Internet Explorer - Critical Fix

[Kym]

We don't normally post these but this is an out of band notice and applies to at least 55% of our members who use IE.
You may have seen it in the press already. Please update ASAP.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-078.mspx


This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, and Internet Explorer 7. For information about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, please see the section, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Related to This Security Update. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by modifying the way Internet Explorer validates data binding parameters and handles the error resulting in the exploitable condition. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

This security update also addresses the vulnerability first described in Microsoft Security Advisory 961051.

Recommendation. Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

[davwhite]

How sweet it is to be a Mac user :D

[Kym]

How sweet it is to be a Mac user :D

Firefox 3.0.5 is out as well - need to update that as well :D Don't mention how many safari updates there are :p :p :p

[Tannin]

Kym is a polte and paitent man. Mostly, so am I. But just this once I am gong to tell it like it is.

If you are still using Internet Explorer, you are just plain stupid.

For years now there have been no less than three modern, safe browsers available to anyone who wants them. All three are technically superior to Internet Explorer, all three make a much better job of rendering web pages correctly, at least two of them are faster, all three are more stable and reliable, all three introduced (and continue to introduce) ease-of-use features that Explorer takes years to catch up with, and above all - none of the three is subject to the constant and often massive security problens that Internet Explorer suffers from.

There is no valid reason for anyone to continue using Internet Explorer as a primary browser. None. Nor is there any hope that it will eventually be able to offer security comparabe to that offered by the three modern browsers: Explorer's security issues stem not from a lack of attention to detail, but from a fundamentally flawed basic design, which they patch and patch and patch and patch, but it is impossible to fix faulty foundations by sticking on yet another layer of wallpaper to cover up the cracks. Internet Explorer's security issues wil go on forever, or until Microsoft redesign it from the ground up, whichever comes first.

Again, if you are still using Internet Explorer, you are just plain stupid.

For the love of Mike, do something about it.


http://opera.com Opera: very fast, very customisable, very cool. Dares to be different.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html Firefox: simple to learn, very nearly as fast and stable as Opera, plain-jane but practical interface.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ Old-school look and feel with up-to-the-minute code underneath. Think of it as Firefox without the dumbed-down, prettied-up interface. Bigger and slower to start up than the other two, but has more features than any other.


Please yourself which of the three good modern browsers you choose. We all have our personal favourite, but all three are excellent.

Tony


PS: Perhaps I should mention that I have been working with computers for 30 years now. For the last 17 years, part of my job has been to clean up infected computers for people, and teach then how not to get reinfected. I do this every working day, and I've had a lot of practice. Think of me, if you wish, as being like a doctor who has been treating lung cancer paitents every day for the last 17 years and sometimes gets a bit tired of it. Today, as an example, I had three machines come in for detoxification, which is about average. I spend 20 minutes or so with each owner, teaching them the basics of security. Because they are paying customers, I am polite and tactful about whatever stupid thing it was they did to get infected (or more typically, the stupid thing their teenage children did). But here, I am with friends, not paying customers, and there are things you can say to a friend that you would never say to a stranger. So, one more time: if you are still using Internet Explorer, you are stupid.

[Harves]

The only way to fix Internet Explorer is use Firefox :th3:

[davwhite]

I'm a Firefox person, don't use Safari.
And another bad program to use, all you PC people, is Outlook express or similar for your e-mail.
Very easy to get bugs in to that as well as IE because people have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft and will do anything to jam 'em up (Layman term)

[MarkChap]

OK Dad,

Have made the change back to Firefox

[Kym]

On a related note: Whirlpool have officially dropped support for IE 6. They are only programming for IE 7+ plus Firefox, Opera etc.

The Interweb world is in for a little shock in the next year or so. IE 8 (in beta now) will be unleashed and for the FIRST time Microsoft will be something close to W3C standards compliant which means sites written with IE6/7 only support may well break with a Microsoft browser.

Mind you, anyone that does not write cross browser code is silly. (CGU insurance last time I looked :D)

BTW: AP December MTD browser usage...
MS Internet Explorer 57.8 %
Firefox 33.7 %
Safari 5.3 %
Opera 2.4 %

IE usage is trending down as well (64% in January), AP members are getting smarter!

[MarkChap]

So are you suggesting that IE 8 will be close to being a half decent browser ??

