockwave used to be a competitor to Flash before Adobe bought out Macromedia. Apparently there are still a few key differences between the two products. From the Wikipedia article:

Features not replicated by Flash include a much faster rendering engine, including hardware-accelerated 3D, and support for various network protocols, including Internet Relay Chat. Furthermore, Shockwave's functionality can be extended with so-called "Xtras".

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, get rid of ActiveX. It's the biggest hole in IE. #2 is already in there (I think). As for #3 and #5, absolutely. There is no reason to not have those features in place. The right-click thing happens to be one of my pet peeves, because I used to go forward and back using right-click until I got a mouse with more buttons. I guess they're trying to "protect their source code" or something, which is asinine, because anyone with half of a brain (or even one-quarter of a brain) can get around that. There's no way to protect interpreted-language source code unless you just don't distribute it (at least, not to my knowledge).

Ekhem, Germany and France are in Europe...

[sznupi]

...you know, the place that already doesn't have browser monoculture. Therefore, your premise doesn't hold true - they don't want to shatter IE monoculture, create variation in the market. They just don't want people to use IE.

And especially in Europe, that's very much four engines, not three, with one or two places having Opera as number one browser, few other as number one alternative browser, and in many it has quite respectable usage share.

Re:Ekhem, Germany and France are in Europe...

[LWATCDR]

Where is it that Opera is number one?
I am shocked that anyplace has any other browser than IE as the number one browser of for no other reason that it is the path of least resistance.
Hey don't get me wrong. Not using IE is always a good thing in my book but I am shocked if this is true.

Re:Ekhem, Germany and France are in Europe...

[sznupi]

Ukraine: http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html

At the top of the page you have flags of other countries in the region. Seems Russia will have Opera as number one browser soon, too. And a few which have FF as number one (which is also quite common in Western Europe or Nordic countries, not included in this ranking), or where even Opera Mini registers higher than Safari.

And you all laughed

[Monkeedude1212]

When I said this was all an elaborate ruse to Market Chrome.

Clearly I'm the only one here parano^H^H^H^H^H^HSensible enough to see whats plainly in front of us.

Take Microsoft vs Google. Google's brand name is made up of 50% vowels, 50% consonants, whereas Microsoft is 33-67. This is a clever method designed to make you think that Google is fairer and wishes to have an equal representation of all letters. However, this is just plain deceiptful, because "Chrome" is only 33% vowels wheras "IE" (we'll abbreviate it) is 100% vowels, thus making up for the lack of vowels in "Microsoft". There are also even spreads across such MS products as "Office" and "Live". Apple has felt the need to keep up with the proper representation of vowels by throwing in a single lowercase i in front of every one of their new products. Good on them.

So I know what you're thinking: What do vowels and consonants have to do with ACTA and Net Neutrality? Absolutely nothing! But they DO have a lot to do with the recent attacks made against Google. As you can recall, its been recently discovered that the attacks originated in China. Surprising to some people, English has not been fully adopted yet, and many Chinese citizens still speak Mandarin and that other language no one can remember. All traditional chinese languages use characters, not letters. (To those who program or are DBA's, a letter is what normal people call a char). Now, what is Mandarin missing that English has? You guessed it; VOWELS. It's clear and obvious that Google is behind all of it. What the end goal is, I'm not entirely sure, I'm still trying to connect the dots.

What's important about this article is that its happening in FRANCE. This is a bit of a PR stunt for France. You see, everyone hates Microsoft, and everyone hates France. This hurts the French industries of exporting Cheese, Wine, and arrogant behavior. So France is hoping that by declaring they hate Microsoft as well, everyone will look on them in a better light. WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS. If people start liking the French more, Baguettes will be everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Baguettes at home, baguettes at work, baguette soup, baguette sandwhiches. Don't get me wrong I like a baguette every now and then but if we let them get a single foothold on the breadmarket they will take it over completely. There is nothing stronger then the relentless pursuits of a French Bunmaster.

So please, everyone, I beg of you. Keep using IE8, if you already do. Not because its secure, because it isn't. Not because of Google, no matter how evil they secretly are...

But because the standard loaf shape of bread is under attack, and if we don't come to defend it, no one will.

Re:And you all laughed

[sznupi]

I was surprised when I looked at poster name in this one and didn't see BadAnalogyGuy...

Re:And you all laughed

[bunratty]

They'll have to pry my Freedom Bread from my cold, dead body!

Re:And you all laughed

[mister_playboy]

You forgot to mention that a avian-dropped baguette was responsible for knocking the LHC offline... but was that good or bad?

Strawman

[MBCook]

I agree. This sounds like the old "criminals can pick weak locks so security is worthless" fallacy. Sure any door can be opened, but that doesn't mean you should just remove the door.

That said, even if it was true, I'd still want people to abandon IE. Anything that gets people on browsers that render stuff half-decently without gobs of extra code is good.

Even getting people to IE8 would be a big improvement.

