It's Black Tuesday...

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:14 am

I heard a rumor that Microsoft is releasing 9 security patches today.
That and there's 4 new "Extremely Critical" vulnerabilities in IE. Link

Should be an interesting month coming up depending upon how exploitable they all are...

Arch · Post by **Arch** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:09 am

Yet another reason to use another browser. Mozilla, despite the recent problem, is still by far one of the best out. Firefox, even with the flaw, is a million times more secure than Internet Explorer.

Arch · Post by **Arch** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:25 am

Are you saying you still use IE? Good lord, for what reason? If nothing else its feature set is so stale its pathetic. Tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and a number of other features have relegated IE to Windows Update use only on my machine.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:27 am

Arch wrote:Are you saying you still use IE? Good lord, for what reason? If nothing else its feature set is so stale its pathetic. Tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and a number of other features have relegated IE to Windows Update use only on my machine.

XP SP2 features popup blocking...tabbed browsing would be nice.

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:59 am

i still use IE.

i like it cause it does what i want it to do and im carefull where i go and what gets installed on my system and i allways keep my AV up to date.

out of all the years of useing it i have never gotten a virus\worm or aney thang.

u have more of a chance of getting a virus/worm over a FS progy like kazaa and all of thoes, yes i use ed2k but i scan all files befor opening them.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:13 am

Yay, I'm on SlashDot. This makes me cool.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:28 am

What is tabbed browsing, anyway? I've heard several people mention it, but whatever it is, it's not enough reason for me to go through the hassle of installing a 3rd-party browser. With liberal use of Windows Update and Norton Internet Security, I've never had a security problem with IE.

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:58 am

instead of new windows, you get new tabs in your browser, often beneath the address bar. Click on the tab, view the website

Quite a nice feature.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:09 pm

Tabbed browsing in action

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:34 pm

Meh...seems over-rated. I don't mind having 4 or 5 sessions of IE open at the same time. It's basically the same thing here.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:47 pm

Ignorance is bliss, eh? You might want to actually try it before you brush it off as "over-rated".

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:02 pm

I'll be honest, I use IE.

But tabbed browsing is a nifty feature. If nothing else, it saves spots on the task bar (I hate the auto group, it is OFF)

Luckily this topic is about security vulnerabilities and not about browser penii comparisons (other than security functionality), so we don't have to continue this.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:56 pm

dammit, now I gotta find IE in my labyrinthical start menu to download this crap.

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 3:08 pm

I just got 5 security updates.

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 3:25 pm

Ditto ...

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:24 pm

To be honest, the reason I switched to Mozilla was because of the mail client. I'd gotten sick of Outlook XP. Mozilla is a really nice browser, and since Windows automatically downloads critical updates for me I never need to use IE, except when testing websites for cross-browser compatibility.

BTW, rumors of IE's non-standards-compliance are horribly exaggerated. The real problem is people who don't put a <!DOCTYPE> declaration in their documents. Documents lacking the <!DOCTYPE> directive are rendered in "compatibility" mode, meaning how older versions of IE would render them. Standards-compliant mode is actually pretty standards-compliant.

How ironic, a "New updates are ready to install" balloon just popped up...

Arch · Post by **Arch** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:25 pm

Xciter wrote:
Are you saying you still use IE? Good lord, for what reason? If nothing else its feature set is so stale its pathetic. Tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and a number of other features have relegated IE to Windows Update use only on my machine.
One word... Proxomitron

So you don't use a third party browser, you just install a third party popup/AD blocker. The difference is?

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 5:05 pm

Downloaed 8 updates on my laptop, and 12 on my other computers (all of them Win2k).

Tabbed browsing roxu, btw. I use tabs heavily when browsing the DBB. Middle click on link = Open in new tab. Very simple.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:26 pm

I use tabs too. It's called the taskbar. I also have reorganizable tabs that preview the page too so that I don't have to figure out which tab is what page. It's called multiple IE windows open all over the desktop. I'm guessing some of you guys browse full screen or something?

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:35 pm

Jim,

Reasons tabbed browsing destroys non-tabbed browsing:

1) New Tabs open in background while you continue to read your source page.

2) Progress meter in Tabs shows when a background page has finished loading

3) Mouse-Over a tab and it pops to the front. (I use 150ms delay)

4) Using scroll wheel when on tab-bar cycles them

5) Double click in Tab bar to open new tab.

6) Open URL on clipboard in new tab

7) Double click on tab to close it.

pop-ups open in new tab.

9) "Close all tabs to right"

10) Favourites grouped as multiple tabs.

11) Window *ALWAYS* where you want it. No Exceptions.

12) Disables new windows (pop-ups) resizing the browser.

Basically, if you're not using Tab Browsing - then you're stuck in heavy traffic with a stick-shift, instead of cruising it in an automatic.

Don't fall into the "Taskbar is a Tab" trap. That's complete BS. If you think that, then you know stuff-all about HCI at all.

Tabbed Browsing is the biggest boon to Internet surfing and usage since the invention of the Browser itself.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:38 pm

once you close a window, you can't undo the close.

you can undo closing a tab.

