August 15, 2005
Do Yourself A Favor
Don't ever say I didn't give you anything...
If you own a PC and run the Windows operating system... it's time to make a clean break from Bill Gates' web browser. go here:
...and download Firefox. Right now. Don't wait.
After reading about yet another bug that will "potentially allow an attacker to exploit a vulnerability... giving the attacker control of the affected computer", this should give everyone clarity of thought to ditch Internet Explorer forever.
Some may wonder how your web browser came to be such a source of constant worry? Well...
This here's the story of Internet Explorer, an otherwise very capable program that suffered the indignity of being used to help Microsoft monopolize the software market. Oh while certainly Office helped accomplish that far before IE came to the fore, Microsoft did something in order to help it monopolize the browser market: they force integrated it into the operating system. Yes, every time you open your "My Computer" icon, you are actually using the force coded Explorer engine that has now been hybridized to interface both with your filesystem and the Internet. By doing this, Microsoft was able to keep Internet Explorer constantly running - always there, even when just opening your folders and files.
Along with this integration came another path Microsoft chose to cement the parasitic relationship between you and your web browser. Microsoft designed IE (Internet Explorer) as a software fusion engine - for instance, those of you using recent versions of Quickbooks may have noticed that you had to install the latest version of IE in order to run your software. Why? Because IE runs nested inside of Quickbooks. Yes, those little charts and gadgets, much of that is driven by the IE engine.
So the web browser - a program originally designed to display internet pages - is now hooked and clawed, fused and entangled into your operating system, placed there by design in order to keep you forever immersed in the wonderful world of poorly written lowest common denominator software. Because IE has to run as a program, and display your file system, it has been given access and critical entry points all over your operating system.
And this is where the problem is. And it's an intractable problem. You cannot remove IE from your system - it's like herpes, it will always be with you, just flaring up from time to time to make a destructive nuisance of itself. Or so I'm told...
Anyways, the one thing you can do is stop using IE to browse the Internet. Minimize your exposure.
Use Firefox.
And considering Microsoft's complicity in helping the Chinese police state censor the Internet for Chinese citizens, you'll feel good doing it.
Perhaps Microsoft should spend less time helping China keep it's people from reading words like "freedom" and more time fixing it's buggy software...
What he said.
Posted by: Bob at August 16, 2005 07:13 PMWell, one company not a million miles from where I sit
during the day has a definite policy, and it's based
on rather a bit more than press releases. ActiveX controls
can, in fact, do *anything* on your computer, and there's
no sandbox in which they're forced to play, but instead a
series of security gates which no one unfamiliar with
computer security can be expected to set properly. If you
set your Firefox browser to its most liberal setting,
you're reasonably safe; if you set IE to its most liberal
setting and hit the wrong website, you're screwed. All
it takes is for some barely computer literate guy or gal
to hear about a cool ActiveX control, set his gates so
he can see it, and forget to set them back, and ding-a-ling, babyarm (Ed note: funny baby arm reference)there's another call to computing support. One thing computing support people hate the most is to de-virus or reinstall software on someone's machine. If a company listens to those folks when it makes its security policy, and if the company has the wherewithal to use firefox, my guess is
that they will, to save on the service calls, even if they don't care about keeping their information safe.