Re:please stop using ie6 & ie7 & ie8

[tuppe666]

The issue is for all browsers after IE5, so in this instance perhaps you could suggest going back to an earlier version of IE. See earlier Microsoft lies regarding this. They have there own PR to spin this. You do not need to help. Personally I think promoting anything but a monoculture of browsers is acceptable, as everyone is more than aware of what happens then.

Shouldn't the title be rephrased?

[Anonymous Coward]

"France Surrenders the Browser War"

Mixed Message

[Bob9113]

Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous

Don't obfuscate the message. Blaming IE for being susceptible to attacks is entirely valid.

So is blaming Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Konquerer, and Safari when they are vulnerable.

It's all nice and tidy to say "The attackers are to blame." But we don't have control over them. We do have control over which software we use. And if we continually abandon less secure software for more secure alternatives, we will have a continually improving software ecosystem. That will not always mean abandoning IE (well, it may not always mean abandoning IE -- seriously, someday IE might be the most secure option -- stop laughing, it could happen, hypothetically), but it does mean always abandoning whoever fucked up most egregiously most recently. Feedback works.

Re:Mixed Message

[bhunter736]

Well said.

Re:Mixed Message

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be true if the masses of computer users were even remotely concerned with security. I mean, come on, how many of you work in offices where you can find people's passwords on post-its on the monitor or under the keyboard....show of hands.

IE could be the most secure product ever, and it would still be under constant attack. The problem is simply...most people use it 'cause it comes with the PC they bought.

The number one share of the browser market, just like the OS market, will always be the primary target of malicious coders because even a small percentage of success translates into a higher number of infections.

Re:Mixed Message

[khallow]

This would be true if the masses of computer users were even remotely concerned with security.

Strategy still works. Your computer by dropping the worst software offenders of the moment is harder to compromise than the people who aren't concerned about security.

Switch!!!

[frank_adrian314159]

... blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Because a false sense of security is better than no sense of security at all.

This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[nedlohs]

the toys we know have been painted with paint with high amounts of lead in it.

After all, if I took those away from them I'd just be giving myself a false sense of security since it's likely there are some other toys with lead in them that I don't know about.

Same reason I smoke, sure I know smoking causes cancer but not doing it would just give me a false sense of security given there are numerous other things that also cause cancer.

Re:This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[supersloshy]

...uh huh.

So you're saying that we all shouldn't care about anything because we'll all get hurt anyways in some way, shape, or form? Nothing matters at all in the long run? Okay then... I hope that you're kidding.

Re:This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[nedlohs]

I'm saying that is the argument PCWorld is making, and it is clearly ridiculous.

Re:This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[Anonymous Coward]

Same reason I masturbate, sure I know masturbating causes hairy hands but not doing it would just give me a false sense of security given there are numerous other things I can mastu...oh...

Re:This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[supersloshy]

Exactly... thanks for the non-existent disclaimer in your original comment?

Re:This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[nedlohs]

Why would I need a disclaimer?

I really couldn't care if someone doesn't comprehend basic sarcasm, it's not like it does me any harm.

Presumably

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably this means the French government want people to use IE6, since they automatically do the opposite to what they're told?

It'll never work...

[pookemon]

"Stop using IE"

Ok. I'll stop using IE8. But the problem wasn't in IE8 - it was in IE6 - so it was brought about by people who are using a version of IE that was replaced 1 to 2 years ago.

"Microsoft didn't patch the zero day bug"

Wouldn't matter if they had - these people are using IE6. Technically they did patch it - in IE7 and IE8 - and the people using IE6 haven't upgraded to the new free version - so what good would a patch do? Sure, MS could have withdrawn the installer and people could have upgraded using a new installer - but that would only reduce the number of people using it - it wouldn't eliminate it (there'd be all those disks floating around with IE6 as part of the operating installation).

And all this guff about "IE6 ruined the world" seems like crap anyway because if it wasn't IE6 then it'd be Acrobat, or Safari or Firefox or Opera or Chrome. If we all move to then they'd target . It's just that IE6 is still in use by a significant number of morons who probably don't have a virus scanner let alone any idea of why they shouldn't click the message that states "Your computer appears to have a virus...".

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

Wrong... the problem is in ALL versions of IE from at least 6 upwards on ALL operating systems from at least XP upwards. Microsoft themselves admitted that.

Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable.

Microsoft Advisory

Why are people still perpetuating the myth that this does not affect IE7 or IE8 when Microsoft themselves claim it does?!?!?! Just curious.

Re:It'll never work...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The attack wasn't patched in IE7 or 8, and is even vulnerable in IE8 on Windows 7.

Re:It'll never work...

[Elektroschock]

"But the problem wasn't in IE8 - it was in IE6 - so it was brought about by people who are using a version of IE that was replaced 1 to 2 years ago."

false. IE8 is also affected.

Re:It'll never work...

[Dhalka226]

Because you're all partially correct.

The problem does exist in IE6, IE7 and IE8. The problem is exploitable on Windows XP, and potentially exploitable with non-default settings in Vista and Win7.

