The fall of IE has officially started!

[Subway]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/02/1441242

Dept. of Homeland Security Says to Stop Using IE

I have been saying this for a long time but now it is offical. From Yahoo News: 'The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team touched off a storm this week when it recommended for security reasons using browsers other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.'" In related news, rocketjam writes "According to Wired, the widespread Internet Explorer security exploit last week and CERT's subsequent recommendation that IE users should consider switching to another browser has resulted in a large spike in downloads of the Mozilla Organization's Mozilla and Firefox web browsers.

It's about time!

Fredi

[yasunobu13]

Hooray!!

[Ihoss]

The revolution has begun!

[fospher.com]

Best advice ever!






*expects a new IE campaign*

[nordberg]

why is everyone so confident that any browser that takes over the majority of desktops won't just become the new target for adware/spyware/hijacker losers?

does everyone really beleive that the malware developers will leave the goldenboy of open source alone?

[Subway]

Yeah Bill, it's soon over.

Fredi

[Covenent]

Wooot!

I'm sure if IE ever did die, and say FireFox became the new default browser that it would be the source of exploits. But at least with open source software the browser can be updated pretty regularly rather than the years we wait for IE to come into a new version only to find out its still riddled with just as many if not more holes than before.

[nucleuz]

[fospher.com]

Originally posted by nordberg
does everyone really beleive that the malware developers will leave the goldenboy of open source alone?

I really doubt that firefox will ever reach over 50% of the population(just like linux will never reach majority either), and even if it did, it has protection against ad/spyware, something I cant say for IE.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

<not a very well informed opinion>

MS has a philosophy of making everything easy and fun for the user. Make it as simple and powerful as possible. In doing so they open the system up to numerous vulnerabilities, not only by making things easy, but also by tying things together. Firefox and the like do not do this.. they make software to do only what it is intended to do.. no more, hence more secure

</not a very well informed opinion>

[nordberg]

you all are way too optimistic about non-IE security...

i suppose not using Outlook will stop spam?

[fospher.com]

Originally posted by TallGuyLittleCar
Firefox and the like do not do this.. they make software to do only what it is intended to do.. no more, hence more secure

Firefox has no likes in it's class tglc. It's the only browser that comes out tiny of the box that you can build up extensions to. Thats whats so great about it, you only download what you need, thats why the boot time/ram storage becomes a LOT smaller compared to IE's bundle of things thrown together at you.

[Covenent]

Originally posted by nordberg
you all are way too optimistic about non-IE security...

i suppose not using Outlook will stop spam?

No but it will stop computer becoming yet another toilet for all the crapware floating around the net.

[fospher.com]

Originally posted by nordberg
i suppose not using Outlook will stop spam?

Thunderbird still needs a lot of improvements, but I still prefer it after 2 years of outlook. Btter virus protection, faster boot time....after a while outlook got really buggy for me.

[C.Schwalbach]

MS has a philosophy of making everything easy and fun for the user.

For the average user, Firefox works the exact same as IE. You type your address in the bar, and it takes you there. That is what an average user wants out of a browser.

Make it as simple and powerful as possible. In doing so they open the system up to numerous vulnerabilities, not only by making things easy, but also by tying things together. Firefox and the like do not do this.. they make software to do only what it is intended to do.. no more, hence more secure

I would have to say this is even more ill-informed

Firefox has many more abilities than IE as a browser, and the only thing I have noticed that Firefox won't open(If I click a link in any program or anything) is with MSN Messenger. Everything else works great in Windows, so firefox ties in great with it.

If you wanna check the "power" since "firefox only does what it is intended to do" go here, and check out the features that firefox has that IE doesn't that you notice http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

[nordberg]

ahhh, i love being the only one on this side of the fence

with firefox accepting downloadable extensions, it should be really difficult for malwarejockeys to get anything onto your machine, right?

headline on may 16th 2005: firefox browser overrun by crapware!

[TallGuyLittleCar]

firefox is actually skynet.

another thing about firefox is that you have to download it... ie comes with xp. Alot of the population still has a problem with this download and install concept.

[yasunobu13]

I still don't care about security issues. My top problem is the rendering issues. Not only does IE refuse to render correctly, but the different versions don't even render the same. What's worst is when a rendering bug changes into a different rendering bug in the next version. That means that someone had to go into the problematic code and rewrite it to display things differently, but still wrongly

[stevietat]

Originally posted by nordberg
ahhh, i love being the only one on this side of the fence

with firefox accepting downloadable extensions, it should be really difficult for malwarejockeys to get anything onto your machine, right?

headline on may 16th 2005: firefox browser overrun by crapware!

Nice to see I'm not the only one who doesn't this as the second coming, lol. While I love firefox, and would love to see it become standard for browsing (watching microsoft usurped is always fun) I don't see it as a revolution in terms of browsing and internet security. Malware makers will always just target what majority of web users are using, be it firefox, IE, or wutever else. Yeah, its great, open source which means tons of extensions, customization, and frequent security updates, but this type of stuff only really matters to web enthusiasts.

I can guarantee you the causal web surfer will not say "awesome, I can update my browser every week for security and perfromance issues." A lot of casual computer users will interpret constant updates as a sign the software is intrinsically flawed, and they'll just see all the downloadable updates as a big pain. Nor will they be enthralled at the countless options of customization. A lot of people are still scared of just using a computer, they don't want choices to confuse them. They just want it to work. I'm not saying firefox doesn't, but that all these extra features people are ranting about will be lost on the rest of casual web surfers.

So what do you have in the end? Another browser, that with popularity will be targeted just like IE. Again don't get me wrong, I think it would be cool to see firefox as the new browser of choice, I just don't see much cause for hoopla, unless it's just at the satisfaction of seeing Gates losing control of a small part of his empire

[Ultima Designs]

That's it. Now you have every reason in the world to reelect the Bush administration.