I was also always of the impression that it was the folks who wrote the malware that where
responsible for making the internet unsafe. Without them, there wouldn't be any exploits.
Bob the point here is that there’s a browser integrated into our operating system that’s an open door for these guys… there’s always been guys like that, in real life before the Internet, and there will always be guys like that.
Weren’t we talking about MSE 2 beta? …not blaming anyone, I’ve been off topic too
Well you spotted that specific trait of that software and the close relationship to the embedded MS browser, that became a main topic of discussion in this thread because it is an essential factor and then you cannot say we are off-topic, we were sort of “forced to go that way” by the nature of this software itself. So that means that MS still will use the deeply embedded function of their browser and interrelation to the OS to their full monopolistic benefit, so one could say in this respect security did not come at the first place - there is much more exposed attack surface that way, no one can deny that, no one. Well we here all know that letting users have the false impression that using their software out of the box is secure is still hunting us and all inexperienced users until this day. Who of the average users know about surfing with normal user rights, who has all their third party software fully updated and patched? I think that will create more negative impact security wise than all the malcreants together can launch, because that gives the latter the platform to abuse and go on exploiting. Yes, folks, 3.6 million zeus bot ridden machines only in the U.S.A. alone is the proof of that!
Well I do not run my machines with limited user rights either. I want to be able to do what needs to be done without having to keep changing settings back and forth. There are people who know about all these things that “experts” recommend but choose not to do them if they decrease usability and/or enjoyment of their machines. I also do not much care about open source. I think the only app I use that is open source is 7-Zip. To me the words Open Source attached to an application are the same as a caution flag.
I also feel that the integration of IE into Windows has been far more of a boon to the computer world than a problem. It has made software developers jobs much easier when programming net access and updating mechanisms for their applications. They just use the settings of IE and the user does not have to set anything up. Sure the pond scum have taken advantage of this like they do everything but that’s no reason to condemn IE or MS any more than any other thing that gets hacked into.
As far as the new MSE goes, it looks promising but I just recently dumped the current version on the Vista machine because of problems upgrading it and then getting updated defs afterwards. Until they fix those problems and get a better and more frequent updating mechanism, I will not try it again. MSE is the only MS application that I can think of that has not worked flawlessly for me. Some others I don’t use because I don’t need them or like them but they always work.
With 2.0 it seems to me that they are trying to accomplish two things besides improving the program itself. One is to encourage people to use IE and the other is to make people think harder about giving up XP and moving to W7.
you don’t get rid of IE in Europe either, it’s always installed. Just the GUI isn’t there. And I use a US version so… In Seven “US” you can “uninstall” IE…sort of; again it’s just the GUI that disappears, the whole IE code is still there and active, used by many programs. IE is in Windows, any version
There’s absolutely no difference between Seven/US and Seven/EU, concerning IE.