My understanding is that IE8 on Win7 basically runs sandboxed with sub-user-level permissions. So while you can technically trigger the bug and exploit it for code execution, you cannot accomplish anything other than perhaps crashing the browser in that setup. Vulnerable? Technically. A concern? Not really.

Re:It'll never work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it doesn't affect default configurations.

Re:It'll never work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because IE7 and IE8 are immune by default as long as DEP is turned on ?

Re:It'll never work...

[pookemon]

Because the same page also mentions that DEP is a mitigating factor.

"Data Execution Protection (DEP) is enabled by default in Internet Explorer 8 on the following Windows operating systems: Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Vista Service Pack 2, and Windows 7"

So if you have IE8 you are at risk if you've turned DEP off. Sure - your point is valid, IE7 and IE8 are affected - however there needs to be user intervention for alot of the products you've highlighted above to be affected. So that's kind of like saying "My Windows is susceptible (because I don't have a virus scanner/firewall and I've turned off UAC and DEP)". The fact still remains that getting people to change to another browser will just change the software targetted by the hackers. Heck - they could have targetted the iPhone.

Re:It'll never work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Vista, 2k8 and Seven's default settings render the exploit harmless. IE7 and 8 are listed as vulnerable because they can run on XP. Vista, 2k8 and Seven are listed as vulnerable because the exploit still triggers, but default settings prevent it from doing any damage - you'd have to deliberately go out of your way.

So the exploit only really works if

a) you're running on an 8 year old OS that's 2 full versions behind the current release.
b) you're running a browser that's 2 full versions behind.
or
c) you're running on a current OS, but went out of your way to disable various security settings.

Re:It'll never work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong... the problem is in ALL versions of IE from at least 6 upwards on ALL operating systems from at least XP upwards. Microsoft themselves admitted that.

Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable.

Microsoft Advisory

Why are people still perpetuating the myth that this does not affect IE7 or IE8 when Microsoft themselves claim it does?!?!?! Just curious.

If we were able to have a less black and white discussion about this (yeah, right..) it might be better understood that default configuration of IE8 on Vista/W7 (protected mode, dep) is not vulnerable to this attack. But MSRC are, quite rightly, classifying the browser as vulnerable because it is possible for end user to make themselves vulnerable by turning off the default security measures.

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

But your understanding is incorrect, as even sandboxed, IE7 and IE8 have been susceptible (on Vista and Windows 7) to a number of exploits even just recently, including the .NET exploits recently covered in the Mozilla .NET plugin threads here and elsewhere.

Sorry, nothing personal, but reality trumps understanding every time.

On the experience end of things, I have run into numerous infected machines, which still have the default "protected"/sandboxed settings for IE and Vista/Win 7 and are still equally infected because of these exploits.

Further on the reality side of things, Microsoft is continuously releasing updates to IE7, IE8, Vista and Win7 to try to rectify the holes that allow such malicious stuff to bypass their broken "sandboxing"

So, you are correct if one only follows the theory and planned designs behind Microsoft's new protection scheme... but the reality is, that scheme is still broken and still vulnerable.

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

Explain to me then, how various of the recent .NET and (other) Active X exploits bypassed DEP? Then tell me if you truly believe anything has changed since then to magically make DEP be the "be all, end all" protection for RCE exploits.

Truly, the plans for DEP and sandboxing were great on paper. But they do not work as intended and have already been bypassed, thanks to neato little workarounds or holes that Microsoft seems to have left unfixed. I've gotten machines in for repair that wont even let Windows Update run without a half dozen confirmations (still on their default settings) but are infected as hell because of .NET exploits that seem to entirely bypass those DEP/sandboxing protections.

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

or

d) if the attack/infection vector leverages one of the numerous .NET or Active X exploits, holes, or IE buffer issues that bypass the DEP mechanism and sandbox.

(d) being the reason why the rest of your claims dont matter.

C'mon folks... you all arent new to /. or the tech world. There have been tons of articles on such exploits... tons of patches that "really fix this, we promise" (Microsoft) yet really haven't fixed it... including in the .NET world alone, over a half dozen (unsuccessful) MAJOR attempts to fix these issues that render DEP/sandboxing useless...

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

And here ya go!

"The revised advisory also addressed claims made by researchers that it's possible to exploit the newer IE7 and IE8 browsers, and even circumvent Microsoft's recommended defensive measure, DEP (data execution prevention)."

How many of you will continue to believe Microsoft nonsense when it's already been proven to be wrong? Finally, after their latest nonsense was proven wrong, they've admitted it, confirming my beliefs, and disproving yours...

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

No it's not. It never has been for any decent exploit.

"The revised advisory also addressed claims made by researchers that it's possible to exploit the newer IE7 and IE8 browsers, and even circumvent Microsoft's recommended defensive measure, DEP (data execution prevention)."

C'mon, history/track record alone proves this. Or simply researching this particular exploit would once again prove Microsoft to be talking out of their ass.

