25 Comments

1. flenser:

Working link is here.

Roger, your link is broken.

Aug 15, 2005 - 12:25 pm 2. Syl:

Although I believe in KISS, I think running to another browser because it’s not IE therefore assuming it’s safe is a little too KISS for my tastes.

Aug 15, 2005 - 12:52 pm 3. West:

Switched to firefox a long time ago – a year & a half? Two? In any case, no security problems. I got a nasty virus on one of my children’s systems, not recognized by anti-vir, mcaffee or norton, Spybot didn’t find it, & I had to boot into another OS to kill it. I don’t know if it infiltrated through FF or not – seems the worst offenders are sites aimed at children & teens. Just how low can these people get, anyway? (rhetorical)

Aug 15, 2005 - 1:18 pm 4. Knucklehead:

I have been a Firefox and Thunderbird (mail client) user for at least a year now with no problems – IE and, in particular, OE were apparently the source of several big virus type hits prior to that.

But I’ve also taken to firewalling and preposeterously frequent virus scanning at pretty much the same time so I can’t say it was the mozilla SW that “fixed” things.

The nastiest, screw up your computer’s security SW, as far as I can tell, is the music download stuff the yutes are so fond of.

Aug 15, 2005 - 1:29 pm 5. MoultrieCreek:

I think the Microsoft media machine has more to do with Firefox losing ground than security issues. I don’t see the tech news sources shouting about each security issue with IE the way they do with Firefox. I love Firefox for its many wonderful features – and incidently find it much safer than IE.

Aug 15, 2005 - 2:13 pm 6. flenser:

Nothing is going to be 100% secure. Firefox is safer for many potential problems. For example, I’ve seen some non-computer savvy people with three or four of those search toolbars running in IE.

There are several companies that cause you to download them without your asking. At best, they take up lots of screen space. At worst, they act as spyware. Firefox is not afflicted with these, partly because it has lower market share and is not worth the effort.

I’d guess that part of the reason for movement back to IE, if that is really happening, is that MS has started doing a better job of staying on top of bug fixes. But the basic design, with the browser “built in” to the OS is a basic security flaw. So I think Firefox will contine to be the more secure option for the immediate future. Just don’t regard it as your only neccessary defense.

Aug 15, 2005 - 2:14 pm 7. ahem:

So Firefox has a coupla two, tree security prollums. That’s still about 400 fewer than you’ll find in IE, and they’re fixed pronto.

The other day, I had to do something in IE for a client and I felt like a brain surgeon having to perform surgery wearing mittens. Firefox does so much more than IE.

Question not. It rules.

Aug 15, 2005 - 3:24 pm 8. Syl:

Yeah, how many out of those 400 security holes were ever exploited? They’re fixed fast too.

I’ve been using IE for years and have yet to get any adware or a virus.

The worst thing Norton and Ad-aware and the like ever find is a cookie or two.

I use a sofware proxy server and XP’s firewall and Norton to check my Eudora mail plus automatic security updates.

More than that and it breaks my KISS rule.

I tried Firefox, didn’t like it. I use a local page of links as my startup page and it didn’t allow that. So I uninstalled it. I certainly didn’t try it out for ’security reasons’.

I even have a couple of search bars and plugins installed.

Aug 15, 2005 - 3:37 pm 9. PJ:

I was bombarded with viruses with IE when I went to broadband. My computer was unusable. I switched to mozilla and cleaned up my computer and haven’t had a problem since. I was at the point where I was ready to go over to the other side (Macs) before I switched.

Aug 15, 2005 - 6:40 pm 10. PeterUK:

Whilst Mozilla has some little quirks that IE does not have,it simply does not pick up as much detritus aa IE.I run Ad-aware after easch session,but there is a good give away for adware,Mozilla takes a fraction longer to load its page.Drudge was appalling with IE only the odd one gets by Mozzilla

Aug 15, 2005 - 6:52 pm 11. Jamie Irons:

(Prepares to take cover…)

Why anyone would bother with a Wintel machine, let alone IE, is hard for me to understand.

I have to use Windows at work, and I despise its clunky, derivative architecture. Prone to bugs and system crashes.

(I do like Microsoft Word for Mac, so the Windows people can make a fine product, when they are so moved.)

It is rumored that when Mac switches over to Intel processors, Mac OS X will, by design or by “accident,” be able to run on “Windows” machines.

That may be a death blow to Microsoft.

Jamie Irons

Aug 15, 2005 - 7:27 pm 12. Jamie Irons:

And let’s not forget, Microsoft is cooperating with the Communist Chinese governement to suppress its peoples’ free expression.

I don’t see Steve Jobs or Linus Torvalds suggesting we do that.

Jamie Irons

Aug 15, 2005 - 7:30 pm 13. Luther McLeod:

Well, I have been a Wintel user since 1994. I have never been infected by a virus, nor a maladroit hijacker. I use the appropriate firewall and anti-spyware programs. They are all automatic. I cannot remember the last time I had a blue screen. I like the fact that my browser is part of the OS. It is seamless. And just how many Linux or Apple users are there in the PRC? Not that I like the fact that Microsoft appears to be cooperating with the communist bastards. But maybe all is not as it appears?

Aug 15, 2005 - 9:05 pm 14. dick:

I have been using Firefox now for the better part of a year after having 2 virus problems with IE. I have had no problems with Firefox at all or with Thunderbird.

I especially like some of the extensions on Firefox such as the Stumble Upon extension. I found a lot of very interesting websites that way that I would not have found otherwise. The browser also seems to be a lot faster than IE was. I certainly have no intention of going back to IE ever. Firefox just works too well for me.

