IE: anyone thinking about moving to mozilla/firefox?

[groovin]

with all the spyware/malware/adware and download.ject style viruses that are running wild right now, was anyone considering moving themselves and/or their organization away from IE to mozilla/firefox?? MS just had a whole load of new IE vulnerabilities posted today and it took them a while to patch the previous exploit just a week ago.

yes, i am aware that mozilla/firefox just had a major exploit made public and that 90% of the world is on IE so it will naturally be the target of most evil doers, but many will agree that mozilla is more secure and has a better repuation for fixes and security initiatives.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The mozilla/ff exploit was actually a windows problem.

 

[duragezic]

Yeah of course, get with the times mang!

I was an IE-only user forever. I used IE 5.0 in win2k for quite long too until games would force me to install IE 6. I NEVER had a problem with IE. Yeah there is mad security flaws in IE but I never experienced any major problems from this. I only got not too much spyware which was usually easily removed by ad-aware. It's the user's problem when machines get as effed up with it as I have seen some of 'em get! And all the time I was hearing more and more Mozilla/Opera/Firefox talk but I was like pfft and didn't even consider it since IE was fine for me.

But then one day a couple weeks ago I decided to give FF a try. I will NEVER go back!!!!!!!! There is nothing that IE offers over FF and FF is WAY better in several respects: tabbed browsing, other extensions, security... and not having the internet browser part of the system files is a plus also!

 

[groovin]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The mozilla/ff exploit was actually a windows problem.

yeah that mozilla only did what it was supposed to handed the object off to windows xp which has a fix in sp2... oh wait, sp2 isnt released yet AND was delayed...

Originally posted by: duragezic
Yeah there is mad security flaws in IE but I never experienced any major problems from this. I only got not too much spyware which was usually easily removed by ad-aware.

i think spyware is a major problem... even if ad-aware can remove it. Ive found computers with 500+ spyware objects running on them as well as some keyloggers. now thats pretty major. i

 

[groovin]

oh yeah, and i have been using firefox for a little while now and have no desire of using IE on my windows boxes except for windowsupdates.

 

[osage]

yes, I switched a couple weeks ago......

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: groovin

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The mozilla/ff exploit was actually a windows problem.

yeah that mozilla only did what it was supposed to handed the object off to windows xp which has a fix in sp2... oh wait, sp2 isnt released yet AND was delayed...

Actually MS claimed it was fixed in IE service pack 2.

Which it wasn't, they only changed IE around so that it issued a dialog when faced with links that had shell: in them, the actual flaw was still present. It only prevented the exploits that were floating around from working, so it was "fixed' instead of actually fixing the flawed design (my speculation).

Since then it has also popped up in other applications, other then IE and Mozilla. MS office or word or something like that had the exploit present.

When the underlyning OS is f-ed up, then any fix to any application is just a workaround. It's like going to a doctor with a sucking chest wound caused a angry spouse with a screwdriver and they injected some novicane and slapped a flinstone bandaid on it as a "fix". And your angry spouse is still waiting for you to get home, this time with a even bigger screwdriver.

Maybe SP2 for XP or something will realy fix this problem for good. Don't know.


BTW some new "extremely critical" flaws were found in IE today

Well, another week another half dozen IE security flaws. The particular one can be disabled by turn off "active scripting".

 

[groovin]

i hate it when vendors band-aid problems. soon you have a entire OS made of band-aids.

 

[pitupepito2000]

When the underlyning OS is f-ed up, then any fix to any application is just a workaround. It's like going to a doctor with a sucking chest wound caused a angry spouse with a screwdriver and they injected some novicane and slapped a flinstone bandaid on it as a "fix". And your angry spouse is still waiting for you to get home, this time with a even bigger screwdriver.

Totally agree here, with you. M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

I have been using Mozilla and some of its derivatives for over 2 years, and I love them. I hate using IE, not just because it is a bad browser, but because it relies on the OS so much, and now since the newer versions of IE are going to be built on as part of the OS it tells you how much worse it is going to get. I remember reading on ./ not long ago that the security flaw that Firefox had under windows, was a fault of the OS itself, and that also MSN messenger and other apps might be also affected by this internal flaw.

 

[Kilrsat]

I switched to Firefox a few weeks ago.

Firefox + AdBlock = Best browsing experience ever. An espn website with 100% content and 0 annoying ads, its amazing.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

When the underlyning OS is f-ed up, then any fix to any application is just a workaround. It's like going to a doctor with a sucking chest wound caused a angry spouse with a screwdriver and they injected some novicane and slapped a flinstone bandaid on it as a "fix". And your angry spouse is still waiting for you to get home, this time with a even bigger screwdriver.