Just curious, I will stick with F/Fox now I have gone back to it

[Kym]

So are you suggesting that IE 8 will be close to being a half decent browser ??
Just curious, I will stick with F/Fox now I have gone back to it

IE8 is Microsoft *finally* giving up on trying to hijack standards and playing nice. They are very much in catch up mode.
Firefox et. al. are way ahead.
It is good news for the average shmuck who does not know better; but no way am I making anything other than Firefox my main browser.

It also raises a question...
Does AP start using features that will break under IE6 and lower?
Not yet, or for a while... but there are possibilities of faster site rendering using Ajax technology in the upcoming VB 3.8 and a future V4. (Ajax is the technology that makes Google mail work)

IE usage breakdown... (refer above)
Msie 8.0 0.2 %
Msie 7.0 48.5 %
Msie 6.0 8.8 % <--- These members are strongly recommended to upgrade

Also: There are a few members using Firefox V2 ... time to get V3 !!

[Jcas]

I use FF for browsing and always have, however i have never deviated from the microsoft emailing programs,Outlook Express and Outlook. Are there better ones of these as well ????

[Kym]

I use FF for browsing and always have, however i have never deviated from the microsoft emailing programs,Outlook Express and Outlook. Are there better ones of these as well ????

Glad you asked!
refer: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?p=197371

Thunderbird from Mozilla - the fine folks who gave you Firefox!
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

I'm stuck with Outlook at work.

If you want an Open Source Outlook look-a-like Evolution maybe the answer...
http://www.dipconsultants.com/evolution/
(And given the student versions of Office 2007 don't include Outlook - it may really be what people need).

[Jcas]

Great links, thanks CypherOz, i am constantly amazed by the excellent content on this board .. :)

[Tannin]

Interesting stats, Kym. You prompted me to check the Red Hill figures just now. As you know, it's pretty much a computer geek site, so you expect IE to be lower and Firefox, Opera, and Seamonkey to be higher. The numbers bounce around a bit, but for what it's worth, rounded to the nearest whole number, for December so far they are running at:

Firefox: 43% (up from 39% in November)
IE: 41% (down from 49%)
Opera:5% up from 3%)
Safari: 5% (steady)
Seamonkey 5% (steady)

[I @ M]

Mind you, anyone that does not write cross browser code is silly. (CGU insurance last time I looked :D)


And then there is The Trading Post (http://www.tradingpost.com.au/Home?state=ALL_STATES) where some of their advertisers contact details are not available unless you use Microsock. I sent them an email advising them that and they wrote back saying they didn't want to change anything as most people use IE, good to be able to ignore 30% of the market, eh. :cool:
Then again when you see who owns the business these days I guess it's understandable. :D

[Seesee]

Seems I'm just plain stupid as I've been using IE and Outlook for 3 years and never a had a glitch that I can recall :confused:

However, rather than still be stupid :confused: ..I have just changed over to Firefox for browser and email and have found no difference in speed or efficiecy so far. But, my text now looks slightly different, not quite as bold or easy to read ???...any thoughts on that quirk, it's bugging me !


Just noticed as well my emails are still coming through outlook but I've marked that off as not my default server.....do I have to somehow completely uninstall Outlook to stop this ?


Also just noticed my Opanda Exif reader program no longer works ?...remedy please :)

[Seesee]

OK, nobody answering so I'll just uninstall Firefox and stick with IE and Outlook :confused013

[Kym]

OK, nobody answering so I'll just uninstall Firefox and stick with IE and Outlook :confused013

Sorry Col - missed your post. :o
Ctrl/+ Ctrl/- change the size in Firefox (Ctrl/0) sets to default. Does that help?

Also: In your case stay with Outlook - its ok with your setup. Its a probability game - you are *more* likely to have an issue with IE or Outlook than the alternates. But if you have a good setup and don't open suspect email attachments you will be ok 99.9% of the time.

Not having glitches in your case is about having your system reasonably setup with AV, patches etc. and not browsing to suspect places.

We can chat about it next time we catch up and, if you want, I'll set it all up for you :xmas31:

[Tannin]

Seems I'm just plain stupid as I've been using IE and Outlook for 3 years and never a had a glitch that I can recall

Mate, that's nuffin. I've been smoking for 30 years and I'm still not dead.

Obviously, thiose doctor chaps haven't got a clue.

