Microsoft Responds to IE Criticism 1244
darthcamaro writes "Looks like there was an online free-for-all on Microsoft's chat servers yesterday with Internet Explorer engineers. Several interesting things come out in the story including the fact that the IE big wig thinks that all of his engineers should have other browsers installed to see what they can do and, catch this...he thinks they're the underdog. 'I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog,' said Hachamovitch. 'Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't. I welcome the feedback today. Getting informed is the only way I know to get better. The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.'" Reader nkodengar notes that "Microsoft has posted an article on MSDN listing everything that will be affected by the the updates to Internet Explorer in Service Pack 2. This will be particularly important to developers who use ActiveX controls, pop-up windows and file download counters in their websites..."
IE to block popups. (Score:5, Interesting)
This pretty much means that the popup window will be officially dead in a year's time.
tcd004
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is that it a user can't expect to just sit on their ass and have someone else inform them about all their choices.
It's called personal responsibility. If there is a Ford dealership close to my house and all I ever do is buy Fords, should Ford be held liable when all my cars fall apart?
Get informed. Use your brain. Own up to the fact that you have to actually make your own choices.
Re:Microsoft are lying to us (Score:4, Interesting)
This would indicate to me that if Microsoft didn't ship with IE as "The Internet" (tm), the vast majority of mothers would never even have the opportunity to use the internet. Maybe this isn't quite as bad for everyone as most of us think...
Moms and grandmas not always so dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
Now she doesn't do all the power user stuff but the point is that with a basic understanding of computer usage she was able to kick the IE habit.
Don't underestimate the ability of the average user to see the problems that IE has and to move away from it. Apathy however can be powerful and I think that's the main culprit.
We can't commit... (Score:4, Interesting)
They seemed evasive and unwilling to say anything except marketing-speak. What's the point of chatting to the community if you aren't allowed to talk about the product?
Interesting comment about feedback... (Score:5, Interesting)
Which, frankly, sucks because there are so many features on Firefox that I like, but it's so slow that I can't use it for everyday browsing.
My question is this: Are we so anti-Microsoft that we'll settle for clunkier software without complaint, just because it's not made by Microsoft? Where is the hue and cry for a faster, more responsive Firefox? Why do we accept things without complaint just because we admire the politics of the developers?
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone using an electrical appliance should be able to install the necessary insulation themselves.
If they die, then that is their own fault.
The only thing that protects software companies from having to look after their users properly, ie by not shipping them stuff that is an insecure disaster is that you can't trace death & injury directly to consurmer software.
Ah, but Indirectly..? Discuss.
Re:he's right (Score:3, Interesting)
What a great scheme - I pay for debugging their software.
Re:Microsoft the underdog. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had lengthy discussions with a number of different 'Softies about this.
Keep in mind that Microsoft has a very consistent and very strong corporate culture. Everyone there thinks the way Gates wants them to.
The people over there truly believe that they are somehow "saving the world" with their software, and that they are the only ones capable of doing so.
It's truly bizarre.
Re:Big Mistake... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
My point is that it's not Ford's problem if someone keeps buying their lower-quality vehicles. They could easily walk further down the street to the Toyota dealership and get a better-made car. But they don't bother taking the personal responsibility to get informed.
Re:We can't commit... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it was not until I recently started doing some REAL webdev by learning
PNG and CSS are not only standard formats that are easy to implement, they make things look friggin' incredible! Compare PNG-alpha to GIF-transparency and static HTML tags to CSS. No contest!
It is for this reason that I have stopped using IE.
Re:GIve people choice, get real feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
One can say that of Windows and IE. But Office, where Microsoft makes its money, won out in a crowded field. Gates once said, of how Office began, "We asked developers to develop for Windows, and they said no. So we asked Microsoft's Application Division, and they didn't have that option." Many of Microsoft's competitors in office-type programs stayed with DOS too long. Lotus (of Lotus 1-2-3, not Notes) was bigger than Microsoft until the early 1990s.
Today, Office is where Microsoft makes its big money. Windows makes some money, and everything else (XBox, MSN, tools. etc. loses money). The real threat to Microsoft is not Linux. It's OpenOffice.
