The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)

Black Xero

Join Date 10/2001

+21

The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)

FIREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.

Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.

Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.

With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.

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For the first time, Internet Explorer has been losing market share. According to a worldwide survey conducted in late November by OneStat.com, a company in Amsterdam that analyzes the Web, Internet Explorer's share dropped to less than 89 percent, 5 percentage points less than in May. Firefox now has almost 5 percent of the market, and it is growing.

Read detailed article from New York Times at Link

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Oh... and don't get me started on Netscape...

I have been web developing for a long while now and still the biggest pain in tha a$$ is to make everything work for the gazillion of browsers out there. i.e. different browsers translating HTML, JS, etc differently. Now we have to worry about FireFox and all the others as well! Oh joy!

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Thomas Thomassen

Join Date 01/2003

+10

I hope this will make the IE devs get their finger in gear when it comes to working on their browser to more than security. Rendering and speed is things that'd be nice to see some work on in IE.
All though, I really don't expect to see any new IE before Longhorn. As long as the browser people use render pages according to the standards I don't care what browser people uses. I'm happy with Firefox and will stick with it until I see something amazing happend to any of the others. Yes, I have tried Opera, but I've never felt happy with it.

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i personally, was a little suspisious of firefox ... but now that i switched, its sooo much better: no popups, no spyware and almost no crashing (crashed once because i was using 2gb of memory and i only have 1.5 installed

) lol yeah i love firefox. and the thing about everyone in college using it, that just 100 PERCENT TRUE!!! i went to pick my brother up for the holidays at UW and walking down the hall, i saw at least 90 percent of the people using firefox. the rest were playing PIRATES! by sid meyer lol. either that or good ole CS. anywayas, i love firefox and ie should be tossed... too bad no way to uninstall it

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I love it when people are trying to get you away from something they have never tried. I have tried Netscape, IE, Opera and for almost the past year, Firefox. Let me tell you, that Opera is based on IE, so if you think that you are safer, you are wrong. I had more problems with that piece of software then I have ever had with anything. IE, well we all know how that works. Netscape, was in fact a solo competitor back in the day, that is until it was bought by AOL. That is the reason that they are not liked today. Sure the coding for Netscape comes from Mozilla, but they DO make some changes to it to suit their needs. As far as Firefox is concerned, it is the MOST customizable browser you will ever use. It is also leeps and bounds faster then IE and Opera and Netscape. Try it you'll like it, just as Mikey likes it. Happy Holidays to all.

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IE beware, other browsers may rule the world yet...their foots in the door...

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BTW Netscape was bought by AOL, but AOL bases their browsing TECH on IE.
They continued the Monopoly case against MS and won, getting rights to IE free for 7 years I think it was, as well as other concessions and $$$. Before aquiring Netscape, they licensed IE Tech. I used to do Customer Support for MS, and mainly spent my time fixing broken DUN, and TCP-IP problems, and a host of other problems, caused by AOL Freebieware.

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Let me tell you, that Opera is based on IE

Wha?!? Where on earth did you here that. LOL

Ah well, no matter. Merry Xmas all anyway.

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Speak techy all you like , im with Firefox all the way!!!

im only on dialup so I use the Fashget plugin for my downloads so no problems with that.

Microsoft updates only work with IE and that sucks, its like opening the door to get some fresh air but you let in cockroaches with IE.

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This is 100% NOT TRUE, and you know it.. Maxthon is nothing more than a buggy cheap IE shell browser, and as such, is vulnerable to the entire internet, just like IE is. A mere hour of web browsing with IE is all you need to have a half dozen pieces of spyware/adware installed on your PC.

Maxthon is an IE shell, but it's not buggy. It's not "vulnerable to the entire internet," whatever the hell that means. Neither is IE. You see, my clients and I don't run as Administrators all the time. My clients' networks are managed by AD group policy and it does not allow them to run unapproved controls, or install browser helper objects without permission. Our systems are always patched within hours of any Windows security update being released.