[Tannin]

The difference in font rendering you are seeing is probably caused by ClearType (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType) settings.

ClearType is Microsoft's trade name for a technology that alters the way pixels are rendered, sacrificing accurate colour near the edges of objects (such as letters on your screen) in order to make smoother edges. It only works on LCD screens, and its effect varies significantly depending on the particular screen you have. On some screens, most people think text looks better, on other screens, most people think it looks worse. Some people like it, others hate it. Matter of taste. As a rule of thumb, the better the quality of your screen, and the more interested you are in accurate colour, the more likely you are to prefer ClearType off. But this seems to vary fairly unpredicatably, so it's often best to try it both ways and see which you prefer.

By default, ClearType is OFF on a system-wide basis, but ON in Internet Explorer. You can switch it off in IE very easily through the options menu, or switch it on system-wide through control panel >> display properties >> effects.

There are fancier things you can do to tune it to your taste or have it sometimes on and sometimes off, but we won't go there right now.

Alternatively, you can switch rendering engines: Firefox and Seamonkey both use one called Gecko, so they are similar in the way they display things. Opera uses its own rendering technoology and (at least to my eye) produces a more visually pleasing result. Try it and see for yourself.

[IanB]

I'm a Firefox person, don't use Safari.
And another bad program to use, all you PC people, is Outlook express or similar for your e-mail.
Very easy to get bugs in to that as well as IE because people have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft and will do anything to jam 'em up (Layman term)

If not outlook express, what should we use. Life used to be so simple; phone line strung between the trees; ring was a long and two shorts (that's stopped you!!). Telegram if it was urgent; a letter if not urgent,.................................................;) .

[Tannin]

In the trade, we used to call it Microsoft Outbreak. A great many of the front-page-headline-level viruses were Outlook-specific; they were difficult to catch if you were not using Outlook and you couldn't pass them on at all without it. Famous examples you may remember include the Love Bug and Melissa, but there have been many, many more.

These days, Microsoft have fixed the worst of the holes in Outlook. or at least most of them, so it's not the screaming trainwreck that it was during the first half of the decade, but it's by no means a good choice, particularly as there are so many excellent email programs out there, including a number of free ones.

The most popular choice is Thunderbird, which comes from the same non-profit, for-the-public-good organisation as Firefox. Download it at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/all.html

Apart from much better security, Thunderbird has excellent junk mail handling, is easier to customise to your taste, and most important of all, does not destroy your data if your system crashes.

If you walk into a computer repair shop with a crashed computer and you want your email back, if you were running Thunderbird, it takes 30 seconds to recover your address book and all your messages. If you were running Outlook or Outlook Express, there is no easy recovery. There a whole industry devoted to trying to recover Outlook data. (Hint: where an industry exists, whatever that industry does is difficult and/or expensive and/or requires special training and/or special tools.) To recover Thunderbird data, you drag the data folder from the old, crashed install over to the new install. That's it: drag and drop, problem solved.

There are many other good email clients, but I can never think of any particular reason not to use Thunderbird.

[IanB]

In the trade, we used to call it Microsoft Outbreak. A great many of the front-page-headline-level viruses were Outlook-specific; they were difficult to catch if you were not using Outlook and you couldn't pass them on at all without it. Famous examples you may remember include the Love Bug and Melissa, but there have been many, many more.

These days, Microsoft have fixed the worst of the holes in Outlook. or at least most of them, so it's not the screaming trainwreck that it was during the first half of the decade, but it's by no means a good choice, particularly as there are so many excellent email programs out there, including a number of free ones.

The most popular choice is Thunderbird, which comes from the same non-profit, for-the-public-good organisation as Firefox. Download it at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/all.html

Apart from much better security, Thunderbird has excellent junk mail handling, is easier to customise to your taste, and most important of all, does not destroy your data if your system crashes.

If you walk into a computer repair shop with a crashed computer and you want your email back, if you were running Thunderbird, it takes 30 seconds to recover your address book and all your messages. If you were running Outlook or Outlook Express, there is no easy recovery. There a whole industry devoted to trying to recover Outlook data. (Hint: where an industry exists, whatever that industry does is difficult and/or expensive and/or requires special training and/or special tools.) To recover Thunderbird data, you drag the data folder from the old, crashed install over to the new install. That's it: drag and drop, problem solved.