Re:In support (Score:3, Interesting)
Just the other day I got hit with a SearchNow! installation. The only reason I noticed is because I saw activity in the system tray. I have no idea why they did that, because otherwise I would have been none the wiser.
I didnt click *anything*. I was unexpectedly redirected to another page by a page I was visiting, and bam... it was installing.
I routinely tell any popup not to install software. I berate my in-laws who click "Yes, install Gator, we love Gator aka Gain aka Claria". I'm a computer programmer who uses ie at work by day, but uses firefox at home by night because he Knows Better(tm).
Firefox has *never* installed a "plugin" automatically on me because of a security hole. And I trust that it never will.
Re:stop spinning (Score:5, Interesting)
Will IE Pop Up Blocking be available to Win2K ? (Score:2, Interesting)
The article discussed features associated with Windows XP service pack 2. I didn't see any mention of extending these IE enhancements to Windows 2000.
Does anybody know if IE enhancements such as pop up blocking will be available to Windows 2000 users?
MS needs to give up IE (Score:5, Interesting)
MS does not try to create innovate products for customers. All MS does is look at where it is losing market share, then quickly hack a barely functional product that will keep customers from leaving. The world went GUI, a year later MS had a GUI. The Internet happened, a year later MS had a browser. Customer started putting servers on commodity hardware, much later MS had server software. This has been the case with media players, music services, nearly everything. Even the wonderful Excel was based on other popular products.
MS needs to give up the browser. It was a ill thought out reaction to the fear of losing market share, and all the problems result from the bad engineering that occurs when people are in a hurry. IE makes a fine application frontend, and they should concentrate on promoting it for that use. Data servers on the back end, the local IE rendering the GUI.
This will not happen because MS quality cannot compete in the open marketplace, and though many will continue to use IE due to the tight integration with other MS products, others will use the change as an opportunity to move to more reliable solutions.
Underdog culture (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course!
This is a fundamental part of the culture at MS. They nuture the "underdog feeling" there in order to remain so fiercely competitive -- even when the product is a near-monopoly.
I saw this when I was an intern on the Excel team some 10 years ago -- the team leaders took pride in obsessing over what the competition was doing, and acting almost as if the company were going to go out of business in 3 months if they didn't.
If this applies to the marketing/legal departments too, that would explain a lot of MS's behavior.
Re:Big Mistake... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, since bandwidth costs are one of the reasons for showing ads in the first place, they could spare the bandwidth altogether by not showing you the article you want, either.
You are not somehow entitled to the content of sites. If they want to advertise something on their pages, or if they need to in order to support themselves, then that is their prerogative and they can take any (legal) steps they want to make sure people see them. If you don't like it, no one's holding a gun to your head to visit Salon.com. Go read another site... or better yet, make your own and offer it to millions of people while paying the costs out of your pocket.
I don't like ads any more than the next guy, but making it so that they can't be presented will only mean that the sites we know and love will have severe financial difficulties.
Come up with a better solution (a micropayments system that actually works on a large scale, for example), and I'm all ears.
Re:CSS CSS CSS (Score:3, Interesting)
There are IE Engineers?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out some of these release dates: [microsoft.com]
6.0 --> 31-Dec-2001
6.0 SP1 --> 28-Aug-2002
I thought IE on the Mac was dead... judging by their release schedule, IE on the PC has been dead for years. Any other software company that waited *years* to release their next version of internet software (or an operating system, no less) would be dead in the water.
What really makes me mad is they drove other browsers into the ground during the war, only to sit on their haunches and enjoy the elimination of their competition. Thank goodness for Mozilla, or we'd all be in real trouble.
Get to work MS.
--J
Avoidance of the W3C standards question (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously if they were 100% compliant then web developers would stick to the standards, and any compliant browser would work and IE would start to lose market share.
Notice that his responses kept repeating the "needing to support current customer configs". What he really means is "ensuring continued customer lock-in to IE and Windows".
I bet they had PR coaches sitting right next to them the whole time the chat was going on.
