convince me to convert firebird/thunderbird

[Schadenfroh]

IE/Outlook express lifer here, i have adshield that blocks Banner and pop up ads within IE, i have very paranoid security settings and my bugs are updated thru windows update. but im curious about firefox/thuderbird

1. how is thunderbird more secure than outlooks express?
2. same for firebird, since IE and Outlook get security updates thru Windows update, how is it more secure?
3. is there any plugin for firebird that allows me more control over my privacy/cookie settings
4. does Firebird get less spyware with its cookie settings than with IEs Medium High settings?
5. can firebird work with my virtual machine?
6. can it work with plugins already installed in IE?
7. will thunderbird easily import my accounts from outlook express?
8. Any other reasons i should switch to thunderbird?
9. Any other reasons i should switch to firebird?

thanks

btw, will spyware blaster work with firebird, also spybots host files?

 

[Nothinman]

The big reason is you don't need all that paranoia, a lot of the work is already done simply by Mozilla not using the MSHTML rendering engine. And you don't need extra plugins for the security features, all the cookie, username/password, form settings, etc are in the normal preferances.

How about you just install it and try it, nothing we say will speak as well as the software does for itself.

 

[igowerf]

Yeah. As Northinman pointed out, all of the extra precautions we take with IE aren't necessary. You're left to just enjoy all the extra features of the browser. So..... assuming that your current install of IE is just as secure as Firebird, you should still choose Firebird because it has lots of extra features like mouse gestures, tab browsing, etc. Pretty much anything you could want is available as a plug-in.

 

[ponyo]

yup, just try it for yourself. If you don't like it, it's simple as deleting the program folder.

 

[Czar]

before you do try http://crazybrowser.com/
the best new UI features of firebird and all the backend of ie

also very tiny and easy on the computer since well its just ie with a new and improved interface

 

[clicknext]

No, you convince yourself by trying.

But seriously, mozilla doesn't have as many security problems and bugs in the first place. Firebird gets a lot less spyware, no doubt at least partly because most people make spyware for IE rather than mozilla.

 

[Nothinman]

the best new UI features of firebird and all the backend of ie

But, the backend of IE is where almost all of it's problems eminate from. I would much rather be able to replace MSHTML on a Windows system with Gecko.

 

[ClueLis]

1. Many email viruses are designed for Outlook and OE.
2. Same reason, and Firefox (they just changed the same, and it sucks) also doesn't use ActiveX.
3. Not any more than given by default (what exactly are you looking for). You might find some more stuff by looking through about:config (type it in the url bar).
4. Yes. I've never heard of a case of anyone getting spyware using Firefox/bird.
5. Check the software info. If it requires ActiveX, then no. If it is Java based, you'll be fine once you install Java for it.
6. No. The plugin arcitectures are incompatible. Let me know what you have either here or by PM though, and I can likely find pretty much everything in a similar form.
7. Reasonably so. There's a simple Tools->Import option. Just follow the wizard that comes up.
8. Thunderbird has Bayesian junk mail filtering (present in Outlook 2003, but not OE), which does a fantastic job of killing spam. Other than that, I consider it slightly more feature-rich than OE, but a little less so than Outlook.
9. Tabbed browsing. Popup blocking. It can actually render CSS correctly. Infinite customizeability and extensibility (themes, extensions [AdBlock, mouse gestures, external application buttons to name a few], every setting is changeable in about:config, mycroft extensions, which allow you to search any one of dozens of search engines in the search box, the list goes on). It's also open source, so you can do anything with the code you wish.

Edit: If you want an idea of all the possible extensions, go here.