Dump IE

[sUnShInE]

Important Notice: The U.S. government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is warning web surfers to stop using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser and use a different browser after last week's sophisticated malware attack targeted a known IE flaw.

US-CERT, a non-profit partnership between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the public and private sectors, was established in September 2003 to improve computer security preparedness and response to cyber-attacks in the U.S.

A vulnerability statement on the CERT site said: "There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, the DHTML object model, MIME type determination, and ActiveX. It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser, especially when browsing untrusted sites." CERT otherwise recommends, among other things, that users set security settings to high and to disable Active scripting and ActiveX.

All over the net security researchers have spent a lot of time beating the "Dump IE" drum, and the CERT notice lends credibility to stoke the movement away from the "world's most popular browser".

More from Internet News and The Register.

Note: I realize that MobileRead users are smarter than the average netster, but I figured I'd pass this along to anyone who's still riding the holey IE train. Just because it came pre-installed on your computer, doesn't mean it's any good.

[Alexander Turcic]

What a coincidence... today I had to remove a nasty Trojan from my system (dyfuca.bw), which has used some IE/ActiveX exploit to download itself on my computer. Let me tell you, I was not amused!

Since Sunshine already brought it up, let me give you some more details on our daily visitors' browsers:

June 2004
- MS Internet Explorer 69 %
- Mozilla 11.5 %
- Unknown 7.3 %
- Opera 4.1 %
- FireFox 3.3 %
- Safari 1.9 %
- Netscape 1.3 %
- NetNewsWire 0.2 %
- Konqueror 0.2 %
- Firebird (Old FireFox) 0 %

Well, 69% is still a very large percentage, but compare this to the beginning of this year:

January 2004
- MS Internet Explorer 82.3 %
- Mozilla 5.3 %
- Firebird (Old FireFox) 3.7 %
- Opera 3.1 %
- Safari 1.8 %
- Netscape 1.5 %
- Unknown 1.2 %
- Konqueror 0.2 %
- NetNewsWire 0 %
- MultiZilla 0 %

So, at least among OUR visitors, MS Internet Explorer already lost a considerable share!

[gadgetguru]

A rare opportunity for IE competitor to gain ground on the leader. Really with IE stucked at version 6 for sometime, the competitor has added quite a lot to the browser landscape. Opera/Mozilla/Firefox are both as stable (if not more so) as IE, they are faster, and offer integrated popup blocking, tab interface, and a lot more.

For the geeky crowd (that include most people who browse PDA related sites), IE has lost its luster, if only Opera doesn't identify itself as IE by Default, its number would have been much higher. But unfortunately, for the masses IE is still it... hopefully these type of news will let more people discover what else is out there...

[Alexander Turcic]

You're right, I forgot about those browsers who are immitating the IE user-agent.

Take a look at this site for some of the latest (even unfixed!) IE exploits:
http://www.malware.com/index2.html

[derekweb]

Yeah, I got wind of THAT report yesterday myself during the day. First thing I did when I got home was to install Mozilla Firefox.

EGADS! The bloody thing is STILL in beta, and already cruisin' faster and just as stable as IE6. The ONLY bad issue is that the download window doens't always go away (despite the preference being set to "always close window when download finishes).

That being said. Here is the GOOD: Wonderful migration script! The URLS, Cookies, Favorites, EVERYTHING! Just copied over wonderfully. The organization of those URLS left a little wanting, but it took me all of 5 seconds to get to the tool to fix that. Overall, if you have EVER used Netscape, you'll be very familiar with the UI here. But the upgrades under the hood that they have thrown in... I'm just wondering what took them so long! Firefox is everything they were saying it was going to be! I'm proud of it and impressed with it.

www.mozilla.org

Hopefully with this crap going on with Microsoft, they will make a lot of noise about switching. I think it's poetic justice for MS to lose market share because they can't and in many cases just won't fix their software vulnerabilities.

[sUnShInE]

Yea, isn't it remarkable that it's still in beta? I've sent in two bug reports in over a year of use (Firebird and Mozilla combined).

My personal experience is that people are just too darn lazy to even download anything other IE. Like I mentioned, it's too easy that the browser comes with your OS.

We should probably mention, for anyone that's in need of the switch, Netscape 7.1 (which is actually Mozilla) is also free.

[gyffes]

I've been using Firefox since two names ago (firebird, whatever it was before that) and have NEVER had a problem that I could associate with it.

The only site (and I do much online banking/stockwork with 4 diff brokers/banks) that won't work with it? Microsoft (surprise!)

I've been on a campaign at work to spread the word on this lovely bit of software but it took the CERT advisory to make people here say, "huh... maybe we need to pay attention to this..."

Support Excellence in Programming -- Boycott Micro$quash products!

[derekweb]

Yeah... I'm one of those bummin' out, head hanging people right now. In the past (before Firefox was being developed, mind you) I just ran into too many issues with websites and Mozilla compatibility. So I ended up switchign back to IE. That was when they had just released version 6, which we all know now was buggier than even IE ... despite the notable speed improvements they were trying to instill.

Oh well. I'm still glad I switched to Firefox. The tabs are WONDERFUL here at work. It's actually helping reduce the Memory Load on my PC, which was strained as it was. I'm liking this app a LOT!

[cbarnett]

I've taken the plunge and installed Firefox..... It's pretty good! I'm used to using IE by default (and Yahoo installs a nice little companion bar in it), but I'll give firefox a try for a while. You never know, I may convert :P

PS - I really like the tabs too!

Craig.

PPS - I'm trying to import my bookmarks I exported from Yahoo (a straight html file of links), but after I select the file to import, nothing happens. Can anyone advise or help?

[sUnShInE]

Originally Posted by gyffes

I've been on a campaign at work to spread the word on this lovely bit of software but it took the CERT advisory to make people here say, "huh... maybe we need to pay attention to this..."

That's awesome! I'm also on a mission to improve people's tech habits generally, so I'm glad that this helped some people make the switch.

There are also alot of great customization tools for Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird out there. I'm a huge fan of the Google Toolbar (I make everyone I know install it...no joke!), and am currently using the Toy Factory Theme. You can check out over 100 extensions and plugins here.

For those folks who aren't yet converted, they might be interested in the new Firefox extention, IE View, which adds "View page in Internet Explorer" links to the content and link context menu. You never need go back to IE again.