Hilarious!
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's a good development. For one, it means that not everyone will go over to firefox. I wouldn't want everyone on firefox, just as I don't want everyone on internet explorer. I want there to be some sort of balance.
I'm fine with a vast majority of people using IE once this service pack comes through for XP. If it does what they want it to, and they aren't putting themselves at risk, then I'm all for it.
My concern is for the users on legacy operating systems, who will never get an internet explorer update. They will still be vulnerable to exploitation. As they still comprise a surprising amount of internet users, this is some cause for concern. Any news on if Microsoft will be releasing the updates to IE as a standalone upgrade? Or are these things specific to the operating system?
The conspiratorial part of me wonders if Microsoft was planning this all along. To leave the browser abandoned so people get scared about security issues, and then release the fix for many security issues as a Windows XP only service pack.
It's related to the 'innovation' thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Their marketing and sales force has the general public convinced they're brilliant innovators, but among their technical peers, they're behind the curve. We know it, they know it, and it gives them an inferiority complex a mile wide.
Re:Big Mistake... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They are Evil, not Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
I would imagine that the developer's hands were tied in allowing it in IE in the user friendly (but insecure) way that made it such a problem. If the devs were behind it, I am guessing they did not forsee all the evil uses it could be used for that give such a headache today. Other browsers have had the luxury of seeing how bad ActiveX became and learned from its mistakes.
I consider myself a "nice" and not evil person, and I know that given an offer w/ a decent raise, I would join MS, and work in its IE department.
Direct your anger towards the corner offices, not the guys in the cubes. The guys in the cubes IMHO made a damn fast but out-of-the-box insecure browser. And unlike an open source project, I wouldnt expect these guys to deliver any scathing remarks about their boss's or MS's decisions, because im sure they like doing what they are doing, warts and all, and generally like their jobs, and would not want to jeopardize them- and what company really wants to deal with a developer who will go around in public blasting the company on one of its most high-profile products.
The IE web browser needs simplification (Score:4, Interesting)
This creates an environment on the web browser that makes it easy to include flaw after flaw, because the developers who work on it (while totally decent), are not really good enough to encourage quality coding from the get go in such a manner that would prevent these kinds of things from occuring. ActiveX, while nice, is bloated and has far too many problems, and it is unecessary and not cross-browser compatible, along with many of the other things in IE that make it so powerful.
The simple solution is to resimplify IE, and remodularize it in such a way that there are bug fixes released for downloadable modules, and not the browser itself. There should be a default browser that doesn't have all of the BS that would enable some user to take over your computer. By disabling this, it would remove millions in cost from the people of the world, simply by not allowing as many viruses to get pushed around.
Therefore, I believe that the solution for Microsoft is simplification. That simple step would make certain items on the web incompatible for a while, but I think that the only time a commercial venture really needs to use ActiveX is when it is dealing with some for of subscribing end user or when programming in intranet type application.
Of course, windows won't do this because they are interested in aesthetics and ease of use for the end user, which also creates ease of use for the people who write viruses as well.
Re:CSS CSS CSS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:stop spinning (Score:3, Interesting)
Food for thought (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd think that Opera would trick whatever is counting. Maybe someone else knows more.
Short memory.. (Score:5, Interesting)
How often to people give heated feedback to, for example, Mozilla/Firefox? I personally find the browser to slow and clunky in many ways, which is why I use IE and a popup blocker (Google Toolbar) rather than Mozilla, for sheer speed.
Only 18 months ago Mozilla was considered a poster child for a failed free software project. It was ridiculed frequently on this forum for being slow, buggy, etc... Then along comes Firefox. How short the collective memory is! The Mozilla developers fought through it all. They deserve our highest esteeme.
Re:It's hardly ignorant users, is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:CSS Support???? (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work as a web developer, and I would develop, not for any browser really, but just to be in line with standards as listed by W3C (largely in notepad, but using Dreamweaver for some things, including XHTML validation). I'd test in Mozilla largely, and found that if it was coded properly and in conformance with standards, it almost always display properly in Mozilla, Opera, or Safari. The two browsers I had to be most careful with, because they were most likely to render improperly, were IE (you had to test both Mac and PC, because even these would sometimes render a page differently), and old, obsolete Netscape 4.7 (which was the only thing I could find that did a worse job than IE).