Finally, after their latest nonsense was proven wrong and got sufficient coverage online, they've admitted it, confirming my beliefs (and those of the people who actually studied the exploits), and disproving yours...

Abandon it anyway?

[cprocjr]

It could create a false sense of security by telling people to switch, and Microsoft is patching the problem. But aren't there TONS of other reason why to abandon IE.

Should we...

[Anonymous Coward]

boycott french kisses?

PCWorld

[dwiget001]

"PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security."

Yeah, of course they would argue this. They get major advertising dollars from someone affected by such recommendations.

Frisky French

[syousef]

France and Germany agree on something?

The IE threat must be greater than previously imagined. Or...something.

France just hadn't surrendered to anyone in a little while and were getting frisky.

Are the changes that different from Win2k and XP?

[tlhIngan]

Are the internals of Windows 2000 and Windows XP so different that Microsoft can't put IE8 on Win2k?

I mean, it seems like that's the obvious solution, and Win2k's on extended support still, so... and XP only identifies itself as NT 5.1 (Win2k is NT 5.0).

Always amuses me to see "You should upgrade to IE8!" then click the "Upgrade" button and say "Just click Download to get IE8!", scroll down, and then it says "IE8 is not available for your operating system". You'd think Microsoft's update site could've done the check earlier...

IE8 Not vulnerable? Microsoft seems to think it is

[RobertM1968]

But, although IE6 has been the source of the attacks until now, Microsoft's advisory admits that both IE7 and IE8 are vulnerable to the same flaw, even on Windows 7.

Someone needs to do a lot better research when writing these articles or posting them to Slashdot or both.

THIS is blatantly wrong:

Microsoft still insists IE8 is the 'most secure browser on the market' and that they believe IE6 is the only browser susceptible to the flaw. However, security researchers warned that could soon change, and recommended considering alternative browsers as well."

Heck, simply reading Slashdot would have turned up this:
Slashdot Article on this

Or this from Microsoft themselves which states even Microsoft believe no such thing.
Microsoft Admits IE7 and IE8 are vulnerable to this too

Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable.

I posted something similar about this days ago on yet another similar topic, but was laughed at by the MS/IE zealots who claim Microsoft said only IE6 is vulnerable... so, since they cant read obviously, there it is again... with the relevant section BOLDED this time.

C'mon folks, these RCEs are not new stuff, and seem to exist in EVERY version of IE since the beginning of time till now with "patches" that never fully address the issue (hence, as MICROSOFT themselves noted, this issue is... well... still an issue... even for IE7 and IE8).

Their lame (see story link above) answer that people should upgrade to IE8 as if that was the solution to this problem is idiotic. Yeah, people should upgrade to IE8 (if their machines can actually run it - some of my clients have older, slower machines and no budget to replace them)... but Microsoft should also be working on actually fixing all the RCE exploits and buffer issues in the IE line.

Regardless, my point is, with so much coverage over this (on Slashdot alone), you'd think the "Story Approvers" or author would have gotten that glaringly misleading (and incorrect) point correct. Oh well.

What a bunch of apologist shills

[Dracos]

Not using something that is famously known to be broken is a bad idea? Uh, sure.

I don't know who Tony Bradley is (and I'm not really interested), but TFA explains who George Kurtz is, and my thinking is that McAfee's entire business model is based on the fact that MS products are insecure and broad targets. Every time a PC gets Windows replaced, he loses a potential customer. Every time Windows gets malware, his existence is justified.

IE has several critical flaws, some of which have been unpatched for years. Recommending to use a known unsafe browser is little different than arguing cars don't need seat belts, or OSHA is a waste, or whatever else flies in the face of safety in a given context.

The Part I don't Get.

[jellomizer]

While Microsoft won the browser war they failed their objectives.

The point of winning the browser war was so Microsoft could change the direction of web standards, eg pushing Active X except for Java Applets. VB script vs Javascript etc. This failed miserably for Microsoft now they are putting time and effort into IE a Free OS Addon to the product and they are not getting anything really out of it. Except for this big push to make IE seem like this great browser they should just well use Firefox it is just as good if not better, we will keep IE going and as secure as possible for a while but will phase it out in about 10 years.

Staying #1 in the browser market where every version you are pushed to follow everyone elses standards is just a wast of your time and money, espectially when you have a slew of other people making good alternatives. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc... That really want to follow the standards. Let IE fall too 20% market share, this is OK.

Re:The Part I don't Get.

[Lunzo]

Just to correct a misconception - the web standards body (W3C) takes input from all the major browsers including IE. If Microsoft don't like the standards they should have worked harder to have something they do like declared as the standard.

Re:The Part I don't Get.

[zoidran]

Microsoft wants "standards" they control. They have no use for open standards their competitors can freely implement, which is what W3C is all about.

Re:The Part I don't Get.

[marcosdumay]

Ok, Microsoft didn't get everything they wanted from IE (that was descomoditize the web), but they surely slowed things down. MS is running in self-destruct mode for a few years now, they will get irrelevant, but they want to make sure they get the most possible amount of money before that, and that means they want to delay things.

