*** Windows 7 / Internet Explorer 9 News ***

FYI:

New Windows 7 installs and IE: Security risk?
By David Gewirtz | April 7, 2011, 5:23am PDT

Summary

When you launch IE in Windows after an initial install, the first page you see is Microsoft’s MSN portal. One day, Windows users could open that MSN home page and get slammed with malware hiding in the ads.

Forget June: Microsoft already pushing IE9 via Windows Update
By Mary Jo Foley | April 6, 2011, 1:40pm PDT

On April 6, I began receiving reports from users who had not installed the Release Candidate (RC) or the beta of IE9 that they were seeing IE 9 show up via Windows Update.

 

In my case it was April 5. My wife wanted it installed on the family computer (her IT department already has it on her work laptop and she was tired of jumping back and forth between the two interfaces). It is quite a bit faster. I don't understand Microsoft continuing to listen to the stupid designers who insist on shuffling the placement of everything on the screen. For no apparent reason, and certainly no utility, they moved the refresh and "X" stop action buttons from the right hand side of the screen on IE8 to the left hand side on IE9. Just something "new".

 

What OP said is very interesting. I thought IE would have gotten better with these security issues. Oh well.

Question: Why are you guys not using Chrome or Firefox?

EDIT: Get EMET: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c6f0a6ee-05ac-4eb6-acd0-362559fd2f04

Seems like a good way to secure your system.

 

Boy, knock me over with a feather! Internet Explorer has security issues? Didn't we just beat this up a month or so ago? If you use IE(pick a number) you are using the historically least secure browser. It's the biggest target and Microsoft does not seem able to build a secure browser, maybe they're too busy changing its looks instead of fixing it.
CAP

 

Naaah... MS TRIED to make a standards-compliant browser with IE8; the "Optimized for IE" crowd cried and whinged that all their lazy-adze shortcuts would go away and they MADE MS put all the crap back in. I've said it before and I'll say it again: IE has too much special privilege on a Windoze machine; use ANY OTHER BROWSER if you care at all about protecting your computer from nasty Internet rashes and fungal infection...

mnem
"Windoze: The world's SECOND-BEST marketed virus software."

 

Nor a Contact Manager; hence the virus writing crowd has dubbed it "Microsoft Virus Express."

That is one of the main reasons Windows 95 won out over IBM OS/2 back in `95: it "looked purtyer."

 

Actually, OS2 was one of the greatest scams of all time. IBM partnered with Bill Gates to build an operating system which would only work on proprietary architecture, IBM's. IBM thought that they would be able to drive the "clone" builders out of business, everyone would want the slick GUI which was to be available only on IBM machines. After IBM picked up the tab for the development of OS2, and incidentally Windows, their big roll out of the PS2 hardware bombed because OS2 wasn't as good as Windows. Michael Dell, Compaq, and the rest had the mini "Last Laugh", but Gates was the big winner. Your dates are a bit off, I was first messing about with Windows sometime between 1985 and 1987, seems like the big PS2 rollout was shortly after that. OS2 was doomed from the start because it's primary function was to give IBM the lion's share of the PC market and Gates screwed IBM for the second time.
CAP
Remembering the dancing nuns in the OS2 commercials and waiting for mnem to correct my hazy memory.
EDIT: Out of curiosity I just looked. At one time, Bill Gate's PERSONAL net worth exceeded 50% of the current book value of IBM.

 

Well, for decades that "scam" powered the communications, financial and "POS" industries "behind the scenes."

Although it's largely changed now that the world has become "MicroSerfs," OS/2 was the operating system of ATMs, Point-of-Sale systems, and, as I personally witnessed while providing security for MCI _ WorldCom, all the IBM PS/2 PCs and servers linking the telecom industry.

All quite a feat for a "scam."

["SNIP"]

I was specifically referring to the OS/2 Warp (v.3.0) -vs- Windows 95 competition (a "competition" wherein the boys at "Big Blue" failed to even leave the Starting Gate! ).

Warp came in 1994, while "WindBlows in 1995" didn't even make its targeted release date (4thQ 1992); instead it finally came out August of 1995.