I even worked a job where they insisted I develop with Frontpage, and there were some complex table designs (since I was using Frontpage, I wasn't able to use CSS positioning) that Frontpage would code in such a way that, somehow, it would render improperly in IE, but it would still render properly in Mozilla. I don't know what was more embarrassing: that Microsoft managed to write a WYSIWYG html editor that created pages that render improperly in it's own browser, or that Microsoft managed to make a web browser that couldn't render pages made by it's own WYSIWYG html editor. (probably the latter is more excusable, since, frankly, the code generated by those old versions of Frontpage was horrible)
Why do they need to write a browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) They want to save $1 billion.
2) IE is getting slated by everyone because Mozilla are better products
3) They are getting fined by the EU for bundling IE anticompetitively
4) IE 7 is going to be too little too late
5) IE is horrible at suporting standards
They could solve all the above issues overnight with one cheap, simple and blindingly obvious move...
Spend 5 minutes compiling a version of Mozilla with a little 'e' in the corner instead of an 'm', search and replace 'bookmark'/'favourite' . Simply feed the results into software update and sack the whole IE team, all problems solved.
Seriously, there is NO reason for them to write a browser anymore - it's not as if anyone is paying for IE nowadays.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_
Including:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_
http://www.apple.com/downloads
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.apple.com/d
http://www.apple.com/downl
Where's Microsoft's version of these pages?
Re:MIME Type vs Extensions (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it.. without extensions you'd have to open every file (well, the OS would) in order to tell you what it was.. all formats would have to contain information on their content too - in a standard way (is that image a jpg or a gif?)
This would be really slow.
Then as well - how would you, the human, know what a file was? (is that image a jpg or a mp3 with an image of the album cover displayed?)
That'd be less that ideal from a user perspective.
So, instead we have a file extension that tells you explicitly, in a very fast way, what the file type is. I know some OSes will hide the extension from the filename but then you're reduced to looking at the icon which describes what the file type is instead...
So, al in all, instead of asking to get rid of extensions, you should pray for all future technology to use techniques as simple and effective as this one.
Re:Interesting comment about feedback... (Score:3, Interesting)
If anything, the open development process gives even more of an opportunity for feedback, frequently heated. With a closed program like IE, what you're seeing isn't so much feedback as frustration at the obvious flaws which could have been so easily fixed . .
Oh, and how can you say FireFox is clunky. I honestly find it faster and generally a joy to use - IE's really showing its age these days . .
P
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
It IS Ford's problems when those lower-quality vehicles fall apart, because then Ford has to issue a recall and that costs them money. God help them if someone gets hurt as a result of one of those lower-quality vehicles falling apart, because then we're talking lawsuits and big damages.
Now, before we all start hollerin' that commercial software companies should be held legally liable for the quality of their products, ask yourself who you would hold liable for free/open software, and why it should be any different?
Re:stop spinning (Score:4, Interesting)
Where would microsoft be if they were required to send a patch CD to every registered customer for every security patch (and you thought AOL CDs were annoying) and if requested pay for a technician to apply the patch or replace the product?
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
How does not understanding something equate with "lazy"?
If you're a professional in this particular field, being informed is--or should be--par for the course.
Joe User? They won't be informed necessarily, and MS is predatory based on their ignorance.
Re:Short memory.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The Mozilla line is still in the running for a failed software project. Firefox and Thunderbird are great, with good usability enhancements (like a download manager that auto-vanishes and isn't intrusive, with a "clean-up" button that removes old download records with a single click).
Mozilla, OTOH, still feels old and crufty.
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
If there is a Ford dealership close to my house and all I ever do is buy Fords, should Ford be held liable when all my cars fall apart?
I was arguing that it's more like buying a Ford and it only coming with Ford accessories, and those accessories try and tie you into other Ford sales channels and eventually destroy your car unless you deliberately go out and replace them.