Maxthon is no different than the 20 other cheap IE shell browsers. Whats the point of using Maxthon over Firefox? Firefox has better tab support (with Tabbed Browser Preferences), is faster, doens't infect you with spyware, and has much more stability.

The point is it's just as secure, faster, and more compatible. My clients rely on consistent access to SharePoint enabled applications, as well as IE-driven software.

Bottom line, anyone that still uses IE, is either in denial, or just doesn't understand computers very well.

Perhaps you should avoid such mind-numbingly ignorant and all-ecompassing statements in the future.

I never said that YOU shouldn't use FireFox, or that using it is a poor choice. In fact, I think competition in any market is a good thing, and I'm happy for the FireFox developers who obviously put a lot of hard work into their product.

However I am bugged by the FUD campaign led by bandwagon jumpers like yourself. IE and Maxthon work perfectly for me and for my customers, and we're not going to switch just because you called me names.

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Disable ActiveX + use a tabbed shell to IE and you have more or less matched standard Firefox (no extensions).

Thats not fully true, and is a bit misleading I think. I've done security and antivirus consulting for about 3 years, and i've extensively tested IE under controlled circumstances and found even locked down, it is still highly vulnerable - even in the hands of an expert. Theres been a succession of things such as Pageframe exploits, Javascripts (Targetting IE only), and many others - that despite locking down hActiveX, still manage to cause issues. About the best you can do is use IE with zones, and even then, its still not perfect, and you are left with less than satisfactory browsing.

There are little dozens of examples out there, one nice little one is the Cross Site Scripting vulnerability, which doesn't effect Firefox of course,but affects all IE, even patched IE's. Bottom line, even locking down IE isn't going to prevent problems, we've tested that, and it failed. Firefox closes you out from about 99% of the exploits and problems out there, and its ridiculous to ignore that and continue exclusively using IE.

Oh, and where did I "Call you names" Paddock? Try not to be so sensitive when you are shown to be incorrect about something, it does wonders to kill your cause.

Here, try another vulnerability here yourself: Link Note that Firefox isn't effected yet again.

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Cross Site Scripting vulnerability, which doesn't effect Firefox of course,
but affects all IE, even patched IE's.

Doesn't work against me (running Maxthon on XP SP2). Just shows "Script Error!" in the status bar when I click on the link.

Oh, and where did I "Call you names" Paddock? Try not to be so sensitive when you are shown to be incorrect about something, it does wonders to kill your cause.

You said I must be "in denial, or just don't understand very much about computers." I consider that name-calling.

I've done security and antivirus consulting for about 3 years

Now that's just scary.

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Doesn't work against me (running Maxthon on XP SP2). Just shows "Script Error!" in the status bar when I click on the link.

Are we talking IE or IE shells now? I was talking IE for this specific vulnerability. I think Maxthon hacked in some code to disable that exploit.

For IE shells, well, I have plenty of links that blow up Maxthon, but won't post them here, because frankly, they could cause someone to get trojans, and that would be a bad thing. But I still wonder why people use Maxthon/MYIE2, when Firefox does the same or more, and isn't vulnerable to much of anything.

Not that i'm a Firefox fanboy, its just that if more people used it, it would save me a ton of work going around and cleaning the crap off friends machines for them. Thank god I got my entire family and relatives all running Firefox - its been peaceful this year.

I think IE is big business for AntiSpyware companies, I mean with Firefox installed, you wouldn't need all these fluffy products like Adaware and Spybot.

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I just tried it in plain old IE.

It says "Internet Explorer has blocked this site from using an ActiveX control in an unsafe manner" in the Information Bar.

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The problem with IE is not that its a bad browser, it's actually an OK browser, although I've been waiting for full PNG support in IE for ages, and it problably will never come at this rate. The main problem with IE is that it's integrated in your system. Active X are not a problem per say, nor are VB Script or Javascript. The problem is that once you find a way to exploit these technologies in IE, you can get complete access to an IE user's computer, and do some real damage. If IE was tied in the system so much, it wouldn't be a problem.
THAT's why Firefox, Mozilla, Opera or any non-IE browsers are more secure.

