Firefox, Windows Insecurity, etc.
Firefox Up
Our in-house news tracker pointed me at an interesting article in the New York Times' "Digital Domain" tech section today. The article is here if anyone's interested in the whole thing (you may need to create an account so that they can send you ad-mail you never wanted; I use a fake email address for such things) but here are the edited highlights. It seems that for the first time ever, Microsoft Internet Explorer has lost share in the browser market - 5% down since May this year - and it seems to be losing it to Mozilla's Firefox browser.
What is particularly entertaining is the squirming being done by Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of product management for Windows, when trying to explain how Microsoft's plan to rule the planet is not affected by this. For example, he is saying that current IE users won't switch because they'll consider why they chose IE in the first place. To paraphrase the comment made about that in the article: I chose Windows and got IE, and the only reason I didn't switch was that I couldn't be bothered to change to something better.
What's also interesting is that Gary Schare doesn't use IE himself; he uses something called Maxthon which is based on the IE core but adds some features that IE won't handle.
Considering all the security holes that keep popping up in IE, and the fact that it took them until just a couple of months ago to include features I need - such as pop-up blocking - as standard, I have at last decided to switch to Firefox. I've already done it on my office system and I'll give it a few days to see how I get along with it, but I'll almost certainly switch at home before too long.
On the subject of Windows security...
Here are a couple of useful links:
1. In case you didn't already know, Windows XP includes as standard a program that implements their "Universal Plug'n'Play" (UPnP) feature. This is a useful feature... if you happen to be a network administrator. For regular home users it's worse than worthless, because the UPnP server has bugs that will let a hacker gain system-level access to your computer. The problem is that Windows ships with it switched on by default, which means that every time you go online you open up a server connection that anyone can connect to - and it happens silently, so you don't know it's happening unless you look. You don't need this program. Switching it off is a bit of a sod but it can be done by messing with a couple of menus. There's a better, quicker way: download the Unplug n' Pray program and run it. It's only 22Kbytes; I've been using it for a long time without problems. You can use the same program to switch UPnP back on again should you ever decide you need it.
2. When I first got WinXP it had MSN Messenger installed and active by default. I switched it off in the menus, only to find that this doesn't really switch it off... while nothing showed on my screen, as soon as I went online Kate's contact list would flag that I'd just appeared. That really ticked me off. I found a program that fixes the problem here. You can just disable Messenger as I did, but it will uninstall the damn thing completely if you want. BTW the guy that maintains that software has written a whole bunch of XP programs to give you back control of the machine you paid for - the index page is here.
Retraction
I don't know how many people read this blog, but in case anyone noticed I said a couple of weeks ago that Half-Life 2 won't run without an open network connection. I had better correct that in light of new information, just in case any legal people from Sierra or Valve or Gearbox or Hairpiece or whoever it is that sells the game, happens to have read that: It turns out that you only really need the network connection to unlock the program the first time, and then occasionally you can check for patches. You don't need an open network connection to play the game.
We are Borg
Well, it seems that there is indeed a core of people so addicted, so dependent on tech-geek gadgetry that they can't go anywhere without being wired. The latest in geekiness for these people is The Solar Powered Backpack. Now it doesn't matter where you are, you always have a source of power to make sure your cellphone, PDA and other geek necessities remain up and running. Nobody seems to have connected that probably 90% of places that people would be backpacking don't have any cellphone service...
I'm a winner
I just have to crow about this... I entered a sweepstake on NVidia's website a few days ago, and I just had a mail to say I've won a copy of Doom 3 and a T-shirt. Ok, so the only reason I entered was so that I had a shot at winning a 6800 graphics card, then Kate could have that and I'd take the FX 5950. But hey, I won something, right?
The air will turn blue
Oh, dear. One of the cable networks (Starz, I think) is planning on showing The Santa Clause 2 and Bad Santa back to back on Christmas Eve. Have the people that made that programming decision actually seen Bad Santa? I think there must be a whole bunch of parents of young kids who haven't, and they're going to be very upset when they sit down to watch it with their kiddies. And then Starz (or whichever one it is, I can't remember) is going to be flooded with phone calls and probably lawsuits.