And, why browse in a tiny little window?

You also can't knock not having multiple copies of IE running at the same time.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 7:42 pm

I don't know if it is computer ignorance or simply apathy that leads critics to think that it's a "hassle" to install and try a new web browser. If you can install Descent 3 and then Mercenary and then patch it to version 1.4 and then download all of the map packs and unzip them into their directories and then configure your pilot file and your controls and other settings, I think you can double-click on FirefoxSetup-0.9.2.exe.

STRESSTEST · Post by **STRESSTEST** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:09 pm

I dunno why *smirk* but watching Jim talk about not installing a whatever on his pc is like talking to Dave (testi) about having a tv

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:09 am

Xciter wrote:Still can only read one page at a time... it's not worth it to me to add a 3rd party browser that may or may not work with every web page.

Get the PrefBar Mozilla extension. Allows you to spoof an IE User Agent to any website you want to.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:20 am

Reverse order for the apparently ever so convenient "loading bar" (;)):

I hope I didn't blow anyone's mind away.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that there's no "close all windows to the right" feature, nor can I sift through individual windows by simply rolling my mouse wheel, but these seem more like gimmicks than anything with a real world application. Conversely, things like mousing over windows (for about a 150ms pause) to select them have been features of windows (Windows) for eons, it's just that it's so annoying that only lazy people use it.

But really, I don't see the point. Even my Firefox install has them disabled! I mean, how can a tab be any more informative or convenient than a window? You can move a window around, and you can see what's inside of it by just looking at it. A window is versatile, not just a blurb of text on a grey toolbar.

The window has been one of the most integral features of Windows, and, personally, I find these tabs to be offensive, offensive to all of the progress that we've made and to the entire computer science community as a whole. Nothing could more effectively slam all of the progress that we've made in the multitasking arena. Tabs were 80's. If you wanted tabs, you typed in a program called "shell.com" at the command prompt. We were fortunate enough to have innovators to invent the window multitasking system and people as rich as Microsoft to copy them, and now sir you seek to undo every measure that they've made. Shame on you, and shame on you again.

Maybe us IE users are simpletons, or maybe we're stubborn. Maybe we're just ignorant. But one thing's for certain, we've made our choice, and we've made it too far to be affected by the diatribe on an internet message board. We've made it through Netscape (ha), we've made it through Mozilla, and, Firefox, if I ever think that it accomplishes what I seek to do more effectively and with less hassle than IE, I'll guarantee you I'll be switching on the double.

Don't fall into the "Taskbar is a Tab" trap. That's complete BS. If you think that, then you know stuff-all about HCI at all.

I'll admit it-- I don't know much about hydrochloric acid, but I fail to see how it relates to the topic at hand. I hope you plan on elaborating on this in the future.

This post was made proudly with Internet Explorer 6.0.

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 1:47 am

Tabs are good for some things, like coding in Visual Studio. But I don't like tabs for web browsing. List off whatever objective arguments you may want, but subjectively speaking it just doesn't sit well.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:00 am

DCrazy wrote: BTW, rumors of IE's non-standards-compliance are horribly exaggerated. The real problem is people who don't put a <!DOCTYPE> declaration in their documents. Documents lacking the <!DOCTYPE> directive are rendered in "compatibility" mode, meaning how older versions of IE would render them. Standards-compliant mode is actually pretty standards-compliant.

people normally ★■◆● about its standards-complanice when IE is in its standards-complaince mode, and generally due its support of CSS and the W3C DOM.

On the whole, Try FireFox, Thunderbird, or Mozilla. If anything get rid of outlook express. The only sites that FireFox/Mozilla won't work on legitamatly are sites that are heavily using activex scripting.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:23 am

IIRC, IE supports the W3C DOM and then some. IE's CSS support still has a few quirks (and a few major holes, like complete lack of support for attribute selectors) but overall I think that the whole "IE sucks" thing is just a knee-jerk reaction.

BTW, flip, I have never used Outlook Express. I wouldn't touch that swiss cheese with a ten-foot pole. If you ask me, an E-mail client needs to do one thing: fetch e-mail. And you're preaching to the choir anyway; made the switch a few months ago and never looked back.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:25 am

Fine, use Internet Explorer. Enjoy all of the weekly security vulnerabilities, holes, exploits, broken PNG support, broken CSS support, and worms that come with it!

Me, I'll take the Firefox alternative.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:00 pm

Your programing schedual for today.

Up next: Nvidia vs ATI.
At 6: PC vs Mac.
News at 7.

Flatlander · Post by **Flatlander** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:59 pm

I prefer Alt+Tab to tabbed browsing. Anyone remember Tabworks?

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:01 pm

Ctrl+tabing isn't much different

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 12:59 am

Vader wrote:
Xciter wrote:Still can only read one page at a time... it's not worth it to me to add a 3rd party browser that may or may not work with every web page.
Get the PrefBar Mozilla extension. Allows you to spoof an IE User Agent to any website you want to.

or simply modify one string in about:config.