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The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems.
Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers' increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.
However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.
Don't tell me "But they know better" I actually ref to the strata of people not born with a keyboard in each hand!
Further regarding EU, I am a frequent USA -> EU traveler, with family in FR, it's unfortunate but I believe that the avg over forty/fifty EU user lack quite the basic PC "how to".
If Leo, reads this I bet he has some experience in that regard to share.
Age, interest in dealing with technology, etc. all do have their influence much more than where you live in the "western" world.
The biggest difference I see is a different reaction to threats: the US public is much more risk averse to certain threats, even being open to embrace other risks in order to feel like they did something about a much smaller threat in reality. But in our collective feeling we're all a bit irrational in risk evaluation (we like to reduce the perceived risk if we feel we're in control), and the media influences public opinion greatly in such aspects.
avg over forty/fifty EU user lack quite the basic PC "how to".
Maybe these users are still naive enough to believe that after they paid for a computer and software they can simply use it like they use their car. Maybe they need another decade to learn that multibillion dollar software companies are not able or willing to build save products.
Just imagine something like that happened in the car industry. There'd be miriads of laywers filing class actions.
If the German's were serious they would present all IE users hitting the web with a "change your browser" page served at the ISP level, offering FF, Chrome and Opera options at a click.
One could be education towards a basic wariness of everything IT or media. Another could be telling the truth about the safety of your products and refraining from using your end consumers as test pilots, Redmond VA et al....
Zen effrysing vill bee gut.
Dream on.
I don't know why this is a headline here in the forum, since it was not the first time such a warning was issued. The IE has un-fixed bugs all the time.
Right now its not safe to use the Internet Explorer. Period. This might change next week or in fourteen days when there is a patch available. But until then the advise to use another browser is the one anybody with a sane mind would give. Of course this does not rule out that next week a security hole in Firefox makes it unusable, too.
What happens when the alternative browser we find becomes the target?
[smh.com.au...]
GOOG and Opera must be very happy about this
[mashable.com...]
So whatever you do guys: DO NOT SURF THE INTERNET. And if you really must. DO NOT USE A BROWSER.
What happens when the alternative browser we find becomes the target?
IE has a bad track record.
Furthermore if people switch browsers that have security failings, it gives vendors an incentive to fix them.
The naive users just need someone to install a browser for them and move their bookmarks over.
Also, do not underestimate users, they just need a little help with transitions. My 76 year old father switched to Linux (a much bigger move) with a little (not all that much) help from me.
yes that in the first place yaix2... are we having a 'summer gap' in the middle of winter?
As I mentioned in another thread on this topic [webmasterworld.com], Microsoft's response (or really, lack of response) is what disturbs me the most in the situation. It's ivory tower and pretty much spin instead of action.
So kudos to Germany for pushing the issue.
I've guided dozens of "Aunt Edna" types into using alternate browsers with stunningly little effort.
What makes the difference is motivation, more than knowledge. If you have the brains to use a computer (even at a very basic level), then it's not hard to download and swap to a different browser. The UI's are surprisingly consistent between browsers (with the possible exception of Chrome - and even it's not that different).
What tends to block people is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). But when the can understand why it's a good idea to switch, most people muster the brainpower to figure out the how all on their own.
Kudos to the German government for providing a convincing why for an even larger section of the population. I actually earnestly hope that people decide to choose a variety of different browsers - and that not everyone just moves to FF. Browser mono-culture, no matter how good the browser itself, is just a bad thing overall. Single vector for attack, for one thing. And the web as a whole just doesn't need a single outfit determining the technological future of the web by default, by determining what new technologies it will or will not support. How long has full implementation of CSS and other useful web tech been held back because IE only has to support tech that it's easy for them to implement, because they know developers will have to accommodate the browser with all the market share?
My ideal browser share breakdown is about a dozen browsers, none with more than 30% market share, and a few niche browsers with low market share, kinda twitchy, but "far out" features that get the larger share browsers thinking about where they need to be going. That means a market with healthy competition, where each browser will have to innovate or die.
My ideal browser share breakdown is about a dozen browsers, none with more than 30% market share, and a few niche browsers with low market share, kinda twitchy, but "far out" features that get the larger share browsers thinking about where they need to be going. That means a market with healthy competition, where each browser will have to innovate or die.
I agree. The sad thing is that it would be (technologically) very easy to get there. We already have four major rendering engines (Trident, Gecko, Webkit/KHTML, Presto), forks of Webkit, and a few minor ones that could be contenders (Tkhtml, for example).
We have lots of usable browsers, if people would only use them: FF, IE, Seamonkey, Opera, Chrome (and variants), Safari, Midori, Arora (if the SSL bug is fixed), Konqueror, Flock, K-Meleon, Camino.....
Then there are all the specialised browsers like Amaya, the ones for minor OSes (NetSurf etc.), and the text based ones.
NOT using IE doesn't protect your computer, DISABLING it does. As you know IE can't be removed from windows based computers, it's part of the package, but it can be disabled in a fairly simple manner...
The steps:
- Turn on IE
- Under the TOOLS navigation bar go to INTERNET OPTIONS
- From the options window click on the CONNECTIONS tab
- Click on LAN SETTINGS
- By default IE automatically detects settings, turn this off by checking the "use a proxy server" box and set the address to 0.0.0.0 and the port to 80.
Save and exit.
That's it, now IE can't be launched and any application that requires IE protocols will fail. Set your UPGRADES to be "notify me of upgrades" if it's currently set to "download and install automatically" and your computer will be more secure.
Note: some programs like Adobe's photo applications, HP's printer applications and many other major brands of software/hardware like to set your computer to ping their servers for updates, these updates will also fail and some of these software applications may not react well to that (freezing computer etc). Take control and KNOW what your computer is doing for a change, it's not hard, and all of the connections being made by your computer that you may not even know about can be closed/monitored.
Take control and KNOW what your computer is doing for a change, it's not hard, and all of the connections being made by your computer that you may not even know about can be closed/monitored.
Amen to that. :D
It's frightening: the number of people I know who think a computer is like a toaster. And they don't own a Mac... eek!
You have no idea how many times I've heard the question "What's a web browser?" when trying to help older folks with computer problems... sheesh.
The steps:
- Turn on IE
- Under the TOOLS navigation bar go to internet options
- From the options window click on the CONNECTIONS tab
- Click on lan settings
- By default IE automatically detects settings, turn this off by checking the "use a proxy server" box and set the address to 0.0.0.0 and the port to 80.Save and exit.
That's it, now IE can't be launched and any application that requires IE protocols will fail.
such applications include other user agents such as the safari and opera browsers, so consider carefully before you follow this advice!