Totally agree here, with you. M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

I have been using Mozilla and some of its derivatives for over 2 years, and I love them. I hate using IE, not just because it is a bad browser, but because it relies on the OS so much, and now since the newer versions of IE are going to be built on as part of the OS it tells you how much worse it is going to get. I remember reading on ./ not long ago that the security flaw that Firefox had under windows, was a fault of the OS itself, and that also MSN messenger and other apps might be also affected by this internal flaw.

Well it's MS, not M$.

And yes MSN messenger and others were afflicted with the same flaw.

Anyways to say that MS programmers are bad, is doing them a misservice. It's the enviroment itself that it sucks.

Take for instance the intense need for MS people to be 100%, or as close as possible to backward compatability. With Linux, if a update to a library breaks a package or a compiled program, you simply update and more then likely a fixed version is their waiting for you.

Depreciented features, and such are easy to deal with when dealing with stuff like Mozilla. Worst case is that you just have to download the newest version.

But what is MS going to do if a update breaks Office 2000? Make everybody go out and buy Office XP? Go back and redo whatever part of Office 2000 is broken?

What about third party programs, you going to make customers buy the newest versions of every peice of software they own in order to fix it so that it can work with the redesigned OS?

There is the now famous example of a memory hack they did in Windows to make SimAnts (or SimCity?) work with a newer version of Windows, it specificly detected weither or not the program was the Sim-whatever and created a special memory protection for it. They probably have hundreds of such mods and hacks all over the OS.

If it was Linux they would of just yelled at the developers and told them: "You can't use memory after you release it, do a bug fix.".

Next time check out a update for Debian, you update X windows for instance you get dozens of programs updated with it. So life for a Linux programmer is going to be easier then for a Windows programmers.

That's just one example but thats just a sample of what MS has to deal with because of the closed source nature of the OS.

Apple wasn't afraid of this problem when dealing with updates to it's OS, so lots of companies that supported Apples only simply went out of business.

 

[groovin]

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000
M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

M$ probaly has great programmers, with that much money how couldnt they? M$ just wants to get features to users and dont seem to be focused on security. its not their talent, its their business.

on the subject of features over security, i dont see too many, if any features that IE provides that mozilla/ff doesnt (well, beisdes windowsupdate maybe). and then i hear all this crap from balmer about how M$ is innovation. whats the innovation in getting a virus from an infected website (a website running on M$ IIS that is).

 

[Abzstrak]

Originally posted by: groovin
i hate it when vendors band-aid problems. soon you have a entire OS made of band-aids.

LMAO, thats what windows is.... ;-)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Microsoft is attacking the symptons instead of the disease. Could they fix things correctly? Sure. But it will take time, and a change in philosophy. There is no denying that Microsoft has a lot of the best programmers out there right now. But they aren't necessarily adept at programming securely. Plus the whole OS is huge. It takes up gigs of space to install, imagine how big the TEXT is that makes up the code. It's going to be a lot of work, but as long as Microsoft is serious about security it will happen.

I was chatting with co-workers a couple of years ago. The question of whether you would want to hire good programmers or secure programmers came up. The consensus was that you should hire the good programmer. Teaching a good programmer to program securely is easier than teaching a secure programmer to be good.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Firefox is now my primary browser. Built from ground up to be customisable as heck and spyware unfriendly. Of course, there are still sites that are still whores to IE, in which case I still resort to IE. Opera is nice too, but reminds me too much of IE.

Sidebar: I still hope the Mozilla dudes would come up with a better logo though. First it looks like some poor bird getting grilled, now it looks like a fox curling up to die (or is it just stoned?). Maybe I just prefer abstract stuff e.g. "Azureus" is way cool.

Originally posted by: groovin
i hate it when vendors band-aid problems. soon you have a entire OS made of band-aids.

And u know what happens when you keep band-aids on for too long? The thing it covers will start to stink. And soon it'll stink bad enough for Micro$oft to do a major OS overhaul (like from Win9x to WinXP)... only to start piling on the patches yet again.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: Kilrsat
I switched to Firefox a few weeks ago.

Firefox + AdBlock = Best browsing experience ever. An espn website with 100% content and 0 annoying ads, its amazing.

If you like AdBlock you should try "privoxy" do a google search for it. Privoxy is a proxy server which completely filtes a whole bunch of annoying ads by default. Requires hardly any set up since the default config is pretty good. Privoxy + Firefox = 0 ads, plus fast web browser experince.

 

[dudeman007]

I changed to firefox just yesterday. God damn IE screwed me over with spyware and trojans. Freakin a. So far so good with firefox.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

When the underlyning OS is f-ed up, then any fix to any application is just a workaround. It's like going to a doctor with a sucking chest wound caused a angry spouse with a screwdriver and they injected some novicane and slapped a flinstone bandaid on it as a "fix". And your angry spouse is still waiting for you to get home, this time with a even bigger screwdriver.

