I have never used Firefox so I don't know if it has the same installer. You can try launching the installer (don't proceed with the installation) and then look in your %TEMP% directory. You should see a folder there that contains the result of the self-unpacking. This should contain the next level installer (SETUP.EXE), the.xpi packages, and a heavily commented file CONFIG.INI that tells the installer what to install and how to configure it.
In that case, take a closer look at the Mozilla installer. The.exe for Windows you download is actually a self-extracting executable that in turn contains a number of.xpi packages, an installer, and a configfile that describes what to install and how to configure it. Unpack the first stage, modify the file, add any additional.xpi packages you like (and add them to the file) and your client pc's just have to start the installer. All updating and configuration will take place fully automatically and without "CANCEL" button for the user to press.
Many commercial packages will not be able to do that, or make it very unclear how to do it. ("you should not modify the installation process because the user has to manually agree to the EULA". My *ss. A corporate user is not in the position to agree or not agree to a EULA anyway.)
WebCalendar works quite well. We have been using it as a company calendar with about 200 users for 3 or 4 years. Instead of syncing with a PDA, we use mobile access to the calendar server. That is better than syncing anyway. WebCalendar can propose meetings and send mail about them itself. It is just a matter of working from the calendar instead of from the mail.
When we needed a calendar, we looked at Netscape Calendar and we chose WebCalendar at that time. It has turned out to be a good choice. Netscape Calendar disappeared in the next revision, and we have switched to Mozilla which does not support that version of the calendar at all. WebCalendar has been working without a hitch.
But the Mozilla installer already supports that. I have used MSI with Office 2000 but it was not as flexible as the ads promised me. You can set some things but only those that are in the gui that creates the transform. With Mozilla it is all textfiles and you can do what you want.
We use the Mozilla installer to install Mozilla with predefined settings, add a language pack, add some dictionaries. It would be possible to install plugins as well.
When a new version is released, it is a few minutes work to update the installer files (we keep a set of patches and they usually apply without problem) and automatically install it on all workstations.
Maybe MSI would be possible, but it would be slower at least.
> I always want to be able to view all of the feature rich multimedia sites, however, I am unable to do this in Mozilla.
Of course this is mostly a problem of the sites, not of the browser. Those sites are not serving platform-neutral HTML content with open multimedia extensions, they are written for use with IE and usually with IE on Windows only.
>We've also had a similar problem with the lack of an msi for mozilla/thunderbird/firebird rollouts. Makes mass migrations near impossible. Mozilla does not seem to want to address large scale use such as terminal services and automated installs.
You seem to be a Microsoft addict. IE is better for you. But for others who want an objective look at the situation: you are talking plain nonsense. The Mozilla installer is very well adapted to automated installs. We update to each new version with only very little effort, the installer is easier to use than most commercial products.
What do you mean it is bloatware? You mean it includes a mailer? But we USE the mailer. So when it wasn't included, it would have to be a separate program. And when that separate mailer wants to display a HTML message, it somehow needs to include HTML functionality that the browser already has. You mean it includes the composer? But when you want to compose a mail message in HTML you are using that same composer. So it is required anyway.
I think when using browser+mail, Mozilla does not include that much extra stuff you are not going to use. The newsreader may be of more limited use, but that seems only a small part.
'Useful' depending on how you define that. You may consider it 'useful to know', but as there is usually no way to stop that abuse, you are going to have to live with a lot of bounce messages that cost you work and traffic. Not very useful, imho.
I hope for you that it is as secure as you think. Remember that Explorer and Internet Explorer are very closely related on 2000 and XP. You will open a HTML page rendered by IE with a simple click in the explorer. That one will not run as your restricted user.
We run all our users with very restricted permissions (they are not even allowed to write anywhere on C: except in their profile dir) but I am not so sure that some exploit could not silently creep in. Parts of IE are so closely related to the OS that they may have elevated privileges...
It may be a feature, but it is not a well thought-out feature. You may have had some application for it, probably to work around some limitation elsewhere in the program, but in general it is not a good idea to have all these macrocapabilities in a wordprocessor program, as it will mean that documents you receive from outside can no longer be considered safe until they are fully audited.
I fully agree that it should be fixed. But it has been in there for several versions, so the real question is: will it be fixed? It seems the Mozilla people claim that it is partly a fault of the slashdot software, and this may well be true as I have never seen this on any other site.
It looks OK in Opera 7.51 A complete toolbar with navigation buttons is available. Just like in Mozilla: invisible by default, but can be switched on in the View menu. And there is also a submenu under the Navigate menu.
