Do people want a browser that displays sites rather than is secure? As long as malicious hackers exist, there is always an opportunity for online threats and no browser is immune to this. We will continue to work to improve security for our customers by working on technical innovation, improving updates, and working with law-enforcement agencies worldwide to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The specific vulnerabilities that have been exploited in Internet Explorer in the past may not exist in other browsers, but other browsers have their own vulnerabilities as well. The key question is around the ability to react to such threats--working with authorities and providing updates that, in addition to securing customers, ensure strong compatibility with existing applications. well i for one say yes, i get pissed off with shoddy sites not displaying correctly, so for general stuff i have a "unsafe" system, i think thats the best way of been safer. http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=8903/ddj1106081810385/
Perhaps no browser is immune to it, but does the browser have to take the whole system with it when it goes down? Remember the good old days when DOS fit on a 3.5" floppy? You pushed the little plastic square over on the system floppy and no virus could get to it. The system still ran fine. Why can't Windows keep its static data and settings on a read only system disk? I don't add DLLs or change user settings every day. When I really want to change something more permanently, it wouldn't inconvenience me to flip a switch on the system disk (after a thorough virus scan on the new stuff) . I don't think MS is serious about system security because a secure system would put too many (potential) future subsidiaries of MS, like Symantec, out of business. </rant>
Whilst I agree with the fact that IE under XP SP2 is the most secure version yet, there are still many problems/issues with IE that turn me off it. For example: 1) ActiveX - a totally useless (and potentially dangerous) technology outside of Windows/Office Update. 2) Only partial PNG support - how long does an image format have to be a standard before it's fully implemented? Some of us need alpha transparencies. 3) Full CSS1/2 support - come on Microsoft, they've both been standards for long enough now! Alternative browsers such as Safari, Opera and Firefox don't seem to have these problems, isn't it about time Microsoft caught up? They are the market leader after all! And I don't just mean under XP, what about all those millions of 9x/Me/2000 users who won't or can't upgrade? They're stuck using an insecure browser, unless they change to something else. PS: The number of websites that don't view "properly" in Firefox, Opera etc (which is relative, what is proper anyway?) is actually extremely low. So don't give me that argument. But hey, it only takes a little more work to get your websites working just the way they're supposed to in most browsers... I take extra care over the sites I design and manage to make sure they're viewable to as many people as possible. Not just those who use IE.
That is the problem, because they are market leaders, the majority of internet users use IE, so hackers write viruses and hijacks for IE because this way it will affect more people than other browsers. If Firefox one day becomes market leader, they will start having hackers aiming at their browsers.
dude, you just use NTFS permissions make it read only, and only run as a "user" or "power user" level. This is the problem with windows, how many users run as root on linux (but on linux its often easy to get round process permissions, windows its harder). i think microsoft should bring on the idea (which they've sorta in XP) of having administrator and the normal users of the family. problem is a lot of people wouldn't recognise the windows secuirty style thing and entre their password everywere!
Good point. But of course, no browser is totally secure, not even Firefox (my browser of choice, didn't you know) - and there are patches for IE, Firefox, Opera etc released all the time. Just want to add this: I'm not totally against Internet Explorer, I use it almost daily to access Exchange Server via Outlook Web Access. No other browser can offer the same support for OWA as IE, mainly because it was written for IE users. I could use Firefox but then I can't do more than half what I can under IE.
yes there would be linux viri, but its open source so the backdoors could be shut very quickly to stop the spread. Also it would not be subject to the countless hackers who go after MS only because they are a monopoly and overpriced.
Anyone with a good knowledge of Linux fundementals knows that the damage scope of a so called "linux virus" would be very limited indeed.
no, it would just have to be very smart. and this is only because of the diversity. If everyone used redhat then....
If linux weas used by everyone it really, really wouldn't be so secure. The main reason linux is so secure is because....well...99.9% of the linux population are bloody power users that can respond to new threats quickly. Windows has to put up with super-dooper-mega-awesome-n00bs on a daily basis so of course it's slower to adapt. No system is perfect. Anything can be hacked or exploited as long as it's there.
Ehm, I don't ever remember a time where Netscape came with Windows. Netscape was IE's biggest rival. Perhaps the maufacturer of your PC included it in a software package?
There's a problem there tho, i set up user area's on my comp for a few of my friends (im an admin) and i can never get everything to work how it should, as if i was on my area. The main problem is games, i can't get NFS:U2, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, CoD and quite a few more to work on this "other" area. Now i know that i can edit the permissions on folders\directorys etc.. but i've found that quite often doesn't work, which means i then have to log them onto my area to play said game. Which in turn means i can't leave the room (we all know we hate other ppl on our comps as it is, but alone 2 roam free on my area, i dont think so), as i have alot of private stuff on there that i don't want other ppl to see . I have managed to get a few working in the past, by changing permissions etc... but even that is pure luck, hell i've give full permissions to everyone for StyleXP and it still says access denied Also everytime i set up a new user as i have multiple drives, i also have to edit permissions on those drives to prevent others from accesing them, then theres checking everything works (which it never does). Now i'm all for User area's to increase security but they really need to think about how it works and how it should work, i really don't want to be having to log people on to my area to play a specific game cuz XP decides to lock other users out of it, nor do i want to have to set up barriers to protect my personal files everytime i add a new user . Death
Did you ever try to explain just the "Permissions" in the file security settings dialog to the average computer user? It is impossible! I spent a lot of time on this and I'm not sure I understand it all myself. Why do those check marks have to bounce around without any warning and invalidate all your previous work? A single switch would be so much simpler, and absolutely sufficient. If MS really has all these fancy security features, why don't they make access more user friendly? It just looks like a continuous patchwork to me.
its better documented than in linux just press F1, its got a user friendly (and slow for the pro's) wimp based config, so its MUCH easyer than in linux, much easyer than chown etc. SOO MUCH EASYER i can't even begin to contemplate how much easyer it is! As for the other one about some games etc. Yeh this is called BAD PROGRAMING. goto www.sysinternals.com get their regmon + filemon. make sure it has access to all the reg keys + files it wants. but worst come to the worse you can just run one proccess as you're user name, so they would only via that proccess have access to your private stuff (which if its a game might not allow them to do anything!). See options in creating a shortcut. This is much more secure than an X environment one (thou it might of been a KDE issue), a standard user can't touch the other windows or do anything ot it via another proccess other problems arrive in DCOM (pile of poo) and other such interfaces. but this is going way OT.