Aside from that, the reason I like Firefox so much:
- Extensions
- Extensions
- Extensions
!!!!
With the available extensions (and new ones are made every day) you can pretty much custom build the browser you want.

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I don't see how the Windows shell making use of IE is a security problem. IE itself doesn't have any more reign over the system than any other application.

If you're running as an administrator, any program (including FireFox) that is exploited can wreak havoc on your system.

It's like running with root privileges on a *nix box. You just shouldn't do it.

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This is sweet. Rock on, Mozilla.

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IE has some features that may be better than Firefox ( it loads faster due to parts of it always running as part of the Windows OS), it is a little more forgiving of bad code (MS Frontpage sites mostly). But Firefox has, IMO, more features for the end user. Just as we have WB skins and Icon packages done by artists here at WC, you have indivduals writing some great extensions that allow you to personalize your browser to perfectly suit how you want it to work. I think MS has grown slack since they ran the old Netscape out of the picture. It seems obvious that any effort they (MS) has put into improving their product has only been because a new competitor has risen up. But, hey, that's a good thing. If we get better browsers out of it, we all win.
FF has one edge in that it will run on all three major platforms. MS has dropped support for IE for Mac, and I doubt we see them writing a Linux version any time soon.

My experience has been that FF is about a thousand times more secure against malware than IE. I can't for the life of me, get my dad to use anything but IE. Last time I ran Adaware on his PC, it found over 400 pieces of spyware. And trust me, my dad isn't surfing porn or warez. He pays his bills, reads the news, and that's about it. There are plenty of otherwise respectable online companies who now bundle spyware into their downloads. Just read Brad's article on "The Stardock Way" over on JU.
Peter Torr (of Microsoft) makes the point that Moz/FF and most extensions are unsigned http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr/archive/2004/12/20/327511.aspx and the subsequent discussion at Slashdot, http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/21/0038235&tid=172&tid=154&tid=109&tid=113&tid=1
Firefox isn't perfect, but it suits me a lot better than IE ever did, and it looks as though a few thousand others feel the same way.

BTW, Opera is also based on the gecko engine. Go to Shields-Up in Opera and it'll show as a netscape/gecko build.

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MS dropped IE support on the Mac because Apple made an IE-clone called Safari

Safari is based on Konqueror/KHTML, the IE clone for *nix.

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Mouse over Iben for my reply.

I don't believe we've covered the spell checker yet?

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Speaking of extensions, they finally have a Firefox Alexa and Google ranking extension and it completely rocks.. Now you can get Google Toolbar, and Alexa Toolbar in one nice little package, and the meter graphics are great at the bottom of your browser.

Link

Check it out.. That was my last and final complaint about Firefox, and its been addressed.

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Way back, when Netscape and Microsoft released their first 32bit browsers, I downloaded and tried both. Netscape wouldn't run on my equipment. And since then, no matter what version of Netscape I have tried to install on the eqiiupment I was running at the time, it wouldn't work. Internet Explorer has never failed to function completely for me. Every version has run on the equipment I put it on.

I tried firefox but it doesn't fit my needs. There are no more security leaks in IE than any other browser. The others just haven't been exploited yet. Linux is beginning to see more attacks, as will all other open source products as they become more popular with the public.

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RPGFX

Join Date 02/2004

+55

I just installed Firefox and tried it out... and my web pages were bouncing around like kangaroos... I don't have time to figure out why I have graphical screw ups 5 seconds after I open it for the first time. Back to good ol reliable IE.

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my web pages were bouncing around like kangaroos

You probably have chosen to view the bookmarks toolbar with no bookmarks showing on it.
Try putting some bookmarks that you often use on it and the 'bouncing' should stop.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

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IE has some features that may be better than Firefox ( it loads faster due to parts of it always running as part of the Windows OS),

This is because IE is preloaded as part of the OS. You can recreate this behavior and make FF load faster, by setting it to preload as well.

Change the properties of your shortcut which lauches FF to the following (changing the app path if applicable: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" /Prefetch:1

The addition of the prefetch will cause the application to get cached, and consequently will load faster in the future.

-D

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