"Considering their basis for this decision is some kind of market data about fewer IE7 users abandoning their accounts, yes they would be dumb enough to block free browsers that run on more secure platforms than Windoze."
What does a phishing scam have to do with how secure a platform is? Comparing browser to browser, if browser A helps protect against phishing and browser B doesn't, then browser A is more secure (in that respect). I doubt anyone that has lost money to a phishing scam would disagree.
"The whole phishing problem is one created by M$ - it would not exist without the high percentage of compromised desktop machines that are sending out spam in the first place."
What does the origin of the email have to do with protecting people who receive the email?
"IE7 is no more safe than it is standards compliant because the platform itself is easily, remotely compromised with keyloggers that report user information regardless of user activity."
1. Standards compliance has nothing to do with this argument.
2. IE7 is very secure, particularly on Vista, where the product runs on a less privileged account.
"This whole thing is stupid"
If you are taking about your post, then yes, I agree.
"And even the CEO is, ultimately, just an employee."
True... but as a consumer/investor, I prefer my CEO's to "eat their own dog food". While the CEO can get whatever service he wants; he's hurting the company he represents by going with the competition instead of his own service because it shows (or at least looks as if) his own product is lacking what the competition has.
I'm not defending Vista at all...I'm still using XP as my main OS (I do have Vista on a laptop, however). All I'm saying is that Vista is not really "taking" 700MB of memory, which seems to be what many people seem to think because they are used to NT's memory management.
"That is immediately at boot, and frankly we're talking about gaming. When loading massive cells of land mass, NPCs, scripts, and textures, you need free memory."
Vista is supposed to free the memory when memory is required. This is a very similar model to what is used in Linux.
"My XP box only needs about 50 megs of memory when I disable all the unnecessary cruft. Vista out of the box requires 500-700 megs of memory in the background."
Vista isn't necessarily using all of that memory....unused memory is wasted memory, and Vista tries to load up memory with what it feels you will use in the near future.
""But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market." a statement totally disproved by the fact that IE is still the #1 PC browser and it's a pile of crap with holes so big you could drive not just a Safari, but the whole of the African plains through it."
1. IE6 may have been full of security holes, but IE7 is not. 2. Given Fire Fox's relatively quick increase in market share before the release of IE7, I'd say that the argument holds, users (at least on Windows) will switch to the better browser. Note that I am not saying IE7 is better than FF, but aside from plugins it is less clear what advantages FF has over IE.
"Lets see you run some video games on Gentoo. Sure, M$ has an unstable unreliable operating system, but I don't want to have to spend an hour configuring my system every time I get a new game."
I will agree with you that by default Windows is less reliable than Linux/BSD/Mac security wise (and I'll argue that it is just as good or almost as good if properly configured), but Windows has been very stable for me since 2000.
"Quicktime has always caused me problems with any version of Windows at home. I have perfectly stable systems Windows systems (I know, it's weird) until I install Quicktime and then it's only a matter of time. "
I've had the same experience with Windows XP. It's been a while, so I don't remember if Quicktime itself would crash, or if it would cause BSOD. Either way I've uninstalled QT and haven't had an issue since. Quite frankly, I don't need the aggravation.
"It's not Apple's problem, and MSFT will be in no hurry to release a patch to allow you to play a rivals filetype, so I'd suggest you export it as a wmv or dump the POS and get a Mac."
Let me get this straight, there's a strong possibility that the issue is being caused by Apple software and you're telling him that he needs to dump his PC and buy a computer made by the manufacturer of that software?
Women and men are different, we just think different and enjoy different things. Men tend to enjoy playing with the latest and greatest toys, and IT lends itself to playing with the latest and greatest toys. I really don't see that in most women. That's not to say that many women in IT don't enjoy the work, but something tells me lots of women in IT got into the field in the late 90's when any joe schmoe (or in this case jane schmoe) in IT could make money. Now that there's not quite as much money flowing, there's much less of an incentive to stay in a career they weren't enjoying to begin with.
"Who said I wasn't buying a top of the line video card? I've got an nvidia geforce 8800 gts. That's more than capable."
Fair enough. Do you think that with an 8800 you'd notice a difference in gaming performance between a c2d and AMD (at whatever resolution you play games at)? I'm not trolling or anything, I'm just curious.
"I'm about to build a machine. According to Tom's Hardware, if you want to build a gaming machine these days, you have to go core 2 duo. AMD is posting a loss because they can't compete right now. Not news."