Totally agree here, with you. M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

I have been using Mozilla and some of its derivatives for over 2 years, and I love them. I hate using IE, not just because it is a bad browser, but because it relies on the OS so much, and now since the newer versions of IE are going to be built on as part of the OS it tells you how much worse it is going to get. I remember reading on ./ not long ago that the security flaw that Firefox had under windows, was a fault of the OS itself, and that also MSN messenger and other apps might be also affected by this internal flaw.

Well it's MS, not M$.

And yes MSN messenger and others were afflicted with the same flaw.

Anyways to say that MS programmers are bad, is doing them a misservice. It's the enviroment itself that it sucks.

Take for instance the intense need for MS people to be 100%, or as close as possible to backward compatability. With Linux, if a update to a library breaks a package or a compiled program, you simply update and more then likely a fixed version is their waiting for you.

Depreciented features, and such are easy to deal with when dealing with stuff like Mozilla. Worst case is that you just have to download the newest version.

But what is MS going to do if a update breaks Office 2000? Make everybody go out and buy Office XP? Go back and redo whatever part of Office 2000 is broken?

What about third party programs, you going to make customers buy the newest versions of every peice of software they own in order to fix it so that it can work with the redesigned OS?

There is the now famous example of a memory hack they did in Windows to make SimAnts (or SimCity?) work with a newer version of Windows, it specificly detected weither or not the program was the Sim-whatever and created a special memory protection for it. They probably have hundreds of such mods and hacks all over the OS.

If it was Linux they would of just yelled at the developers and told them: "You can't use memory after you release it, do a bug fix.".

Next time check out a update for Debian, you update X windows for instance you get dozens of programs updated with it. So life for a Linux programmer is going to be easier then for a Windows programmers.

That's just one example but thats just a sample of what MS has to deal with because of the closed source nature of the OS.

Apple wasn't afraid of this problem when dealing with updates to it's OS, so lots of companies that supported Apples only simply went out of business.

You got some good points there drag . I also have to say, that if M$ has a lot of programmers working for them, shouldn't some of them have raised concerns about the quality of the product. I agree that it is harder for them to code because they can't force everybody to buy the new version of Office or Windows because of a bug, or a feature that breaks things in older version. But shouldn't M$ be able to figure out how to compete in terms of "quality of product" with Open Source programs. Maybe they could charge people a yearly fee, or something else, it's up to them to figure it out.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: groovin

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000
M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

M$ probaly has great programmers, with that much money how couldnt they? M$ just wants to get features to users and dont seem to be focused on security. its not their talent, its their business.

on the subject of features over security, i dont see too many, if any features that IE provides that mozilla/ff doesnt (well, beisdes windowsupdate maybe). and then i hear all this crap from balmer about how M$ is innovation. whats the innovation in getting a virus from an infected website (a website running on M$ IIS that is).

You're right groovin, I just don't like it when people sell you products that are not of very good quality or are always breaking. Similar to buying a dishwasher, you want it to be of good quality and materials, you don't want to have a time bomb, that will explode on you whenever some scriptkiddie decides to do so.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Microsoft is attacking the symptons instead of the disease. Could they fix things correctly? Sure. But it will take time, and a change in philosophy. There is no denying that Microsoft has a lot of the best programmers out there right now. But they aren't necessarily adept at programming securely. Plus the whole OS is huge. It takes up gigs of space to install, imagine how big the TEXT is that makes up the code. It's going to be a lot of work, but as long as Microsoft is serious about security it will happen.

I was chatting with co-workers a couple of years ago. The question of whether you would want to hire good programmers or secure programmers came up. The consensus was that you should hire the good programmer. Teaching a good programmer to program securely is easier than teaching a secure programmer to be good.

Aahhh, I wish I could be a good programmer.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

When the underlyning OS is f-ed up, then any fix to any application is just a workaround. It's like going to a doctor with a sucking chest wound caused a angry spouse with a screwdriver and they injected some novicane and slapped a flinstone bandaid on it as a "fix". And your angry spouse is still waiting for you to get home, this time with a even bigger screwdriver.

Totally agree here, with you. M$ has a lot of money, but they sure can't hire very good programmers who actually fix the problem instead of doing just a quick fix.

I have been using Mozilla and some of its derivatives for over 2 years, and I love them. I hate using IE, not just because it is a bad browser, but because it relies on the OS so much, and now since the newer versions of IE are going to be built on as part of the OS it tells you how much worse it is going to get. I remember reading on ./ not long ago that the security flaw that Firefox had under windows, was a fault of the OS itself, and that also MSN messenger and other apps might be also affected by this internal flaw.

