Microsoft Says Firefox Not a Threat to IE 1306
KillaKen187 writes "A CNET article claims that 'just days after the launch of open-source browser Firefox 1.0, Microsoft executives defended Internet Explorer, saying it is no less secure than any other browser and doesn't lack any important features.' It's also interesting to note that these statements made by Steve Vamos, Microsoft Australia's managing director, come with no knowledge of what Firefox has to offer as he admits not even installing or using Firefox."
One feature Firefox is missing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tabbed browsing not important (Score:5, Informative)
No less secure? (Score:3, Informative)
IE no less secure? Firefox has nothing to offer?
Tell that to the dozen or so users that I've had to rescue in the past six months because their machines had been rendered nearly inoperable by spyware and malware, just because they made the mistake of surfing the web with IE.
Tell that to the whole *industry* of spyware removal tools - AdAware, SpyBot, etc, etc... - that have sprung up precisely because so many users have problems with IE.
And tell that to all the happy users who have switched to Firefox and love it. I personally know dozens of people who have switched to Mozilla or Firefox, and not *one* of them has switched back to IE.
No less secure? (Score:3, Informative)
Really? Then how come my wife's virus scanner was popping up and alerting her to malicious code almost daily while using IE. Now that I've forced her to switch to Firefox, she's only had one after months of use. Go figure.
There is IE for the Mac (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, I see.. something that only runs on Windows
IE is available for Mac OS as well. Or if you're on *BSD or GNU/Linux for x86, can't you run IE in Wine?
Re:Great quote to take out of context (Score:3, Informative)
Re:simple (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft itself, for instance, became a success by giving people what they didn't know they needed, or by filling a void that no one realised was there.
The fact that they're now playing the "our customers don't want it" card is proof how much their corporate culture has stagnated: people don't want things like tabbed browsing, because they don't know they can have them.
I just find it strange that almost every person I've ever introduced tabbed browsing to has loved the feature, even those that still prefer to us IE.
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:2, Informative)
It can be done. Just takes some effort.
Re:XUL (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. It's called ChatZilla. [mozdev.org] It works with FireFox and Mozilla.
This is, however, an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client, meaning you have to have an IRC server somewhere that you can all sign on. There are lots of public IRC servers -- dalnet, freenode, etc -- and some of them allow you to create your own channel. If you want to use another chat protocol, you'll have to code that yourself. But yes, it's eminently do-able.
Re:Tabbed? (Score:5, Informative)
How come the tabs don't respond to the Tab key?
In Windows, Ctrl+Tab will cycle through taps from left to right, whilst Ctrl+Shift+Tab will cycle the opposite direction. Standard Windows behavior.
Why do I want downloaded files to automatically saved to my desktop - what's wrong with "My Documents/Fire Fox/Downloads" so I don't get clutter all over my desktop?
Go to Tools, Options, Downloads, and change the default download directory if you'd like it somewhere else. Alternately, you can have it ask where to download every time.
I do not load "harmful ActiveX controls" but I want to load "useful" ones. In fact as a smart user I wonder how to make them work in FF? If a client of mine tries to use my web form (activex) doesn't see it he will get the shits with me - not his browser.
There are third-party ActiveX plugins if you really want them, but remember not everyone uses Internet Explorer or Windows - if I want to use my Risc PC to browse an ActiveX-based website, I'm out of luck. Beware of alienating a potential audience.
Google is part of my toolbar.
Firefox comes with a search bar built in, not tacked-on as a third party add-on, and supports plugins for virtually any other search engine you could think of. From my browser, I can instantly search Google, Amazon, the IMDB, Wikipedia...
I have the "Features you are used to" because I got used to them in IE.
Virtually every feature you'll use commonly in IE is present in Firefox, many done in a superior way. Granted, some pages fail to render properly in Firefox at the moment, but for the vast majority there are no problems.
Meanwhile, 'Fox has many features that are a godsend in day-to-day browsing. Pop-up blocking? I've found many manage to sneak through in IE 6 SP2, whilst Firefox not only can block popups more consistantly, but also supports blocking images through a simple right-click.
Tabbed browsing is something you have to experience to realise why you need it - if you're browsing along and find something you want to read later, just middle-click to open it in a new tab, still browsing in the same window. It just works.
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tabbed browsing not important (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe I'm the exception, but not once has IE given me the problems that are complained about frequently in the media. Never had a trojan, never had a buffer-overflow exploited.
Windows has given me hassles and worries, but speed and mediocre rendering aside, IE has never been an issue for me.
Re:Firefox is becomming the #1 browser where I wor (Score:3, Informative)
I tried to find a link for GhostWriter but couldnt see anything obvious. It is related to GhostView\GSView [wisc.edu] so it's a good start.
Re:Tabbed browsing not important (Score:4, Informative)
Just as a jackhammers aren't very dangerous to knowledgeable professionals, they can be very dangerous when used by masses who don't know any better.
