Windows How Can I Trust Firefox?

This link was on Slashdot a little while ago. J/W what you lot thought about it?

P.S. I find it hilarious that his website (on MSDN) is not using valid HTML.

 

ha ha you never know where these mirror servers come from.

What if he was actually right and 10 million people downloaded back doors without knowing? lol

 

Moving to software.

*n

 

This is probably one of the best replies:

Whoops!

edit: And just to add a point here... who really cares if the installer is signed or not. How many home users even know that means to them.

How do THEY know they can trust Verisign?? I'm an IT Professional and I certainly don't trust Verisign. Never have, never will; just look at their track record with the .com/.net registry.

Plus I've already seen adware/spyware components on the web that are signed, I made the (very stupid) mistake of clicking Accept. Makes no difference whether something is signed or not. You will still be screwed over by someone if they're that desperate to screw you over.

 

I never realized installing Firefox could be so scary! (I've only done it 10 times without a single problem.)

Do you think firefox is responsible for the broken images, or is he waiting to get them digitally signed before posting them?

Sorry, but while I do agree there are a few issues where software companies such as macromedia and adobe did not take Firefox seriously and make a functional installer, I don't think that it is as insecure as IE.

While IE does say "hey! you are about to willfully install an application that could be bad!" it would automatically install stuff that certainly was bad. (can we say Browser Help Objects?)

But all in all, I don't use Firefox for the security neccessarily. Its more for its non-suckyness. And if microsoft doesn't digitally sign it, that's my first sign that it is worth installing!

 

It's a bit sad that the only major thing that MS can pick at is the VeriSign crap. How many run of the mill users even understand what code signing is anyway?

The article sort of says that you shouldn't trust anything that isn't signed, and I sure as hell would bet that 99% of stuff out there isn't signed. What stops some malware company getting their code signed? Does that mean it's ok to trust it if they have?

Regarding that stuff about 'default' selected buttons - do you pay attention to what is selected by default? I don't - i'll make my own decision thanks

Thankfully a lot of this has been counter argued in the comments quite well.

I must admit, though, that when i've downloaded FF and it's redirected me to a mirror, i've MD5 hashed it against a version off mozilla's own FTP. I do that as a matter of practise from most places that offer mirrors.

Edit:

If VeriSign is such a good method of determining whether to trust a file, why then is this warning in a small font at the bottom of the window? Hardly invites me to want to pay much attention to the warning!

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr/archive/2004/12/21/328377.aspx

Looks like he has countered a lot of the 'mistakes' he made, which is fair enough

 

I've always stuck with IE, then about 4 hours ago I decided to switch to firefox, tbh the only extra thing I like about firefox is the inbuilt download manager, in some ways I think I prefer IE, a bit faster I think and more reliable - I've had firefox crash twice already, and IE hasn't crashed for a while... Now this security thing... I might just stick with firefox for now and see how I like it.

 

I'd like to think of myself as a bit more than run of the mill (I've opened a case for one thing ) and I barely understand what it is. From what I've read it just means you paid to get the warning label before installing removed.

That guy REALLY doesn't get that the ad in NYT was sponsored by all the users that love it. I would have myself if I wasn't so cheap.

 

I think he was being sarcastic, hence the <g>s. He does seem to have a real problem with the advert though. It's like Microsoft has never advertised its products before. What is the big deal?

The guy is a moron.

 

He proves a point. Why doesnt mozilla use all that money to buy themselves more bandwith AND display the users name on the website instead of a stupid paper that nobody reads.

 

Money for the adverts were paid by people who like and use firefox, I'm not sure whether people would've donated money if the money was used to increase bandwidth?

 

Because it doesnt fix a problem. Mozilla foundation doesnt need more bandwidth beacuse alot of educational institutions in the states and in other contries support open source software by donating their servers and net connections.

The whole point of that advert was to increase firefox's exposure to people who dont go to forums or have the knowledge to work out how much of a security risk IE is.

 

Firefox is a good browser but i only us it it for makin/editiong my website. Its ok but it sometimes freezes

 

I have never had any problems with FF. It is better and more stable than IE. All my friends have started using it and are all very happy to have switched!

 

edit: It's still a dud sig, http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/how-to-buy/where-to-buy/aer/ and click the 'Search for a MS Authorised Reseller'

 

Doh, nice one Microsoft.

 

I don't know why people think that IE is faster, or why they like it better. It's riddled with security holes that often times never get fixed, it's slow and clunky, gets clogged with excess garbage faster than you can say "rudolph redpecker", and often times it crashes for no apparent reason. To be honest, I can get about 4 times the work out of Firefox in the same amount of time. Microsquash needs to get up off their asses and start overhauling IE or get rid of it all-together.

 

"this is what the "Secure Deployment" part of Microsoft's SD3+C campaign is all about; we design and develop secure software,"

he works for microsoft, so I definatly take what he says with a grain of salt.

even if this issue turns out to be a huge deal, it will get taken care of and be a better product because of it. so basically the microsoft guy is helping create a better firefox. My own opinion is that, firefox is 1.0. The first version. Its already better then microsoft internet exploror version 6. That says alot. Firefox isnt perfect, thats for sure but its not some browser made by jim bob without a clue. Its ahead of IE and still improving over time.

More then half the crap on the web isnt signed by versign anyway. /shrug. most people dont even bother with it. especially smaller software publishers.

 

nearly all of them mistakes were minor or exactly the same