Re:The Part I don't Get.

[Richy_T]

Definitely. They wanted a Microsoft Client on a Microsoft OS talking a Microsoft Protocol to a Microsoft web server (backed by a Microsoft database) running on a Microsoft server OS. Complete lockout, and nothing less, was the goal.

Re:Are the changes that different from Win2k and X

[RoboRay]

Well, that plan wouldn't sell any new copies of Win7, now would it?

U.S. the Freest Market?

[yet-another-lobbyist]

Yep. And the cell phone provider markets are more attactive in many other place of the world, too...
How about internet providers? Cable/satellite TV, anyone?
Somehow this free market thing giving the best products to the consumer doesn't always work out. Too bad.

Running 2 revisions out of date?

[zullnero]

For any software, if you're running stuff that is basically 12 years out of date, you should expect your setup to be exploitable. You don't see a lot of people running MacOS 8, early revisions of Slackware, or Netscape 5.5 anymore, right? Neglecting to update IE is about the stupidest thing anyone with some regard for their personal security could put off. It's easily the most exploited piece of software in the history of...software. That's what having a near 100% dominance in the very sketchy playing field of the late 90's/early 00's Internet does for you. I'm no Microsoft fan, but anyone who thinks that code that was written 12 years ago is perfectly fine to use nowadays...switching to another browser isn't going to fix their problem. Medication and a good shrink will fix their problem. And maybe a Computer Science course or two. If you never updated the virus defs in your virus scanner...and you got a virus...switching virus scanners isn't going to fix the fact that you're too undisciplined to wait a few seconds and let your virus defs download no matter what setup you use. If people won't update from IE6, you can bet they won't update any other browser they install, either.

Sorry, but if you get exploited running IE6, I have absolutely NO pity for you. You're just plain stupid, and your stupidity most likely has caused you to infect other systems probably more than once. You're like a driver who plows down a couple margaritas before you go out driving on a Sunday afternoon.

Re:Running 2 revisions out of date?

[JAlexoi]

Actually, code that was perfectly fine 12 years ago is much better today, than fresh code. You know, software also matures.

I'm sick and tired of reading that crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single time EU regulates USA companies, some Americans come and say "They are just being hard on USA companies". But no. They have been very strict to other companies too (Just google about EU and Samsung, Siemens, ABB, Alstom, Saint-Gobain... The list really goes on. Go ahead, check by yourself. They have been handing out massive fines here and there for anti-competitive practices.).

It's just that the media in USA doesn't pay that much attention to EU fining european companies. In addition, european countries in general have stricter regulation on national level so antitrust investigations on smaller european corporations are done at that level.

Re:I'm sick and tired of reading that crap

[Xest]

Yes, but unfortunately, for people to change their stance away from that you're frustrated about would also require those same people to accept that their own country isn't infallible. To accept that would be in complete conflict with the patriotic mindset which they are indoctrinated into in the first place.

Unfortunately, the fact that you're correct will still be lost on such people, because they are unwilling to accept something that challenges something fundamental to how they view the world.

It's no different to religious zealots and so forth that will deny the truth even when the evidence countering their view is right in front of their face.

So the bad news is, you may be sick of reading such crap, but sadly you'll continue to have to.

Re:Are the changes that different from Win2k and X

[jzhos]

Are you going to pay for all the extra work testing all the different versions/languages of windows 2000 pro / server / ... That is a 10 years old operating system after all and way less popular than XP.

This just in: France surrenders!

[Anonymous Coward]

...French IE6 users surrender to Chinese hackers, that is...

mod parent up

[Weezul]

It's worth noting they qualified the suggestion by saying "while waiting on Microsoft to fix the vulnerability". It ain't some global indictment against Microsoft like /. suggested.

IE and Safari improve the security of most power users by presenting easy targets whose code base is unrelated to other browsers.

Re:Are the changes that different from Win2k and X

[Corporate Troll]

I've got a 10 year old car.... The regular maintenance isn't more expensive that the regular maintenance for a new car. Sure, I pay money, for oil, for work hours.... I can't help that Microsoft provides "maintenance" for 0$ I'm sorry, but in this day and age a 10 year old computer can provide a good working system hardware-wise, but it's the software that breaks. I have dumpster-diven a P-IV 1.9GHz using RDRAM (According to Wikipedia, August 2001... so 8 years and a half ago or so) that runs XP just fine. It runs Debian now, as a server and frankly there is nothing lacking about it for its task.

XP is from August 2001.... Just saying....

In the day and age we reached the "good enough" computer, upgrading stopped being mandatory for many people.

Locks and burglars

[Exitar]

Of course if a burglar breaks in my apartment thank to a defect of my lock and steal my fornitures I blame the burglar for the theft.
But I change my lock afterward.