Even with experienced people, accidents can happen. I've actually been hit by a nasty piece of spyware because I had two windows up, hit enter on the other window just as focus switched to the Active X popup, thus essentially clicking Yes.. D'OH! That was a mess.
look here (Score:2, Informative)
about:config --then hit enter
lotsa stuff there
's'more for ya
command line arguments [mozilla.org]
mozilla tips web site [mozillatips.com]
--like I said, I'm neither a windows nor a FF guy, I use linux and the moz suite, but perhaps there's something there you can use
You want Mozilla (Score:3, Informative)
That said, I believe you might be able to do much of what you were talking about by modifying the configuration XML for the app. I'm not sure how much Firefox shares in common with Mozilla in that regard.
hotmail OR popups (Score:2, Informative)
1) install FireFox,
2) import EVERYTHING from IE,
3) install Flash plugin, java, QT plugin, etc
4) then make FF the default browser.
Since a lot of people use hotmail, and FF doesn't work well with hotmail, I just label the IE links "Hotmail" (or "POPUPS") and set the default page to hotmail.com
Then I label Firefox "Internet" or "No POPUPS" and let the user decide what to do with it. Of course I explain that the only difference is that hotmail and popups are mutually exclusive. Can't have 'em both in one program, so they get to choose.
Done.
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features... (Score:5, Informative)
As for the benefit of tab browsing... What I find useful is that when you open links in a new tab, the page is loaded in the tab while you can still work on the current page. If you try to emulate that with IE by opening new IE windows, the original page's window becomes the furthest back window. Actually, more annoying is that to open up a series of links, you have to keep going back to the original window. In the case of tabbed browsing, you're in the original tab until you decide to switch off of it.
Re:Great quote to take out of context (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features... (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I don't see any real reason for this. But there may be some.
* No option to clear cache when done?
Sure there is. Firefox --> Preferences --> Privacy --> Cache --> Clear
(I'm on a Mac right now -- on Windows "Firefox --> preferences" is probably found as "Tools --> Options")
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?
You can turn the scripts off if you want. More fine-tuned controls would easily get rather confusing. Besides, you can control what window handling options you want to allow to be done by Javascript. You can't do that in IE.
* Prompted cookie setting control?
You can deny all cookies and make an exceptions list. An option for asking for every cookie isn't truly useful anyway, they're simply too plenty.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
Does IE truly have such an option? Can you point me to that -- I wasn't aware of it, and most GIF animations are annoying anyway. If IE truly has that, I hope that Firefox developers will put it to their TODO.
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.
There are good reasons for this -- large number of IE security holes have been cross-zone scripting related; such a system is fundamentally insecure. You can make exceptions for cookies, popups and images, though.
* Installed security is to save passwords,
I don't think that this is any worse than people writing passwords to post-it stickers stored under keyboard.
allow web sites to install software,
It is allowed per default for trusted sites -- BUT the list of trusted sites is empty!
save form information,
This does not sound a real security risk. Many forms are sent over unencrypted connections anyway. Forms sent over encrypted connections, on the other hand, are usually behind a login prompt.
and Java is enabled?
Java has a security system of its own. The security reputation of Sun's JRE is much higher than Microsoft's JVM.
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something.
Too hard to comment without more specific information. But one of the problems of IE is, that the various basically important prompts presented by it are too plenty. If you have to click "yes" to 9 prompts out of ten, it's hard to realise the 1/10 of boxes that absolutely require "no".
I notice that tabbed browsing ends up using even more desktop real estate. I've never needed tabbed browsing before, all my windows appear on my Explorer task bar...just like tabs. I suppose tabs would be useful for people whos operating systems don't have a taskbar enabled shell.
This is a valid point. I have a friend who uses Firefox under Windows, but hardly ever uses tabs at all. I can do pretty well without myself too. On the other hand, I couldn't live without tabs on a Mac.
But the stupid thing in IE is, that every time I open a new window, it:
a) opens it on top of other windows
b) opens my homepage on it, which is absolutely stupid, because I only want that page when I'm opening the first window of the browser.
So actually the greatest failures of IE on this matter are it's uncustomizeable window handling options, not the lack of tabbed browsing itself.
Re:Firefox is becomming the #1 browser where I wor (Score:3, Informative)
Don't let the german download page scare you, the program is in English.. Adds a printer just like Acrobat, and works very well (sometimes better then Acrobat itself).
Don't forget the Opera!! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features... (Score:5, Informative)
Uses a random folder name in your settings path for security. Though I believe you can change it in about:config
* No option to clear cache when done?
Privacy->Cache->Clear
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?
Uh it doesn't have Active X. Under Web Features->Advanced there are several things you can disallow or allow Javascript to do. about:config may have some more settings.
