drscott | Sweaty Firefox

Just mowed, edged, string-trimmed, and swept myself into a stupor. My back hurts.

A few weeks ago I had to spend two hours (at least) updating my adware removal tools and chasing after spyware; a web page had installed about 20 different forms of malware. It took days to get them all. I don't doubt that most home users are now running machines with 100s of different infestations.

I've been relatively free of viral nastiness -- I have a hardware firewall box protecting the home network, antivirus tools, high-security settings on most things, and have never suffered any infestations until now. The key problem is Microsoft -- they installed many "extensible" features with a mind to making workgroup networks easy enough for any idiot, but the same "features," along with a refusal to use a standard buffer package to avoid overwrites, makes their systems unusually vulnerable for home use. When you add in their overwhelming market dominance, Microsoft software is the target of choice for any miscreant.

One easy and useful thing to do if you're stuck with XP: at least dump IE in favor of Firefox, the Netscape-based Mozilla Project browser. I've been using it for a few days, and aside from losing the Google toolbar I've grown dependent on, it's great -- noticeably faster and much less likely to allow harmful ActiveX controls to operate. For those few sites that can't operate without IE, keep it around, just set Firefox as your default browser.

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I've been told of Firefox from someone commenting in one of my journal entries where I was updating my tales of woe with my computer at home.

Some say, it works, some say it's not as standard compliant as IE who knows? Worth taking a gander at however.

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Unfortunately, I do as my DSL and main provider is MSN. :-)

But non the less, it should work in any browser.

I am currently running Win98, not the second Edition, but that's easily solved with a download of the SP from MS.

I'm thinking of finding a used copy of Win2K pro to upgrade to if possible and am curious as to whether Firefox will work on either as well?

Just so you know, I'm currenly running an 800 Mhz Athlon processor and 512 megs of Ram on Asus motherboard, dating back to 2000 (purchased complete from a buddy who upgraded in 2001).

Their web page says it works on both. It behaves as a real application, not a semi-independent OS branch like IE, so it's much less sensitive to OS.

BTW, while upgrading to XP or 2000 would make for a much more stable system, it's a ton of work, perhaps not worth doing if things are working now. Often better to wait until you have new hardware.

Thanks.

I will check out their website.

I may end up waiting until I get around to upgrading the processor and motherboard before upgrading the OS.

Win98 and such are still flaky now. I need to check the connectivity of the processor etc to be sure it's good and tight. May explain the occasional rebooting on it's own.

On Saturday, while waiting for the cable guy, I'll install my Partition Magic software, split the main drive into 2 partitions move all files, photos etc to the second partition and wipe out the new, smaller "C" partition and reinstall Win98 as a clean install and go from there. If need be, run defrag as a safety precaution.

Anyhow, good knowing there are some computer geeks in LJ land to pick brains with. :-)

I love my iMAC and Powerbook, have had very little reason to worry:). Ive just started using Safari at gotmoof's recommendation. It rocks!

Until 1997 I was a Mac user -- actually I had interviewed for a job at Apple in 1984 after seeing the Mac demo at MIT, and talked to Larry Tesler about making Scheme a base language for Macs, and became a Mac developer later. But they lost me when they orphaned my recently-purchased Mac clone, a Powerbase, and I had to buy a PC to run a certain portfolio management program. Apple's market share appears stable at about 3-5%, but the pricing disparity is increasing and Apple makes almost no money on machines other than the iPod. They have to fund most software development themselves on a very small user base, and it's tough. Ideally someone like Sony will buy them and converge the Mac with PS4.

[big nod.] You've described my solution well: firewall at home, antivirus tools, Firefox. At work, in fact, our sysadmin gave us a couple of pointers to malware-cleaning programs and basically told us to quit using IE. I would have been amused except that it really is that bad.

Yes, it really is that bad. And the weirdest bit is that "entrepreneurs" are getting paid to add dozens of different spybot hooks onto a single page. It is easy to find places on the net where they offer to pay you for this "service."

Gives marketing a bad name....

We've been using Firefox for a couple of months, and have a search box for Google on the toolbar. Were you able to get that?

I have to rinkydink Java button from Google, but see the reply below -- there's a toolbar for Firefox done independently.

I was informed that there is a GoogleBar on the computer that Kevin uses, but not on the other two. I do have deepest sender, though.

http://googlebar.mozdev.org

Thanks, that looks like just the thing I need.

prefbar and DeepestSender (a LJ Client) may also interest you.

I work with the team that does enigmail, a Thunderbird/Mozilla extension for OpenPGP signing and encryption.

Enigmail looks cool. If I were still programming, it's the kind of thing I'd enjoy being involved in. I've touched Ron Rivest. :-)

Indeed, the internet has become a much nastier neighborhood over the past few years - can't leave your car unlocked around here anymore, not when every script kiddie on the block can write a tool to check each and every car door! (No, I can't claim this metaphor as my own.) However, I believe you'll find XP SP2 goes a long way towards addressing customers' needs for a more secure browsing environment. For a description of new browser security features, see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2brows.mspx; in particular, the Untrusted Publishers Mitigations address the malwear concern you mention above.

If you have other concerns or ideas, I'd love to hear them and can pass them on to the product groups here; when I put on my Clark Kent glasses my e-mail alias is markmil at microsoft dot com.

And now that I've outed myself as a Microsoft employee and pointed you towards information that could be taken as advice, I need to add the following legal disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Yes, litigation is another charming aspect of our modern-day neighborhood. June Cleaver, where are you when we need you?

Well, my concern is not so much for myself (although the time lost to "defense work" is growing all the time) but the millions of users who haven't got a clue. Alas for me, I serve as tech support for several relatives who use email, browsing, and very simple applications, and their machines have become almost unusable this year. I plan to get the SP2 disk for them and have them install it, which should squelch about 80% of their problems, but Microsoft really has to bring back Uber-Bob, which locks the machine down so no harmful processes or applications can install themselves. If marketed as "improved security," you could sell millions of these. What are the ten or so things 99% of users want to do? Make those the top level interface. Simplify and hide most features. Make the multiuser stuff intuitive. Make components fit into a compatibility/dependency tree and check consistency, automatically downloading and installing as needed.

I realize they're weighed down by complexity, but their home market is about to go away in favor of some simple Linux/Sony/Tivo/iPod box, so attention to this matter is critical.

And I would never have suspected! But frankly, the Clark Kent glasses look a little odd on you...

Sweaty Firefox

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Googlebar for Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape

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