Re:Locks and burglars

[Sycraft-fu]

However, you change it to another lock with known vulnerabilities. I mean I'd bet that you change it to one that is just as vulnerable as before. Most people don't buy high security locks, they are expensive (they can be around $300 per lock) and a pain to deal with since they are key controlled (meaning you can only get copies form one place and only with ID). So you really aren't changing anything. All those locks at a store like Home Depot? All crap.

Even if you do change to a better lock, it still has known security vulnerabilities. There does not exist the tumbler lock that can't be picked. High security ones are hard and require people who understand their specific setup, but they can still be done. Even if you could, the lock could simply be blasted out of its hole with a shotgun or shaped charge.

In the real world, there's no such thing as perfect security. There is no system that can't be beat. Security isn't a system of "Do this and you are safe forever," it is making sure your security is superior to whatever threats you are likely to face, keeping vigilant, and preferably that is has multiple layers.

However geeks seem to confuse themselves in to thinking you can and should have perfect virtual security. That if you just use this OS and that browser and so on that you can have a system that can't ever be broken in to. However that's false, of course, there could well be bugs hiding in there that nobody knows about.

People really need to accept that perfect security is a myth.

Re:Locks and burglars

[Turiko]

I think a burglar wouldn't be able to do a whole lot if he blows up explosives or fires a shotgun. Usually, they DON'T want to be noticed ;).

There is a patch already...

[atmurray]

...either install a newer version of IE or install a new web browser all together.

Reputation

[eulernet]

IE's reputation is terrible.
It's so bad that it's tainting all their other softwares.
On the contrary, Google is really working hard to create a strong brand.

Microsoft should not declare that IE8 is one of the most secure browsers (even if it's partially true).
People don't even know how to differentiate between IE6 and IE8 !
In my company, some people uses IE and google our company name to get to our homepage !

Microsoft should instead try to rename the browser to something like IEasy, or whatever, like they did with Vista.
Then once the new browser will be completely hacked, rename it to something like IE10, so that everybody will have forgotten the terrible brand.

Anyway, it's entirely their fault that Web development became such a nightmare, and forced large companies to keep IE6 due to the ugly ActiveX components.

Re:Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

yah. if it wasn't for IE reputation being so crappy vista would have and should have TOTALLY taken off.
 

od course they are saying IE8 is better

[FudRucker]

that means everyone with Win2k/XP gotta buy a new PC or get a retail copy of windows-vista/7 = which means more money in microsoft's coffers, fsck em, go get a copy of Linux for free!

Re:od course they are saying IE8 is better

[AntiDragon]

'Cept that's still no good since if you check the advisory MS issued for this explot it's still present in IE7 and IE8 on Vista and Win7.

It's not all rah rah Redmond over there

[symbolset]

Take this piece for example.

More Greasy - Less Filing

[handfullofsausage]

Microsoft still insists IE8 is the 'most secure browser on the market' and you will barley notice any difference once they do release a patch. You see you can hardly tell it's IE all covered in kay-why... Remember, when it comes to security, if the door is locked try opening a Window!!! Yeah and I believe in the Easter Bunny!

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does Microsoft gain by forcing everyone to have IE installed on Windows by default (now excluding the EU of course).

They don't make any money from selling it... Someone said that the formats they were trying to push were the end game, but it is apparent that they have no chance in accomplishing that.

So why does Microsoft continue? Is it too late to reduce the interoperability between Internet Explorer and Windows itself?

Define "market"

[SEWilco]

Maybe Microsoft is right. If you define "market" as "web browsers which you have to pay for".

what? Nobody took the obvious joke?

[jollyreaper]

The one about the French surrendering again? Bush is out of office, it's ok to make fun of the French again.

Re:what? Nobody took the obvious joke?

[selven]

They're kicking out IE. I would say the French are actually winning.

mod it down

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no room for trannies here! This is Slashdot, and we use binary. 1 or 0, which is it?

People take PCWorld seriously?

[Hasai]

Sorry; but I have to call conflict of interest here, simply from the amount of revenue PCWorld realizes from MS adspace buys. MS routinely 'votes with its dollars' by shifting the bulk of its ads, and therefore ad revenue, to the publications most favorable to the MS party line.

As a result, an article on Microsoft published by someone like PCWorld is like an article on global warming published by a wholly-owned subsidiary of a coal company: Take it with an iceberg-sized grain of salt.

The EU regulation didn't do jack

[Crazy Taco]

If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

This is absolutely silly. The EU didn't somehow save us from Microsoft, and they didn't give us any competing browsers. We got those from the private sector, and government regulation didn't do jack.

Did the EU give us Firefox/Mozilla? No. Opera? No. Safari? No. Konqueror? No. Chrome? No. And there have been many other browsers that have been developed as well. All by the private sector, and a number of them were under development before the EU started regulating everything.

