AlbinoRhyno - 4:30 pm on Apr 5, 2002 (gmt 0)

expect that if netscrap and other browsers were as popular as IE, hackers would find just as many security holes in them as they manage to find in IE. the thing is, there is no point hunting for security holes in netscrap or opera because usage is so low.

Exactly my thoughts. It would be theoretically impossible to test a product for everything that it is capable of doing, especially an internet product. Look at how rapidly people/spammers/hackers adapt and refine their tactics.

It's basically a result of the culture - build something as fast as you can and release a patch to fix the problems that are going to show up a month later. Instead of having tests, just release it and you'll have a testing ground for free. If people stopped paying for the laterst release, and made a ruckus about companies not putting out quality product, there might be some changes. As it is now, there is no downside to releasing a buggy product. Look at all the Microsoft bugs, and has their marketshare fallen? No, in fact it has risen...

That being said, I'm not a MS basher. In fact, pretty much all my software (minus web development) is MS. IE 6 works perfectly for me, and is as standards compliant as it gets (to my knowledge). The only standards issue in previous (5.x) versions was the CSS box model, and who wouldn't get that wrong? Let's see, I specify my box to be 300px, then I add 25px margin on the inside of the box, suddenly the box is 350px wide? The W3C were the ones who screwed that up!

Software companies are rewarded for sloppiness. Look at SimGolf (addicting!) - already has two patches out which fix two pages worth of items. CivIII had at least two patches, fixing probably 10 pages worth of items. Apache has patches, and even Linux has security holes.