Warning to people and companies: Do not use MS internet explorer.

Informationstechnik)

I'm surprised that Google would use an MS product when they have their own browser.

If you want to be really careful you can run your web browser in a sandbox so even if it does download malware it can't do any damage (assuming the sandbox works).

For example see:

"Sandboxie runs your programs in an isolated space which prevents them from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer. "

Only problem is that it makes bookmarking things a bit of a pain.

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To reply to me directly:

Replace privacy.net with: totalise DOT co DOT uk and replace me with
gareth.harris

Or Mozilla...

Informationstechnik)

I tried Opera a while back. It broke too many web pages that I often use so I went back to FireFox. I still have Opera on my desktop to use when FireFox hangs.

You really are retarded. The term "Internet" is always capitalized.

The term "MS Internet Explorer" is a software name, and all terms are capitalized.

snipped remaining horseshit

You do know that MS releases daily fixes, right?

Got a link for the alleged "Google hack"?

Warning to people and companies: Take the crap you read in Usenet with a grain of salt and follow up with your own research. In ALL cases.

Use both and keep the damned things updated, and make sure your company's IT department doesn't have their heads too far up their asses (for smaller companies)(correctly configured for larger).

1) IDIOT! You forgot to use the proper copyright and trademark information. 2) IDIOT! Admission of "Daily fixes" is admission of garbage software.

On a sunny day (Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:36:28 -0800) it happened FatBytestard wrote in :

For somebody as stupid as you who misses the essence : You need to be hacked.

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You can also install a virtual machine and confine the web browser inside it. Sun's VirtualBox will allow you to make the virtual machine have access to the network. You can then browse with reasonable safety. The browser is still running on your side of the company fire wall so the security is not perfect.

You also have to be careful about what you allow to get moved from the virtual space into the real machine. If you are running a Microsoft OS you have to beware that a file with any of the following extensions can carry a virus payload:

*.cab This is how microsoft carries many programs compressed *.com Old DOS style programs *.dll These are program parts *.doc The macro feature allows documents to carry them *.exe Obviously a program can have it *.htm Also *.html the "J script" allows viruses to install *.jpg Pictures can take advantage of an exploit *.ppt The macro feature again *.xls The macro feature again plus IIRC some other *.xml This appears to allow the "J script" thing again *.zip Any zipped file can be a zipped virus

I believe that the full list of dangerous extensions has somewhat less than

17567 entries in it but is still quite a bit longer than this list.

Unfortunately, the security patches are quite frequent, indicating bad security culture.

Worst of all, these security updates require restarting the IE or the whole operating system. With a few hundred open web pages, this is a huge mess.

With Win2000 MS required that software should be installed, updated and removed without requiring a reboot. Unfortunately, this does not seem to apply to the MS own products.

While some versions of WinNT (3.51/2000) are so stable that it could be used even on 24/7 systems on good hardware with some precautions in a completely isolated system, however, the risk of being in some contact with a network would require frequent security updates, requiring reboots and as such that would be incompatible with 24/7 requirements, unless double redundant hardware is used.

I may expect too much, since in the 1980's I managed several minicomputer systems at various sites in which the next reboot was scheduled years ahead. Even then, the uptime was limited to 1-2 years, in order to shut down the system, to let it cool and restart after an hour to check for failing hardware, e.g. during the vacation period.

"In our investigation we discovered that one of the malware samples involved in this broad attack exploits a new, not publicly known vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer,"

see also:

"The German government recommended people avoid using Internet Explorer until Microsoft Corp. provides a patch to fix a ?critical? security flaw that allowed a cyber attack against Google Inc."

From Microsoft themselves:

"...Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable."

I agree; usually worth checking things out yourself.

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To reply to me directly:

Replace privacy.net with: totalise DOT co DOT uk and replace me with
gareth.harris

You are probably one of those dopes that failed to take the Vista and subsequent Windows 7 plunge, because neither suffers from such issues except in rare occasions.

Also, if you have "hundreds of web pages open", you are an idiot... You failed the test. You shouldn't perform an update on the browser operating code while it is open anyway, dingledorf.

NONE of those had "hundreds of web sites open" on them either.

Do you know how much more takes place on a modern PC compared to back then, right?

I can pump several Megabits per second in or out of my machine on several tens of open sockets right now... and do so safely.

THAT was NOT possible on a PC of old that connected via modem.

You expect too much? I do not think you have a good enough view of the big picture to have a good enough grasp to know what does or does not matter. The reason for constant updates is very likely due to constant attacks.

You are aware that "constant attacks" was NOT part of the original computing paradigms we learned our trades under, right?

Since they are indeed, however, part of our current reality, no derived measure that you "perfect world" dopes that have apparently conveniently overlooked three quarters of the details behind the development and maintenance of an operating system, much less an application, will ever have a grain of accuracy, credibility, or value.

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I haven't run any virtual machines in a long time, but don't they require a OS to install? Since MS got antsy, it is hard to install the same OS in more than one location. Or does windows know you are on the same box?

Informationstechnik)

Opera (v9) is a memory hog. If you open about 30 to 40 pages it just stops rendering and may even crash.

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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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Daily? No chance. MS releases patches on the second tuesday every month. They may release patches earlier but it still takes them several days to do a full regression test.

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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
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nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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Any idiot that thinks he needs to open up more than a couple TABS at a time is exactly that... a complete idiot.

You are talking about OS.

I am talking about an application.

You need a fool regression test.

Simple things for simple people...

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Windoze needn't be the OS running on the virtual but if you have Vista or Windoze 7, there is a virtual XP built in. I haven't checked but I think you can make the XP machine fairly well isolated.

Running the virtual XP you do have the problem that the whole system is from Microsoft so there could well be backdoors installed on purpose by them and you would have a hard time discovering them.

It could even turn out that there is the thing like the magic byte in the OEM product name thing discovered on disks. I forget which byte it is but there is a byte in the field that if it is not set to a value that Microsoft likes, it slowly messes up the contents of the disk. This would mean that not everybody would see the problem with the virtual machine. Only those who installed a disk formated with some 3rd part tool would see the fault.