And more importantly, did any of you out there switch to Firefox because the EU told you to? Or was it because the EU told Microsoft they had to make IE uninstallable that you suddenly switched to Firefox? I'm pretty sure no one did that. We all went out and downloaded Firefox, in many cases before the regulation took hold, because it was a better browser than IE 6. It complied to standards, had many useful plugins, and most importantly had tabs. It was a better product hands down, and it quickly started gaining marketshare. The reason Netscape got destroyed earlier was because it was not superior to the Microsoft product (at best it was equal, though I'm not convinced it was) and it had a worse business model that at one point included charging a fee for the browser. Obviously that was the wrong business model to choose, as evidenced by the fact that there are over a half a dozen competing browsers now, and all of them are free downloads. The browser just wasn't a peice of software people were willing to pay for.

Frankly, this worshipping at the shrine of the EU and its regulation is just plain boneheaded and wrong. Even if governmental regulation was a good thing (something I vehemently disagree with in almost all cases), using this as an example is stupid. Especially since this wasn't a monopoly. If it were, Microsoft could have charged a fee for IE after driving its competitors from the market (in a real monopoly the monopoly holder always gets to jack up the price when there is no competition), but obviously Microsoft couldn't do that. It would have been overtaken by Mozilla almost immediately, because it was also a free browser. In some markets, competition simply forces the price to zero, and that's what happened here. There were no monopolistic barriers to competition; just a temporary lack of a browser with good enough features and a decent business model. And once that browser (Firefox) appeared, no one minded downloading and installing it onto their OS, despite the fact that they already had IE.

PS - A little known fact is that Netscape almost totally dominated the browser market before IE jumped into the fray. In fact, many sites were designed to work exclusively with Netscape, and even required a user agent string beginning with "Mozilla" to run. In effect, if anyone had a monopoly, it was actually Netscape at the beginning, when they even had a monopoly on content. IE in the early days actually had to spoof the user agent string and pretend to be Mozilla just to get the site to work with it. IE was the underdog and fiercest competitor, which is why it won in the end. It had nothing to do with monopoly.

Re:The EU regulation didn't do jack

[RMH101]

"A little known fact is that Netscape almost totally dominated the browser market before IE jumped into the fray. In fact, many sites were designed to work exclusively with Netscape, and even required a user agent string [wikipedia.org] beginning with "Mozilla" to run. In effect, if anyone had a monopoly, it was actually Netscape at the beginning, when they even had a monopoly on content. IE in the early days actually had to spoof the user agent string and pretend to be Mozilla just to get the site to work with it. IE was the underdog and fiercest competitor, which is why it won in the end. It had nothing to do with monopoly."

God, this makes me feel old. Netscape PRECEDED Internet Explorer, along with NCSA Mosaic. This is why sites were built to work with it. Microsoft came late to the party, and decided to make up for it by making IE an integral part of later versions of Windows, hence using their virtual monopoly on the desktop to kill Netscape. Netscape never had a monopoly - they were just quick to release an HTML browser. This is not the same thing.

just a thought...

[gecko1961]

Does this really have to be about the security of IE? Shouldn't this be more about a true lack of diversity? In no way do I think MS has a monopoly on the browser market but they still have the highest market share. That makes it a really big target cause just one exploit can infect a large amount of people. If FF or Chrome was in the same position this story would be about them not IE. FF and Chrome are not in any way exploit proof and they should not be treated as such. Not only is it not IE's fault that company's use IE. They could of updated there code to work with all browser. They could of used a different browser but ultimately they used IE. The browser market is getting ever more diverse and when it balances it self out we wont be reading about this type of stuff as much. Just like in the animal kingdom if a species genetic diversity (lack of browser choices) is so small a virus can wipe out a big chunk of them. So in closing don't blame IE cause it could easily happen to FF or Chrome if they had most market share. Open source or not every thing has exploits.

Australian Government as well

[cfl]

The Australian Government issued warnings about IE today as well:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/19/2795684.htm

And the antivirus companies remain silent...

[derfla8]

Just one question, we've got non-Microsoft Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware, non-Microsoft client firewall, non-Microsoft anti-spyware...why are we spending money on all this for our organization if it doesn't mitigate against these zero-day vulnerabilities?

I guess they all remain quiet as nobody wants to share this spotlight with MS.

IE6 Blocked from my sites for years

[cenc]

I am sorry, but any idiot sys admin that does the "but my company needs IE6 because of X, Y, or Z for customs software" in the year 2010 should not be allowed to touch computer ever again, and the frigen idiot that keeps them employed should also be fired after being strung up by their balls (insert tits here) for having bought the BS in the first place.

MS software has proven over, and over, and over again to be so insecure that no one is allowed to connect an MS anything to my network. Not even the transient guest. If security is critical to your biz and you are even sort of competent at your job, you will keep Microsoft out of your company and your network.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

I was a Netscape user back when I got on the web. It was just the browser to use, worked well. I liked it, didn't like IE. Then it hit version 4 some, 4.7 I think, and just stuck there. Nothing new happened. IE came out with IE5 which really looked better in a number of ways, but I still stuck with Netscape, out of inertia if nothing else. Then IE6 came out and looking at what it did, I just couldn't stay with Netscape any longer. I switched over.