There are many other good email clients, but I can never think of any particular reason not to use Thunderbird.


Thanks for that, I will certainly look into it.

[jim]

For email I still use Eudora. Having bought it years ago, I feel weirdly uncomfortable using anything else, including Thunderbird which I trialled earlier this year.

Plus there is a promise of a giant statue of me in front of Corporate HQ, if only I can get the thing off planet Earth.

[Tannin]

If you have become used to Eudora, everything else feels weird and odd.

Of course, normal people think that Eudora feels weird and odd. :) So far as I know, there isn't anything in particular wrong with it, and people who like it love it, so why change? (Or am I thinking of Pegasus? I always mix those two up. Maybe they are both weird and odd. One of them, last time I checked, still can't cope with HTML email, though there are people who regard this - with some justification - as a feature rather than a bug.)

Whatever, whenever I have to do some data transfer or rescue work with either of those two, I have to RTFM before I start. But unlike Outbreak, they are both perfectly well-behaved from a data integrity point of view. If I saw them more than once or twice a year, I wouldn't keep forgetting how to do it.)

[jim]

I've tried Pegasus. Weird.

[BLWNHR]

I'm a FF3 user, only use IE for MS Exchange Webmail when out of the office.

Thought I'd check the stats on my site too:

IE - 68.89%
FF - 26.11%
Safari - 4.44%
Camino - 0.56%

[tailstrike]

question about this can i have firefox and IE at the same time??? and use one or the other whenever i wanted to??

[Jcas]

question about this can i have firefox and IE at the same time??? and use one or the other whenever i wanted to??

Yes you can, but each will keep asking you which one you want to make your default browser, i hace FF as default, and you can get a plugin for FF that allows you to open a IE page from FF.

[Tannin]

Yes. There is no reason not to have all four browsers installed, if you want all four.

Note that you can't uninstall Internet Explorer, at least not for most practical purposes, as it is integrated into Windows itself - which, of course, is exactly why it is so dangerous.

The best genral policy is to install your choice of Opera, Firefox,or Seamonkey (or all three if you want to), then delete the shortcuts to Internet Explorer so that you don't start it by accident.

[Tannin]

All browsers want to be the "default browser" when they first install. Simply say "yes" to the one you want, and when the other ones complain and want to switch back, untick the box that says "check again next time".

[ving]

...and this is why i use opera at home...

just go and install it if you dont have it, it's free.

[SSSchwing]

Msie 6.0 8.8 % <--- These members are strongly recommended to upgrade

one of those would be me whilst I'm at work. I work for a large Gov't department and they still use IE 6.0.29..... :rolleyes:

I use Firefox at home :th3:

[wanelad]

Hmm upgraded to I.E 8 not long ago and now seem to be having troubles with pages crashing and not loading properly is this a common thing? or is it another problem and just coincidental

[ricktas]

Site is working fine for me. Have you tried another browser, like Firefox to see if it happens on your system using that? Will at least determine if its IE or not

[Kym]

It's beta code - as in B for buggy. :D
Do the usual clear cache (delete files) etc.
This site has only been tested with Firefox 3 and IE7 - we do not support beta versions of browsers. That said, it *should* work.
Personally, unless you need to test web sites using IE8, wait for the real release.
And if you want to try beta products do it in a Virtual PC so you can undo it.

[wanelad]

Oh Oh should have read this forum first as my new thread i guess will get hammered ha ha as was asking why I.E. 8 keeps crashing. I do use Fire Fox on my other computer but have never really been as happy with it as I.E. guess i will get abused now not to worry.

[wanelad]

THanks guys I just found anther thread that seems to can I.E. and supports all the others like FIre fox etc . I do use Fire Fox on my other computer but have never felt fully comfortable with it. Maybe i will explore it a little more and try the clear catch etc

[Kym]

IE8 will be an improvement on previous versions; mainly due to Microsoft supporting standards more closely. However it is still in catch up mode regarding features.

[Calxoddity]

You're a brave chap - it's early days for IE8.

Another vote here for Firefox - version 3 has so many nice capabilities that I feel crippled whenever I go back to IE. IE's attempt at tabbed browsing in 7 and 8 still seems quite amateurish. There's also the fact that they don't work on a Mac in any case!

Regards,
Calx

[Kym]

Mod note: Merged Wanelad's IE 8 thread to here.