* Prompted cookie setting control?
Privacy->Cookies->Ask For Each Cookie. It even remembers what you said for each cookie so you don't have to tell it again for the same site. And there is an exceptions menu in the same place that allows you to go back and change what you said.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
Its in about:config, and in regular Mozilla the setting is there. I agree this was a stupid one to leave out of the main menus.
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.
Only Windows has the concept of "Zones" and its a stupid idea anyway. The browser should not be able to run code on your machine. You can configure Popup Windows, Images and Cookies per site though.
* Installed security is to save passwords, allow web sites to install software, save form information, and Java is enabled?
(Of course IE is probably even more open, but the point is that FireFox is supposed to be secure right?)
Firefox is trying to appeal to main stream users. Thus there is a trade-off. There are several prompts on the installing software stuff. Besides you can't install new programs with it, just add-ons and themes for your browser. And, as of yet no security problems have been discovered where someone can get around the prompts (unlike Active X)
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something.
Like what?
No offense but for most of these, it doesn't appear you looked all that hard before you gave up on it.
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure I see a need, but fair enough.
* No option to clear cache when done?
Download the prefbar extension. One of the best things about the mozilla variants is the extensions.
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?
* Prompted cookie setting control?
I'd be surprised if there isn't an option to set this. I'm not a serious firefox/mozilla geek so I wouldn't know.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
YOu can configure this [webmasterworld.com]
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.
I've never liked the zones model, but each to his own.
* Installed security is to save passwords, allow web sites to install software, save form information, and Java is enabled?
If you don't like it switch it off. Remebber this is a discussion comparing Firefox to IE. Features/problems they both share are irrelevant.
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something.
Name them.
I notice that tabbed browsing ends up using even more desktop real estate. I've never needed tabbed browsing before, all my windows appear on my Explorer task bar...just like tabs. I suppose tabs would be useful for people whos operating systems don't have a taskbar enabled shell.
I switch that 'feature' of XP off as soon as I install. Tabs offer some organisation. For example you can have a work window open and a play window, both with multiple tabs. Don't like it, don't use it.
I find that I don't think I'll be switching just yet because of the inability to actively control scripting and the in-line image problem. If those issues are taken care of in the future, I don't know why I would stay with IE. Until then.
Each to his or her own. I switched to mozilla a little while back and have found it a very pleasant experience. As I said earlier the extensions are one of the best things about the browser, but even without them the firefox is a better browser.
Re:One major weakness of Firefox (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features 2.0... (Score:4, Informative)
I like storing anything temporary on another drive, not my system drive. That way I can erase the whole thing at the end of my windows session if necessary.
Yes, I can see, this does not exist exactly as this in firefox. You can set browser.cache.disk.enable to false and browser.cache.memory.enable to true. Firefox will not ever make a disk cache, and insted will cache in memory (which it already does during the session) In this way, you lose your cache when you close firefox.
Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
Its the option image.animation_mode, set it to "none" (minus quotes of course) Animated images will appear but not animate, you can also set it to "once" to cause a single animation. "normal" is default animated mode.
Alternate cache storage location I may be able to get for you, it appears it may be an option thats not listed, so I'll need to try testing it abit, but if you leave on only memory cache, there won't be an offline cache to worry about!
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features 2.0... (Score:3, Informative)
To modify the cache location, it is browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
The value must use two backslashes (\\), insted of just one. Example: C:\\my\\cache\\folder\\is\\this
Yeah the double is wierd for some people, but thats a coding convention to use double backslashes since a backslash followed by some things means special characters like tab and new line.
Enjoy!
Sorry there's no zones, but there can be LOTS of problems with cross-site scripting. IE suffers from its hidden 'my computer' zone getting used to execute whatever people want. Not that firefox may neccessarily have those, but its a vunerability point, just like ActiveX, which is why its not readily available in Mozilla-based browsers. (If you're really crazy about ActiveX, there's a special plugin to use ActiveX, but be careful with it)
Re:Great quote to take out of context (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, recent fuzz tests [securityfocus.com] have favored MSIE.
Re:The real reason it's not a threat (Score:3, Informative)
Oh yeah, and the last 6 workstations he's ordered and built have all been AMDs. The latest baby is the AMD64 with a gig of ddr400 that I'm 'testing' before the CAD teams get it. It's hard to argue with price/performance ratios with them.
IE plus Maxthon will be all many people need. (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't be surprised that if Microsoft does decide to produce a standalone replacement for IE 6.01 SP1 it may incorporate the functionality of Maxthon into the browser.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Firefox vs. IE, missing features 2.0... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Switch to Firefox, and stay? (Score:1, Informative)
But if you can just view the page in IE with a selection from the right-click menu. It becomes really easy to just load up that page in IE, and close the IE window when you're done with it, leaving the Firefox browser waiting for you to resume your browsing.