I'm no longer a big gamer, but it seems to me that a top (or near top) of the line video card is far more important than having a top of the line cpu. Wouldn't you be better off getting a sub $200 AMD cpu (which are plenty fast, IMO) and spending the saved cash on a better cpu?
"Please explain the existence of "AirFones" if this is true?"
I don't know how much the use of an airfone is per minute, but I imagine its much, much more than the use of a cellphone. The problem isn't a couple of people using the phone for a few minutes, its having 50 or so people babbling on the phone at any given time, for an extended period of time.
At what point are we no longer human? Our thoughts stem from the firing of neurons. If half of those neurons are computer chips, was it a human thought or a computer generated though. I'm all for finding cures to Alzheimer's disease, but I do not want to be a glorified computer case. I did not read the article (yet), and I realize that the part of the brain discussed in the article is probably different than the creative parts of the brain, but I still think its a valid question; at what point do we stop being human (as we know it)?
I was thinking the same thing. And I really hate the phrase "tech product," what does that really mean? Anything is a "tech product" when it first comes out.
"I'd like to add something to the 'big car' debate. It's not only a moacho thing. I have friends in the US who got hit by a SUV while in a small car and were lucky to escape alive."
My cousin used that logic. He had a small VW Jetta, which was more or less destroyed by a collision SUV, which came out of the accident "barely scratched" (I'm sure he exaggerated though). I'm curious as to how safe he thinks his truck is if he eventually flips over, or smashes into a tree because he thinks his truck drives so much better in the winter.
"That is only if protected mode is on right.. so all this allows the 'sploit to do is download all of the user files and use/view any other process that the user has right to?"
I believe you're always in "protected mode;" even when you're on an admin account you're still not in "super user" mode.
Slashdot Mirror
"You realize OpenDNS also throws up ads when you mistype a URL, right? That includes subdomains, by the way."
No, I didn't realize that (haven't tried it yet). Thanks for the heads up (though I still might switch because of the anti-phishing features).
to switch to opendns. (I'm an Earthlink subscriber; I pay them a monthly fee, I don't think they should be cashing in on my type-o's).
"Considering their basis for this decision is some kind of market data about fewer IE7 users abandoning their accounts, yes they would be dumb enough to block free browsers that run on more secure platforms than Windoze."
What does a phishing scam have to do with how secure a platform is? Comparing browser to browser, if browser A helps protect against phishing and browser B doesn't, then browser A is more secure (in that respect). I doubt anyone that has lost money to a phishing scam would disagree.
"The whole phishing problem is one created by M$ - it would not exist without the high percentage of compromised desktop machines that are sending out spam in the first place."
What does the origin of the email have to do with protecting people who receive the email?
"IE7 is no more safe than it is standards compliant because the platform itself is easily, remotely compromised with keyloggers that report user information regardless of user activity."
1. Standards compliance has nothing to do with this argument.
2. IE7 is very secure, particularly on Vista, where the product runs on a less privileged account.
"This whole thing is stupid"
If you are taking about your post, then yes, I agree.
Im Traffic James bitch!
"And even the CEO is, ultimately, just an employee."
True... but as a consumer/investor, I prefer my CEO's to "eat their own dog food". While the CEO can get whatever service he wants; he's hurting the company he represents by going with the competition instead of his own service because it shows (or at least looks as if) his own product is lacking what the competition has.
I'm not defending Vista at all...I'm still using XP as my main OS (I do have Vista on a laptop, however). All I'm saying is that Vista is not really "taking" 700MB of memory, which seems to be what many people seem to think because they are used to NT's memory management.
"That is immediately at boot, and frankly we're talking about gaming. When loading massive cells of land mass, NPCs, scripts, and textures, you need free memory."
Vista is supposed to free the memory when memory is required. This is a very similar model to what is used in Linux.
"My XP box only needs about 50 megs of memory when I disable all the unnecessary cruft. Vista out of the box requires 500-700 megs of memory in the background." Vista isn't necessarily using all of that memory....unused memory is wasted memory, and Vista tries to load up memory with what it feels you will use in the near future.
I found your blog post very interesting; thank you for taking the time to write it.
""But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market." a statement totally disproved by the fact that IE is still the #1 PC browser and it's a pile of crap with holes so big you could drive not just a Safari, but the whole of the African plains through it."
1. IE6 may have been full of security holes, but IE7 is not.
2. Given Fire Fox's relatively quick increase in market share before the release of IE7, I'd say that the argument holds, users (at least on Windows) will switch to the better browser. Note that I am not saying IE7 is better than FF, but aside from plugins it is less clear what advantages FF has over IE.