And Mozilla already supports that! What is missing is the support on websites. (Slashdot has some support for it, try to enable the "navigation toolbar")
I can second that. At work we have a website that is visited by "average users", people working at small and medium sized companies, governmental agencies, etc. We have 97-98% IE users. The remainder has to be shared between all the others, including Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror etc.
Internally we use Mozilla. Lots of our employees and relations fight with viruses, worms and spyware. But when suggesting Mozilla, they usually take the suggestion but do not change, maybe later ask about "Mozarella" or mention that they read in the local paper that it is a safer browser.
But in the end they stick to IE and Outlook Express. And keep sending out Sober and Netsky messages.
Don't forget that having a virus or spyware program on the PC often does not cause too many problems for the owner, only for others. They are not too bothered by it.
I think this is the normal situation. Installing a.xpi is done by clicking on a link to the.xpi file on Internet, or by choosing "Open file" inside Mozilla and selecting the.xpi
Originally IE did the same thing as Mozilla does now, this was once identified as a bug/security issue, and then it was fixed in IE itself, not in Windows. So others that have the same problem need to be fixed independently. This has now happened.
To know if IE really does not pass shell: urls, type one of these in your address bar: shell:windows shell:cookies
That is not useful capacity, isn't it? 600 dollars worth of HD drives store the same amount of data as your 3600 dollar unit.
I have looked at DVDs, but the tiny capacity is the real problem. When you are trying to replace a DAT tape, OK. But most modern systems have storage of the order of hundred(s) of gigabytes, and a 4.7 GB medium (even if you have 200 of them) really doesn't cut it.
Don't forget that you still need to have the hardware (tape drive) and software (backup program) by the time you need to do the restore. Backup equipment gets replaced because more and more capacity is needed all the time, and the QIC-250 cartridges created using an archaic backup program may still be in the cellar, but who will be able to read them in 10 years?
Slashdot Mirror
I have never used Firefox so I don't know if it has the same installer. .xpi packages, and a heavily commented file CONFIG.INI that tells the installer what to install and how to configure it.
You can try launching the installer (don't proceed with the installation) and then look in your %TEMP% directory. You should see a folder there that contains the result of the self-unpacking.
This should contain the next level installer (SETUP.EXE), the
In that case, take a closer look at the Mozilla installer. .exe for Windows you download is actually a self-extracting executable that in turn contains a number of .xpi packages, an installer, and a configfile that describes what to install and how to configure it. .xpi packages you like (and add them to the file) and your client pc's just have to start the installer. All updating and configuration will take place fully automatically and without "CANCEL" button for the user to press.
The
Unpack the first stage, modify the file, add any additional
Many commercial packages will not be able to do that, or make it very unclear how to do it.
("you should not modify the installation process because the user has to manually agree to the EULA". My *ss. A corporate user is not in the position to agree or not agree to a EULA anyway.)
WebCalendar works quite well. We have been using it as a company calendar with about 200 users for 3 or 4 years.
Instead of syncing with a PDA, we use mobile access to the calendar server. That is better than syncing anyway.
WebCalendar can propose meetings and send mail about them itself. It is just a matter of working from the calendar instead of from the mail.
When we needed a calendar, we looked at Netscape Calendar and we chose WebCalendar at that time. It has turned out to be a good choice. Netscape Calendar disappeared in the next revision, and we have switched to Mozilla which does not support that version of the calendar at all. WebCalendar has been working without a hitch.
But the Mozilla installer already supports that.
I have used MSI with Office 2000 but it was not as flexible as the ads promised me. You can set some things but only those that are in the gui that creates the transform.
With Mozilla it is all textfiles and you can do what you want.
We use the Mozilla installer to install Mozilla with predefined settings, add a language pack, add some dictionaries. It would be possible to install plugins as well.
When a new version is released, it is a few minutes work to update the installer files (we keep a set of patches and they usually apply without problem) and automatically install it on all workstations.
Maybe MSI would be possible, but it would be slower at least.
> I always want to be able to view all of the feature rich multimedia sites, however, I am unable to do this in Mozilla.
Of course this is mostly a problem of the sites, not of the browser. Those sites are not serving platform-neutral HTML content with open multimedia extensions, they are written for use with IE and usually with IE on Windows only.
>We've also had a similar problem with the lack of an msi for mozilla/thunderbird/firebird rollouts. Makes mass migrations near impossible. Mozilla does not seem to want to address large scale use such as terminal services and automated installs.
You seem to be a Microsoft addict. IE is better for you.