Aug 15, 2005 - 10:20 pm 15. geoffb:

I have used Mozilla and then Firefox for a couple of years now I guess. No problems with them and I love the tabbed browsing. I also fire up IE at times when I need to grab something out of the Temp Internet Files. It is much easier to make sense of the IE Temp File than the Firefox ones. I run AVG anti-virus, Zone Alarm firewall and Ad-aware and Spy-bot and haven’t had a problem since 2001 or so.

Aug 15, 2005 - 10:29 pm 16. David Thomson:

ìWhy anyone would bother with a Wintel machine, let alone IE, is hard for me to understand.î

They must be Communist reactionaries of the lowest kind. Sending them to the Gulag would be an act of kindness. We Apple users have every right to act condescendingly towards these aberrant human beings. I have no idea what it is to endure the problems commonly referred to by those using Microsoft products.

Aug 16, 2005 - 2:11 am 17. Luther McLeod:

Dang David, I’ll start packing my meager possessions. Assuming I will be allowed to keep them of course :-}

Aug 16, 2005 - 9:52 am 18. changehappens:

I have a story on this. Yesterday, the company I work for suffered a huge outage due to a virus. Machines went into a reboot loop for about 4 hours. Internet traffic hit a jam like being on I-5 in LA, during a monster rainstorm after a 20 car pile up.

I kept on working though, albet at a crawl, but my PC never misbehaved. The only difference we found was that I used Firefox at work while most of the others used IE. Why do I use FireFox? About 1 year ago, my PC was deeply disturbed due to spyware and adware. Naturally I had been using IE. After downloading and religiously running MS AntiSpyWare, the nasty bugs were removed but I moved on to Netscape and Firefox. Now I have had nothing but tranquil surfing, boring but drama free.

Aug 16, 2005 - 12:39 pm 19. Peg C.:

Roger, IBM is donating 50K lines of code to Firefox:

link…

It’s being pushed at work so most of us use both IE and Firefox. I find no unusual security issues with it, although it handles certain blogs’ Haloscan comments when IE barfs on them for some reason. This could be an indication of looser security. Firefox frequently hangs on me when printing, and it doesn’t handle certain corporate web apps well. So after Firefox hangs, I got to IE; when that prevents me from commenting on a site, I go to Firefox. Basically my laptop is a warzone and I’m resigned to it.

I also detest the tabbed browsing in Firefox and find they are unruly. Whatever the point of those is escapes me.

Aug 16, 2005 - 2:19 pm 20. Syl:

Peg

The Haloscan thing is security. I finally figured it out, I’m kinda proud. Haloscan comments are run via javascript from a third party site. That’s a no no.

If Firefox allows that, it’s not good.

If the blog user has copied the haloscan script to their own site, then IE will read the comments. That’s why some sites comments come up and others don’t.

I found a site that had the haloscan script and I managed to copy it to my harddrive (a little trickery…I created a webpage with a link to the haloscan javascript, loaded that page, then right-clicked and saved it.)

Now if I can’t open haloscan comments I save the blog page to my temporary directory where I have the haloscan script, open the page from there and click the comments and they come up. I can still post.

Aug 16, 2005 - 6:01 pm 21. ClericalGal:

My sister, who is a real estate agent, was visiting me for a few days. She wanted to use my computer (she has no laptop) to look at the online MLS listings. I told her to use Firefox instead of IE because I thought it was better. When I retured home from work, she told me that she was able to get on the MLS website but was unable to search the listings using Firefox. She then used IE and was able to search. After she was done, I did a spyware scan and saw that I had picked up a number of ad cookies and spyware, which I never get when I use Firefox. I’m sticking with it!

Aug 16, 2005 - 6:21 pm 22. Chris W.:

I’ve been using Firefox since last summer, and have had very few security-type problems, other than the usual spyware and cookie stuff. I started using Firefox because IE was getting hijacked at least once a WEEK on both my office and home computers. Comparing Firefox to IE, I have had so few problems with Firefox that it’s not even funny.

Aug 16, 2005 - 7:15 pm 23. Peg C.:

Syl, thanks for the info! Even though most of my co-workers come to me for PC help (forget calling the Helpless Desk) — for example when the Win2K folks got slammed by the virus and didn’t know what to do — I’m a mainframer and generally too busy and too lazy to dig into javascript in IE and I just switch browsers instead. Good for you for pursuing that.

Aug 17, 2005 - 12:51 pm 24. Jim C.:

Syl wrote: “I’ve been using IE for years and have yet to get any adware or a virus.”

Same for me. I had my settings to always prompt me if I wanted to run scripts, ActiveX, and a few other relatively risky things.

But I switched to Firefox anyway. I did pick up some adware probably because now I always have javascript enabled, but I’ve become more careful and for questionable sites I use a separate profile with javascript disabled.

“I tried Firefox, didn’t like it. I use a local page of links as my startup page and it didn’t allow that. So I uninstalled it.”

I also use a local startup page (on the HD of my home PC), and Firefox allowed it with no problems.

Aug 17, 2005 - 8:59 pm 25. Scott:

I’ve been using FF (safe mode) since I had to wipe my hard drive about 5 months ago due to rampant adware.

Occasionally a pop-up will sneak past FF’s protections, but otherwise no problems so far – and it appears to be intercepting “drive by” downloads by requiring a yes/no signoff prior to allowing same onto my HD (which is where most if not all of the adware had been coming from).

I plan on staying with FF for the foreseeable future as I cannot imagine IE ever achieving this degree of reliability.

Aug 18, 2005 - 6:39 am

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