Our in-house news tracker pointed me at an interesting article in the New York Times' "Digital Domain" tech section today. The article is here if anyone's interested in the whole thing (you may need to create an account so that they can send you ad-mail you never wanted; I use a fake email address for such things) but here are the edited highlights. It seems that for the first time ever, Microsoft Internet Explorer has lost share in the browser market - 5% down since May this year - and it seems to be losing it to Mozilla's Firefox browser.
What is particularly entertaining is the squirming being done by Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of product management for Windows, when trying to explain how Microsoft's plan to rule the planet is not affected by this. For example, he is saying that current IE users won't switch because they'll consider why they chose IE in the first place. To paraphrase the comment made about that in the article: I chose Windows and got IE, and the only reason I didn't switch was that I couldn't be bothered to change to something better.
What's also interesting is that Gary Schare doesn't use IE himself; he uses something called Maxthon which is based on the IE core but adds some features that IE won't handle.
Considering all the security holes that keep popping up in IE, and the fact that it took them until just a couple of months ago to include features I need - such as pop-up blocking - as standard, I have at last decided to switch to Firefox. I've already done it on my office system and I'll give it a few days to see how I get along with it, but I'll almost certainly switch at home before too long.
On the subject of Windows security...
Here are a couple of useful links:
1. In case you didn't already know, Windows XP includes as standard a program that implements their "Universal Plug'n'Play" (UPnP) feature. This is a useful feature... if you happen to be a network administrator. For regular home users it's worse than worthless, because the UPnP server has bugs that will let a hacker gain system-level access to your computer. The problem is that Windows ships with it switched on by default, which means that every time you go online you open up a server connection that anyone can connect to - and it happens silently, so you don't know it's happening unless you look. You don't need this program. Switching it off is a bit of a sod but it can be done by messing with a couple of menus. There's a better, quicker way: download the Unplug n' Pray program and run it. It's only 22Kbytes; I've been using it for a long time without problems. You can use the same program to switch UPnP back on again should you ever decide you need it.
2. When I first got WinXP it had MSN Messenger installed and active by default. I switched it off in the menus, only to find that this doesn't really switch it off... while nothing showed on my screen, as soon as I went online Kate's contact list would flag that I'd just appeared. That really ticked me off. I found a program that fixes the problem here. You can just disable Messenger as I did, but it will uninstall the damn thing completely if you want. BTW the guy that maintains that software has written a whole bunch of XP programs to give you back control of the machine you paid for - the index page is here.
Retraction
I don't know how many people read this blog, but in case anyone noticed I said a couple of weeks ago that Half-Life 2 won't run without an open network connection. I had better correct that in light of new information, just in case any legal people from Sierra or Valve or Gearbox or Hairpiece or whoever it is that sells the game, happens to have read that: It turns out that you only really need the network connection to unlock the program the first time, and then occasionally you can check for patches. You don't need an open network connection to play the game.
We are Borg
Well, it seems that there is indeed a core of people so addicted, so dependent on tech-geek gadgetry that they can't go anywhere without being wired. The latest in geekiness for these people is The Solar Powered Backpack. Now it doesn't matter where you are, you always have a source of power to make sure your cellphone, PDA and other geek necessities remain up and running. Nobody seems to have connected that probably 90% of places that people would be backpacking don't have any cellphone service...
I'm a winner
I just have to crow about this... I entered a sweepstake on NVidia's website a few days ago, and I just had a mail to say I've won a copy of Doom 3 and a T-shirt. Ok, so the only reason I entered was so that I had a shot at winning a 6800 graphics card, then Kate could have that and I'd take the FX 5950. But hey, I won something, right?
The air will turn blue
Oh, dear. One of the cable networks (Starz, I think) is planning on showing The Santa Clause 2 and Bad Santa back to back on Christmas Eve. Have the people that made that programming decision actually seen Bad Santa? I think there must be a whole bunch of parents of young kids who haven't, and they're going to be very upset when they sit down to watch it with their kiddies. And then Starz (or whichever one it is, I can't remember) is going to be flooded with phone calls and probably lawsuits.
Labels: Computers, Just Spouting
posted by Pete Ford at
12:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home