Had IBM initiated a massive ad campaign, touting it's true 32-bit architecture, and "put a `purty face'" on the GUI, they might have beat Microsoft at its own game: but they DIDN'T!

That was IBM's own fault.

If you get a chance, get a copy of The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires and see how the heads of "Big Blue" stupidly chose to license DOS from Bill Gates; rather than buying it straight out; thereby setting Gates' rise to fame and fortune into motion.

Another good one; albeit not a true "documentary"; is Pirates of Silicon Valley:

`Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late.'
--Bill Gates (portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall) talking to Steve Jobs (portrayed by Noah Wyle); discussing the "acquisition" of the GUI.

"Windows 95, (n): 32-bit extension and graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprossessor, written by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1-bit of competition."

 

I started using Warp when it came out and bypassed 95 all together. I loved Warp, but about the time 98 was coming out, Warp was cut.
Thats when I had to change over to 98. During that time I was running a dial-up BBS that started out on DOS but ended up on Warp as it ran so much better. Warps multi-tasking was so much better than anything MS had for a couple generations, as well as memory management.
But without support it was gettiing left behind as new software came out and couldn't be run. Warp could run Windows 3.1 programs as well as DOS.
As I understand it, MS was going to raise licenceing fees on Windows installs if they didn't drop it.

 

OS/2 isn't totally " dead", but IBM themselves withdrew consumer marketing and support and `officially' " killed off" the product in 2006. (It didn't actually "die" even then; as it was sold off to Serenity Systems International (of Flower Mound, TX) and marketed as eComStation).

 

I stand by my scam statement. At the time, IBM still thought that the big money was in hardware and OS2 was designed to leave the clone makers out in the cold. The fact that the OS survived as nicheware for years hardly lessens the fact that the operating system probably never earned IBM any money from its investment in the software, and certainly did not kill off the clones. Remember, IBM paid Microsoft to develop OS2 and how much of that money do you suppose was spent in developing Windows which was responsible for the expansion of so many of IBM's hardware competitors. Seen any recent generations of the PS2 architecture in widespread use lately?
CAP

 

IE9 versus Chrome: which one blocks malware better?
By Ed Bott. ZDNet | April 25, 2011, 7:23pm PDT

 

It is always easy to hate on those with the largest market share, be it Windows or Dell.

But we have to keep in mind, as exemplified by the above link, that most security issues are simply operator error. And as soon as you gain significant market share then your software will be targeted for scams, and these scam artists count on the user to install a software, aka. give Chrome the permission to install a virus. Once you give permission to install a virus what is the OS or Software supposed to do? Not let you... In other words put your PC into auto-drive and not let you control it? That's not for me.

And lastly, let us recall the battle that Windows, and only windows has been fighting.
1. A huge market-share leads to being the biggest target.
2. Low perceived security due to ease of use (for example, the most secure firewall is one with all ports closed, until the user opens one for the duration of his/her required network communication, and then manually closes it again: this is unpractical for most people)

No body has demonstrated as much competence at overcoming the two above problems as MS. So go ahead and hate on MS, but there is a reason they are number one, and it is not a conspiracy!

- happy windows user (with a closed firewall, that I manually open every now and then)

 

"Social engineering has become the dominant method of distribution for fake antivirus software."
Social engineering, in the context of the linked article, seems to mean the part where some scam artist asks you to install something on your computer and you do. I'm reminded of the occasional newbie who comes here to complain that their drivers are all screwed up because they were looking for a driver and landed on a site which asked to scan their machine for possible outdated drivers and offered to install updated drivers. I guess I'm guilty of thinking that most of the people here are too smart for this crap. The author of the article seems to be holding the browser responsible for the user's stupidity and giving Microsoft extra credit for trying to fix stupid. Okay, nice try MS, but you can't fix stupid.
CAP

 

“Make it idiot-proof, and someone will make a better idiot.”

 

And besides, blocking malware is NOT your browser's job; your browser's job is to play as much media as is possible and to load as fast as is possible. It is your Internet Security software's job to be the condom wherever you go poking around on the internet.

Trying to integrate the two just gives an even larger target for the hackers to hit; IE9 will fall the way of its predecessors. SOON.

mnem
Remember, there are STILL people out there who think AOL is The Internet...