And the point isn't "should Microsoft provide another radio", it's "is Microsoft responsible for the damage, when it *is* possible to avoid it if you go to a third party and replace soem of the accessories in the car with safer ones.
Perhaps a better analogy would be if they made safety belts out of tissue paper, and then said "you can always replace them with safety belts that work".
Script generated output will be broken? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does your Web site contain files with file extensions that do not match their Content-Type?
If your site serves files that are handled by mime-handlers, the file extensions on those files should correspond to the same ProgID as the mime-handler. If the Content-type ProgID for a given file does not match the file extension ProgID, Internet Explorer in XP SP2 may take the following actions: 1) the user may be prompted to download the file and 2) the file will not be executed in the extension-handler if it fails to execute in the mime-handler.
You can correct these mismatches by changing the content-type to match the file extension. Be sure this is true for your Web pages as well.
Exception: This change does not affect cases where a "content-disposition=attachment" header is sent. In those cases, the file name or extension suggested by the server is considered final and is not changed based on Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) sniffing.
So my ohp script that generates svg, that won't work anymore?
Re:IE to block popups. (Score:3, Interesting)
How can we expect support for standards... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MIME Type vs Extensions (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you may be misinterpreting what Jezral is getting at.
Filename extensions have never been part of the WWW. Sure, you get URLs with dots in various places, but that doesn't mean anything. At least not in browsers that adhere to the specifications.
The HTTP specification, RFC 2616, explicitly states that web browsers may not attempt to guess a file type when a Content-Type header has been provided. Internet Explorer does, paying attention to what comes after dots in a URL and the first few bytes of a resource. That is flat-out incorrect behaviour.
The Content-Type header is more flexible and standardised than a random three letter extension on the end of a URL, and much easier to disambiguate by clients.
Microsoft seem to be fixing this issue a little with the service pack update, but to what extent is unknown - so far as their description of the behaviour is a little confusing.
Wanting this issue to be addressed by Microsoft is not the same as wanting to remove your file extensions from your OS.
Wait a second, did I RTFA correctly? (Score:1, Interesting)
What they really should do is start all over, not build and patch the old Mosaic engine (it has served a full life, M$ should let it die.)
And build a new one on top of the LYNX engine. Or gecko, heaven forbid.
While we're talking about browsers, does anybody really know the difference between Internet Exploder and MSN Exploder? Does MSN Exploder just have more spyware somehow? Enquiring minds want to know.
---
posting as anonymous coward due to karma issues.
Re:MIME Type vs Extensions (Score:5, Interesting)
The filename extension is just metadata, like the name, size and creation date. There's no real reason why it has to form part of the filename. That's just how DOS was designed.
Hiding the filename extension is Win95's (and its successors') way of emulating the Classic MacOS approach of storing the filetype in a separate metadata field. In DOS, it essentially was a separate metadata field (char filename[8], char type[3], if you like) but long filenames made that a bit hazy.
The point I'm riding at is that while storing it somewhere is good for usability, there's no good reason to put it in the filename. UNIX traditionally doesn't store this meta-data at all, and the user is left to just "know" what each file is. That's bad. MacOS's approach (storing the type as separate filesystem meta-data) is, I think, a good approach.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a matter of being too lazy to download Firefox, it's a matter of not knowing it exists because Microsoft's marketing has conditioned them to think IE = The Internet.
This is not a bad thing in general. This is what every company's marketing department dreams of: making their product synonomous with the service. Kleenex and Band-Aid are both other companies that have done this successfully.
Why do users equate IE with the Internet? Where did Microsoft go wrong here? What were they supposed to do? Not include a browser with the OS? Have links to competing browsers on the desktop?
I don't think the number of IE-only sites are the reason for Microsoft's browser dominance. They are the result of them.
IE is a fast and effective browser that for a time was the best available. Now users are starting to realize that it is no longer the best and hasn't been for some time now. Consumers use whatever is the best for them until something better for them comes a long.