"Sly sad it was prescribed by his doctors for a "mystery medical ailment"."
I guess having a 6 pack and 60 is just a side effect?
From my understanding IE7 is pretty secure, especially on Vista.
They coded rape into a game? WTF?!
"Lets see you run some video games on Gentoo. Sure, M$ has an unstable unreliable operating system, but I don't want to have to spend an hour configuring my system every time I get a new game."
I will agree with you that by default Windows is less reliable than Linux/BSD/Mac security wise (and I'll argue that it is just as good or almost as good if properly configured), but Windows has been very stable for me since 2000.
"Quicktime has always caused me problems with any version of Windows at home. I have perfectly stable systems Windows systems (I know, it's weird) until I install Quicktime and then it's only a matter of time. "
I've had the same experience with Windows XP. It's been a while, so I don't remember if Quicktime itself would crash, or if it would cause BSOD. Either way I've uninstalled QT and haven't had an issue since. Quite frankly, I don't need the aggravation.
"It's not Apple's problem, and MSFT will be in no hurry to release a patch to allow you to play a rivals filetype, so I'd suggest you export it as a wmv or dump the POS and get a Mac."
Let me get this straight, there's a strong possibility that the issue is being caused by Apple software and you're telling him that he needs to dump his PC and buy a computer made by the manufacturer of that software?
Women and men are different, we just think different and enjoy different things. Men tend to enjoy playing with the latest and greatest toys, and IT lends itself to playing with the latest and greatest toys. I really don't see that in most women. That's not to say that many women in IT don't enjoy the work, but something tells me lots of women in IT got into the field in the late 90's when any joe schmoe (or in this case jane schmoe) in IT could make money. Now that there's not quite as much money flowing, there's much less of an incentive to stay in a career they weren't enjoying to begin with.
"Who said I wasn't buying a top of the line video card? I've got an nvidia geforce 8800 gts. That's more than capable."
Fair enough. Do you think that with an 8800 you'd notice a difference in gaming performance between a c2d and AMD (at whatever resolution you play games at)? I'm not trolling or anything, I'm just curious.
"I'm about to build a machine. According to Tom's Hardware, if you want to build a gaming machine these days, you have to go core 2 duo. AMD is posting a loss because they can't compete right now. Not news."
I'm no longer a big gamer, but it seems to me that a top (or near top) of the line video card is far more important than having a top of the line cpu. Wouldn't you be better off getting a sub $200 AMD cpu (which are plenty fast, IMO) and spending the saved cash on a better cpu?
"Please explain the existence of "AirFones" if this is true?"
I don't know how much the use of an airfone is per minute, but I imagine its much, much more than the use of a cellphone. The problem isn't a couple of people using the phone for a few minutes, its having 50 or so people babbling on the phone at any given time, for an extended period of time.
At what point are we no longer human? Our thoughts stem from the firing of neurons. If half of those neurons are computer chips, was it a human thought or a computer generated though. I'm all for finding cures to Alzheimer's disease, but I do not want to be a glorified computer case. I did not read the article (yet), and I realize that the part of the brain discussed in the article is probably different than the creative parts of the brain, but I still think its a valid question; at what point do we stop being human (as we know it)?
I was thinking the same thing. And I really hate the phrase "tech product," what does that really mean? Anything is a "tech product" when it first comes out.
"I'd like to add something to the 'big car' debate. It's not only a moacho thing. I have friends in the US who got hit by a SUV while in a small car and were lucky to escape alive."
My cousin used that logic. He had a small VW Jetta, which was more or less destroyed by a collision SUV, which came out of the accident "barely scratched" (I'm sure he exaggerated though). I'm curious as to how safe he thinks his truck is if he eventually flips over, or smashes into a tree because he thinks his truck drives so much better in the winter.
"You mean that this feature is only available to IE, and you cannot install a user-written appication that has the same privilege system?
.exe or systemcall from within the .exe, not by "magic mechanism"..."
I smell an antitrust lawsuit... such a feature should be determined by ACL on the
Are you sure about that, or just speculating? I'm just curious.... as this seems like it could be useful in other types of apps as well.
"That is only if protected mode is on right.. so all this allows the 'sploit to do is download all of the user files and use /view any other process that the user has right to?"
I believe you're always in "protected mode;" even when you're on an admin account you're still not in "super user" mode.