Cookies etc.,

Then you've never installed an update from MS?

-- Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is enough left over to pay them.

A neighborhood stub, probably only 4-8 choices ?:-) ...Jim Thompson

Not enough to always get a previously unused IP address. Wait till they roll out IP v6 and dynamic addresses will likely disappear except for small town dialup.

No, whenever I see it during an upload it's always some other number. Early on Pacific Bell seemed not to have had enough for all the subscribers they signed up. After some ruckus they must have obtained another slew because the failed log-ins and inactivity boot-offs subsided. It's probably a huge pool they hold for nearly everyone that signs in via their San Francisco server. That is 100 miles from here so it must be a lotta IP addresses.

IE is, of course, on the PC because XP requires this to be embedded. However, I never use it for web browsing. Ever.

That wasn't what you said, though. :)

browser.

I'm surprised you didn't unlock your door and give him a Smith&Wesson party.

I'm sure that didn't help her.

And that is a major reason that i run Linux.

That is certainly a good protection but many of us don't have the luxury of being able to bow out of Windows.

Joerg Inscribed thus:

You could always run a virtual Windows machine inside Linux. Then throw it away when you've done.

Whilst we are discussing Windows security, has it occurred to anybody that you cannot install hardware, printers, scanners, camera etc, without installing the spyware that is embedded into the drivers supplied.

Doesn't a virtual Wondoze machine have the same "virtues" as a "plain" Winstall?

Yep. But if you use a VM, you can use it when you need it (i.e. if you need to use Windows-only software) and use Linux for everything else. That way, the Windows VM may not need network access, the ability to read sensitive files, modify important files, etc.

Robert Baer Inscribed thus:

Essentially yes ! But you have control over what you want to do with it and what it can access. Because its just an image you can simply discard it when finished and reload a clean one when you need it.