Re:Microsoft the underdog. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and i bet you'll back us up in our revolution. Just like GHW Bush backed up the Shiites after he told them he'd support them if they overthrew Saddam. Oh wait, he didn't, and now their bodies are the ones turning up in mass graves all over Iraq.
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted, MS could include multiple browser installers with their Windows distributions, but it's unlikely that they would provide the full range of alternatives on-disk -- not even Linux/*BSD does that. Given that they couldn't/wouldn't, isn't it likely that the chosen browsers would be percieved to have an unfair market advantage, much as IE is now?
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft doesn't, but my software vendors do. We are in the the process of moving part of our customer management system to a new web-based software system that is built on J2EE, SQL and XML
The problem? It requires MSXML 3.0 because they use data islands to populate the web forms. Therefore, (for that application, at least) we have to use IE on Windows. Period.
Why switch to such an app? The other half of the software (the back-end) is the best in the industry - it runs on IBM UniData on NT/2K or AIX and requires only telnet on ANY platform. The integration between the two was compelling enough to make all the other requirements inconsequential.
They're good people though, and the IE requirement is actually a little weird considering that the document generation engine uses Apache FOP's XSL:FO renderer to generate PDFs, so they aren't opposed to non-MS software, I just think they really wanted to use data islands.
I keep working them on this, but the truth is, this is why MS pushes so hard for the attention of developers.
P.S. Why can't someone just write an MSXML 3.0 -compatable data island extension for FF?
Re:It's hardly ignorant users, is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose you buy an ink pen, and using that ink pen as it was intended will get ink all over your clothes every single time you use it. Buy a replacement pen - ink all over your clothes. Get the upgraded version of the pen - ink all over your clothes.
Now, if that ink pen cost you $100-$250 and it wasn't usable as an ink pen, I trust you would want your money back.
That's not a big stretch from where we stand with Microsoft Windows. The Internet Explorer internet browser is integrated into the operating system in such a way that we must conclude that using the internet is one of the primary functions of their operating system. What happens if you put a fresh installation of Windows XP on the internet? Anyone? You get a virus and the box WILL become inoperative.
Microsoft sells a defective operating system. There are no two ways about it. The whole "Pop-up blocker" industry exists to fix a flaw in Microsoft's product. There is no analogous industry -ANYWHERE-. Sure, there are mechanics, but there is no "Lemon Automobile Repair" industry. There are lots of service repair industries, but there are no other industries that fix the fundamental flaws of someone else's product.
Suppose Boeing 747s simply didn't fly and it took a 3rd party to make them functional airplanes. Suppose Sony TVs didn't display viewable pictures and it took a 3rd party to fix every last single unit that came off the Sony production line. Imagine if Dockers pants -always- fell off and you had to -always- take your pants to another company in order to get a zipper and button installed.
In all those cases, the company producing the inoperative product would go out of business - but Microsoft hasn't. Either they are extremely shrewd or there is clear evidence that they have somehow circumvented the open market economy.
Bottom line:
If any other company in any other industry tried to pull off what Microsoft does as standard operating procedure, they would be regulated to hell and back. They only get away with it because few white-haired politicians really understand computer software in terms of a standard sector of industry.
Something else that is important (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyone who enabled ActiveX controls when surfing the internet deserved to have his/her/its machine hijacked. (Note, use of the past tense, and not a conditional, is intentional).
Any so-called "developer" who actually puts an ActiveX control on a website deserves to lose all his customers. He obviously swallowed the Microsoft propaganda, that a web site should be designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer running on Windows because (of course) all other browsers and operating systems must be exterminated. Consequently his own business is being exterminated by his own actions. Justice at last?
Re:It's hardly ignorant users, is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
you buy a new pen, pull it out of your pocket to use it, and an organized crime ring comes by breaks the pen and splatters ink all over.
that's a more accurate analogy. It's the crackers that are hurting you, not Microsoft.
Re:IE to block popups. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm using a properly locked down version of IE5.5 SP2 and there is not a single advertisement on that page.
Perhaps there is a good reason not to properly support Cascading Style Sheets.
NONE, ZERO, ZIP.