Well it's MS, not M$.

And yes MSN messenger and others were afflicted with the same flaw.

Anyways to say that MS programmers are bad, is doing them a misservice. It's the enviroment itself that it sucks.

Take for instance the intense need for MS people to be 100%, or as close as possible to backward compatability. With Linux, if a update to a library breaks a package or a compiled program, you simply update and more then likely a fixed version is their waiting for you.

Depreciented features, and such are easy to deal with when dealing with stuff like Mozilla. Worst case is that you just have to download the newest version.

But what is MS going to do if a update breaks Office 2000? Make everybody go out and buy Office XP? Go back and redo whatever part of Office 2000 is broken?

What about third party programs, you going to make customers buy the newest versions of every peice of software they own in order to fix it so that it can work with the redesigned OS?

There is the now famous example of a memory hack they did in Windows to make SimAnts (or SimCity?) work with a newer version of Windows, it specificly detected weither or not the program was the Sim-whatever and created a special memory protection for it. They probably have hundreds of such mods and hacks all over the OS.

If it was Linux they would of just yelled at the developers and told them: "You can't use memory after you release it, do a bug fix.".

Next time check out a update for Debian, you update X windows for instance you get dozens of programs updated with it. So life for a Linux programmer is going to be easier then for a Windows programmers.

That's just one example but thats just a sample of what MS has to deal with because of the closed source nature of the OS.

Apple wasn't afraid of this problem when dealing with updates to it's OS, so lots of companies that supported Apples only simply went out of business.

You got some good points there drag . I also have to say, that if M$ has a lot of programmers working for them, shouldn't some of them have raised concerns about the quality of the product. I agree that it is harder for them to code because they can't force everybody to buy the new version of Office or Windows because of a bug, or a feature that breaks things in older version. But shouldn't M$ be able to figure out how to compete in terms of "quality of product" with Open Source programs. Maybe they could charge people a yearly fee, or something else, it's up to them to figure it out.

They probably did raise concerns. That might be one of the reasons recent versions of Windows are better than previous versions. Win2k/XP are much much better, IMO, than 98/ME.

They're getting better, but you can't change the philosophy of Microsoft and its customers over night.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Microsoft is attacking the symptons instead of the disease. Could they fix things correctly? Sure. But it will take time, and a change in philosophy. There is no denying that Microsoft has a lot of the best programmers out there right now. But they aren't necessarily adept at programming securely. Plus the whole OS is huge. It takes up gigs of space to install, imagine how big the TEXT is that makes up the code. It's going to be a lot of work, but as long as Microsoft is serious about security it will happen.

I was chatting with co-workers a couple of years ago. The question of whether you would want to hire good programmers or secure programmers came up. The consensus was that you should hire the good programmer. Teaching a good programmer to program securely is easier than teaching a secure programmer to be good.

Aahhh, I wish I could be a good programmer.

Your wish has been granted. You can now become a good programmer.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Microsoft is attacking the symptons instead of the disease. Could they fix things correctly? Sure. But it will take time, and a change in philosophy. There is no denying that Microsoft has a lot of the best programmers out there right now. But they aren't necessarily adept at programming securely. Plus the whole OS is huge. It takes up gigs of space to install, imagine how big the TEXT is that makes up the code. It's going to be a lot of work, but as long as Microsoft is serious about security it will happen.

I was chatting with co-workers a couple of years ago. The question of whether you would want to hire good programmers or secure programmers came up. The consensus was that you should hire the good programmer. Teaching a good programmer to program securely is easier than teaching a secure programmer to be good.

Aahhh, I wish I could be a good programmer.

Your wish has been granted. You can now become a good programmer.

lol

 

[sharq]

I use Mozilla mostly. But I also use IE for my general browsing. I manage this by disabling activex, java, javascript, downloading, etc. It's safe to say everything is disabled. I just went into security and set it to high, and disabled cookies. It would be safe to say that IE is secure for me, there are a few things I can't and don't use it for (checking email, flash pages). But for general browsing works fine.

 

[groovin]

sometimes i think that maybe M$ is slow to recognize or fix problems (fix them the right way, not band-aid) is because it's a sort of admission of guilt. if they were proactive enough to email all their customers and post in big red flashing letters on their home page "NEW EXPLOIT FOUND!" (they do post things on their site, but its usually buried under a few links), then they would be admitting they screwed something up. i dont think the average joe idiot user would say "gee, M$ is really trying to protect my interests" but rather "f%*#!* M$! i dont know what this exploit does, but M$ screwed up and now i have to spend 10 minutes installing a patch rather than watching 'Who wants to marry a crossdressing ex-con millionare"?