These days I use Firefox, I like it better. In part I switched for the same reason. IE kinda stagnated at version 6 for a long time, and Firefox went from being a useless beta to a more capable browser.

So you are correct in my case at least. What killed Netscape wasn't IE's bundling, it was Netscape's inability or unwillingness to update their product. IE become better so I used it. Pure and simple.

Re:No kidding

[MysteriousPreacher]

I had pretty much the same experience as Sycraft-fu. I was a long-term Netscape user (graduating from Mosaic), and when Netscape stalled at 4.7x I hung-on for a while, but eventually ended up moving to iCab and IE. Navigator had fallen too far behind, and IE and Outlook Express were pretty decent replacements for Communicator. Netscape 6 was a bit too late to regain the momentum they'd lost during the intervening years.

Running a mindset 2 revisions out of date?

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone who thinks that code that was written 12 years ago is perfectly fine to use nowadays... Medication and a good shrink will fix their problem.
There's MOUNTAINS of COBOL written more than 20 years ago that is perfectly fine to use nowadays. And perhaps some of those "stupid" people that you look down are corporate employees and groups that had IE6 mandated as their development environment for internal applications. They had no choice - it was the "stupid" managers who got fucked over for believing MS's hype. I don't hate on any company - I hate on all of them equally. But you're a moron if you think it's not possible to write solid code properly.

Just say NO to Javascript

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I know that doesn't sit well with Web Weasels out there, but had they switched off Javascript...

Just sayin'

What's up with PC World?

[JBaustian]

I prefer a real sense of security. But until that comes along, it just makes sense not to use any version of Internet Explorer.

Is PC World owned by Norton or Symantec?

Imagine Microsoft approval

[egnop]

Don't you think the main target will become Firefox? and a lack of funding, a truckload of frustration and the end of another era?

ps. I don't use IE.

How would Netscape pay their programmers?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would Netscape pay their programmers? IE was free to take because Microsoft took YOUR money paid for the BROWSERLESS Win95/3.11/etc to pay for the developers who made and integrated IE into the OS.

That money came from OS sales where you didn't get a browser. Either you paid more for Windows than you needed to, the shareholders got less of a dividend than they would have, or the workers got less pay than they would have.

Netscape sold the browser server and IE couldn't and didn't work with it. Both used propriatory extensions but IE could ignore Netscape because the OS was selling. Netscape couldn't ignore IE's changes or they couldn't sell a product.

So Netscape you got a free product as an enduser, IE you paid for the product as an enduser through hidden tarrifs. And since you HAD to pay that tarrif, Netscape couldn't sell their product. Microsoft could.

And if they can't pay their programmers, how could they make a better browser?

Re:How would Netscape pay their programmers?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC Netscape wasn't free until the late 90's (maybe you got it free with your PC, but the company who sold you the PC would have paid for it and passed the cost on, exactly the same as IE) and then they got aquired by AOL who certainly could have afforded to pay their dev team. Prior to be acquired by AOL, Netscape was a publicly traded company, so they must have had *some* money coming in.

Different approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Different approach to this whole mess... Google claims it got attacked by chinese, then they claim it's the fault of IE6 (wich is stupid, you can't attack a server with a browser, only users, unless their admins browse on production server machines using ie6 wich would be a good wtf). Then they blame MS, few european governments already well-fed with anti-ms crap join them saying MS is bad... and poof, google gets more browser share. Excellent

France, Germany nailed the kitten, forgot the cat

[golodh]

On the one hand it's difficult not to be a bit gleeful in the face of the recommendations from France and Germany. On the other hand, none of the evidence on the (lack of) security in MS Explorer is exactly new, is it?

So ... should we conclude that this new advice is based on nothing more than some official reading the headlines on the Google hack with his breakfast, choking, getting egg all over his trousers, and wanting to explain why he had to change his trousers and was therefore late for work? Or is it really a case of someone finally seeing an opportunity to get support for a long-intended measure? I'd like to know, but I'm not optimistic.

Unfortunately they also seem to have overlooked a much bigger security hole: MS Windows itself. Especially older versions, unpatched, un-firewalled, and incautiously administrated (in my guess this means about in 95% of all home installations).

If they are at all serious about their "security warning", then why not set their mandatory ISP-snooping infrastructure to scanning for viruses, trojans, and malware too? That might actually help their citizens a lot more than scanning for child pornography or coded Bin-Laden C3 traffic.

And what about themselves? Why not mandate Open Source code vetting for any OS to be considered for government use? After all, they wouldn't buy proprietary encryption schemes either, would they? And why not institute a government-wide preference (not a mandate) for Open Source Office applications? And spend, say, 10% of what they spend now on proprietary software on awarding contracts for supporting, maintaining, and improving said Open Source software so as to meet every last demand made on it in government? They would be looking at huge savings and very high returns.

Or would that be too radical?

Only IE6?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has Google confirmed any of the other attack vectors, or are they only listing those they have a competing product?

French Grammar Nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

Je suis entièrement d'accord.