After June?

Same tactic, over and over again... Again, you pull one specific example out
of your hat without showing that it's not a case of the hackers focusing on
where the money is. The evidence is statistical and real -- the number of
vulnerabilities attributable to IE//WMP/Windows compared to the number of
vulnerabilities that affect FireFox, Thunderbird, etc., are exactly
comparable to the amount of usage. In fact, I'll bet Firefox, et al, fare
much worse if you factor in usage.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User

"BC" wrote in message
oups.com...
You're mistaking inherent vulnerability to intruders with code-specific
vulnerabilities. If the majority of users were to switch to Firefox,
then
the majority of vulnerabilities would be for Firefox.

Nooo...you're the one making the mistake of assuming
that Firefox and IE inherently have a comparable number
of vulnerabilties, which in turn implies that if hackers
focussed their energies on Firefox, it would have as many
problems as IE. But there is absolutely nothing to suggest
that Firefox or the other alternative browsers have anywhere
near the number of potential exploit points that IE does.
That recent WMF exploit for instance showed both XP and
IE's vulnerability: despite representations to the contrary,
Win98 was not at all easily affected at least; and XP with
the latest Firefox was also protected:
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archiv...13/417431.aspx
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archi...ve-122005.html

And this recent test confirmed what a lot of us already knew
about general surfing with Firefox versus IE:

http://www.informationweek.com/windo...leID=179102695

Please learn to differentiate technical issues form market-
driven issues.

I do and have done so. You should consider not promoting
the use of inherently bad software like IE.

-BC

Same tactic, over and over again... Again, you pull one specific example out
of your hat without showing that it's not a case of the hackers focusing on
where the money is. The evidence is statistical and real -- the number of
vulnerabilities attributable to IE//WMP/Windows compared to the number of
vulnerabilities that affect FireFox, Thunderbird, etc., are exactly
comparable to the amount of usage. In fact, I'll bet Firefox, et al, fare
much worse if you factor in usage.

So what dark container are you pulling these little "facts"
from, pray tell? IE is tied in with Windows in a really stupid,
inherently insecure way that's not fixable without giving up
"features" that Microsoft sold to a large number of extremely
foolish vendors (there is not a single good reason why, say,
an accounting system like Peachtree or Quickbooks should
require IE.)

-BC

By the time patches for Firefox are issued every Tuesday, I may have
figured out how to live with Linux. :-)

I've been toying with some recent Linux distros. While Ubuntu has
been getting the most mention, I have to say I'm most impressed
with Xandros as a Linux-for-Windows-user product: very easy to
install, including a nice clean repartitioner/resizer and boot manager
to add Xandros to an existing Windows PC and keep Windows
intact; a very familiar-seeming Windows-like desktop; a simple
system/application program updater; and a trial version of
CrossOver Office for loading on MS Office (up to ver XP )and even
Internet Explorer (I was able to run Windows Update in IE 6.0!)
http://www.xandros.com/products/home..._download.html

The free version is available via BitTorrent he
http://www.xandros.com/products/home..._download.html

Definitely give it a shot if you are even curious about Linux.

There's actually a fair chance that I'll be switching from Win98
to Xandos for my web surfing/email needs in the next few months.
I have XP Pro and Home PC's but they are for special purposes
and I can't trust them for regular web access.

FYI.

-BC

BC wrote:
By the time patches for Firefox are issued every Tuesday, I may have
figured out how to live with Linux. :-)

I've been toying with some recent Linux distros. While Ubuntu has
been getting the most mention, I have to say I'm most impressed
with Xandros as a Linux-for-Windows-user product: very easy to
install, including a nice clean repartitioner/resizer and boot manager
to add Xandros to an existing Windows PC and keep Windows
intact; a very familiar-seeming Windows-like desktop; a simple
system/application program updater; and a trial version of
CrossOver Office for loading on MS Office (up to ver XP )and even
Internet Explorer (I was able to run Windows Update in IE 6.0!)
http://www.xandros.com/products/home..._download.html

The free version is available via BitTorrent he
http://www.xandros.com/products/home..._download.html

Definitely give it a shot if you are even curious about Linux.

There's actually a fair chance that I'll be switching from Win98
to Xandos for my web surfing/email needs in the next few months.
I have XP Pro and Home PC's but they are for special purposes
and I can't trust them for regular web access.

I use both Xandros and Linspire for online stuff...if I need to view a
site that required Internet Explorer, I just install Crossover Office
Pro 5.0 and then use Crossover to install IE (I install DCOM95 before
IE). The only thing I use WinXP for is to back up my video tapes to my
hard drive using a WinTV-USB and WinDVR3 and then use TMPGEnc DVD
Author to author my DVD files and then DVDShrink to shrink them down
(if necessary) and to burn the DVD (I have Nero installed as DVDShrink
uses Nero to burn the DVDs).

I just hope that a new version of LSongs comes out that has AAC
decoding built-in (regular AAC and even HE-AAC).