But for others who want an objective look at the situation: you are talking plain nonsense. The Mozilla installer is very well adapted to automated installs. We update to each new version with only very little effort, the installer is easier to use than most commercial products.
What do you mean it is bloatware?
You mean it includes a mailer? But we USE the mailer. So when it wasn't included, it would have to be a separate program.
And when that separate mailer wants to display a HTML message, it somehow needs to include HTML functionality that the browser already has.
You mean it includes the composer? But when you want to compose a mail message in HTML you are using that same composer. So it is required anyway.
I think when using browser+mail, Mozilla does not include that much extra stuff you are not going to use.
The newsreader may be of more limited use, but that seems only a small part.
The calendar seems to be a toy project. A calendar for personal use only, that gets too limited pretty quickly!
When you want a better calendar, have a look at WebCalendar at http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/mzou/webCal/
'Useful' depending on how you define that.
You may consider it 'useful to know', but as there is usually no way to stop that abuse, you are going to have to live with a lot of bounce messages that cost you work and traffic. Not very useful, imho.
That is true in most countries, even those who think that they are free.
I hope for you that it is as secure as you think.
Remember that Explorer and Internet Explorer are very closely related on 2000 and XP. You will open a HTML page rendered by IE with a simple click in the explorer. That one will not run as your restricted user.
We run all our users with very restricted permissions (they are not even allowed to write anywhere on C: except in their profile dir) but I am not so sure that some exploit could not silently creep in. Parts of IE are so closely related to the OS that they may have elevated privileges...
It may be a feature, but it is not a well thought-out feature.
You may have had some application for it, probably to work around some limitation elsewhere in the program, but in general it is not a good idea to have all these macrocapabilities in a wordprocessor program, as it will mean that documents you receive from outside can no longer be considered safe until they are fully audited.
I remember there has been a Windows Update fix for this.
I fully agree that it should be fixed.
But it has been in there for several versions, so the real question is: will it be fixed?
It seems the Mozilla people claim that it is partly a fault of the slashdot software, and this may well be true as I have never seen this on any other site.
Gates has the typical American tendency of not understanding that in other parts of the world people may not think like the Americans.
When other people do not think like you, don't consider them dangerous but try to understand them.
It looks OK in Opera 7.51
A complete toolbar with navigation buttons is available.
Just like in Mozilla: invisible by default, but can be switched on in the View menu.
And there is also a submenu under the Navigate menu.
In what version was it dropped?
I am running Mozilla 1.7 and the feature is still in there.
It works on Slashdot!
That should have been "site navigation bar"
And Mozilla already supports that!
What is missing is the support on websites.
(Slashdot has some support for it, try to enable the "navigation toolbar")
I can second that. At work we have a website that is visited by "average users", people working at small and medium sized companies, governmental agencies, etc. We have 97-98% IE users. The remainder has to be shared between all the others, including Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror etc.
Internally we use Mozilla. Lots of our employees and relations fight with viruses, worms and spyware. But when suggesting Mozilla, they usually take the suggestion but do not change, maybe later ask about "Mozarella" or mention that they read in the local paper that it is a safer browser.
But in the end they stick to IE and Outlook Express. And keep sending out Sober and Netsky messages.
Don't forget that having a virus or spyware program on the PC often does not cause too many problems for the owner, only for others. They are not too bothered by it.
I think this is the normal situation. .xpi is done by clicking on a link to the .xpi file on Internet, or by choosing "Open file" inside Mozilla and selecting the .xpi
Installing a
Originally IE did the same thing as Mozilla does now, this was once identified as a bug/security issue, and then it was fixed in IE itself, not in Windows.
So others that have the same problem need to be fixed independently. This has now happened.
To know if IE really does not pass shell: urls, type one of these in your address bar:
shell:windows
shell:cookies
Maybe you need to login as an administrator.
That would be requiired when your machine has been reasonably secured.
That is not useful capacity, isn't it?
600 dollars worth of HD drives store the same amount of data as your 3600 dollar unit.
I have looked at DVDs, but the tiny capacity is the real problem. When you are trying to replace a DAT tape, OK. But most modern systems have storage of the order of hundred(s) of gigabytes, and a 4.7 GB medium (even if you have 200 of them) really doesn't cut it.
Don't forget that you still need to have the hardware (tape drive) and software (backup program) by the time you need to do the restore.
Backup equipment gets replaced because more and more capacity is needed all the time, and the QIC-250 cartridges created using an archaic backup program may still be in the cellar, but who will be able to read them in 10 years?