Is your Internet Exploder crashing today?

Oh yes, preach brother! I hear you. I get so tired of people getting on my mother's computer and downloading every toolbar, every cute cursor.

I was working on a coworker's computer and he had Limewire running and couldn't understand why his computer was running so slowly.

Actually it is... not as bad as IE, for sure, and in it's "raw" state it's fine, but once you start adding plugins...

Oh, and unless they fixed it, there's that horrible memory leak too...


But other than that, yeah, it's a damn fine browser.

lol internet exploder lol windoze /dev/null/ RTFM penguins gnu makefile tarball ps -ef and grep enlightenment gnome open source haha micro$oft slashdot borg i bet you always get a BSOD omg think different lilo boot loader because information wants to be free as in beer you are likely to be eaten by a grue vi is the best editor no its emacs so bang splat ! * pound # whack / you dont need anything but SSH so why dont you just use konqueror i like elegant lusers and larts dollar bill gate$ real nerds code in python omg noob why dont you just configure sendmail.

lol internet exploder lol windoze /dev/null/ RTFM penguins gnu makefile tarball ps -ef and grep enlightenment gnome open source haha micro$oft slashdot borg i bet you always get a BSOD omg think different lilo boot loader tcl/tk because information wants to be free as in beer you are likely to be eaten by a grue vi is the best editor no its emacs so bang splat ! * pound # whack / the documentation is complete you dont need anything but SSH so why dont you just use konqueror i like elegant lusers and larts dollar bill gate$ compile it yourself real nerds code in python omg noob why dont you just configure sendmail.

Pretty much.

You never had spyware and use IE.... Do you have programs to check for spyware on your machine? Spybot Search and Destroy, Adaware? If not, how can you claim you don't have spyware? Since you like IE, do you at least edit your hosts file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) so you never load anything that would install spyware? If you haven't done any of these things, there's a reason why Firefox loads as slow as it does on your machine and takes a while to load pages--your computer is filled with spyware! With IE, if one doesn't notice the generalized slowdowns from spyware, IE will seem like it runs just fine.

Every time you go to MSN, it installs spyware. Every time you go to search engines, it uses doubleclick, every time you go shopping on the net, it uses and installs other pieces of spyware, and it installs them the quickest and the most transparently with IE.

Just thought I'd let you know.

EDIT: I also thought I'd let you know that Microsoft bought the company that made Gator, a really nasty piece of spyware, and then omitted that company's spyware from being found when using Microsoft's anti-spyware software. Pretty neat eh?

Consider the following:

If FireFox was the popular program to use as a web browser, than all you would be bitching about people using it becuase it's stupid to use a program that can recieve a plugin from every website.

IE is so popular with spyware and stuff because it's used so much. So what possible advantage could be gained by using such Bloatware as Fire Fox, Netscape Navigator, or Mozilla? In truth, there is none.

The simple facts of the matter are:
-Unless you are running a Cray, IE loads faster.
-IE is a much smaller program. Maybe you don't like it's spartanness, but the very basicness of it makes it highly attractive.
-The average user doesn't care what you tell them you think is better. Giving them scare tactics like this only serves to make them not want to own a PC, and not want to surf the net.

Maybe we should make it so that only people who know how to program a Cray can surf the net. Maybe we should even require that you own a Cray to even use the Internet.

That will solve a lot of problems, I am sure.

In the mean time, the rest of us love using the internet, and doing stuff on it, and we don't want programs that are slower, or cause more problems {typical of Bloatware such as FireFox and Netscape Navigator} nor do we want to buy a PC and find that our favorite programs don't work on it. We want our websites to load quickly, and for all the features the creators of those sites worked so hard to display to be visible and work.

I am far ahead of the average user. I have been using computers since MS-DOS 2.11, and this guy comes along with less than half my computer experience and tries telling me to stop using IE. Well, hon, I hate to tell you, but unless you ever had to fix an IBM PCjr, I don't want to hear your fucking gripes and scare tactics.

Oh, wait! I bet you never even heard of the IBM PCjr! Well, sweety, before you come bitching to about what I should be using on my PC, you go out, buy yourself a brand new 8088 PC with a 720K 5.25" Floppy Drive, no HDD, CGA Monitor, 128K RAM, and run the whole kit 'n' kaboodle off MS-DOS or PC-DOS v2.11, and do it well, then I might be willing to listen to the bullshit you're spewing about IE and it's vulnerabilities.

Lynn,

Well, you have given us a resume, but I can't understand whether or not you are just ignored what Fmeh said or arguing against it.

I use IE and also Spybot and AdAware, and I find that after a week my computer is full of spyware. Are you claiming this doesn't happen? Or that spyware doesn't cause slowdowns?

Oh, and I don't claim to be an expert, but I *do* go back to CP/M.

I've been around a long time. Yes, the chicklet keyboard. I've fixed many dos machines and am happy that I don't have to anymore. I'm quite content with mouse-driven gui's thank you.

I never said that IE doesn't load faster. You were saying that Firefox loads -horridly- slow, and I was saying that it might be loading THAT slow because of spyware.

So let me ask again--do you use software to get rid of spyware, since even visiting most search engines generally use some simple forms of spyware?

You made the blanket statement that you NEVER get spyware. Do you use anti-spyware programs?

EDIT: I am very disappointed with the trend of bloatware. I agree with you wholeheartedly about browsers other than IE being bloatware, but they have options that make browsing a more pleasurable experience, and they're not targeted nearly as much as IE. Windows XP is a severe piece of bloatware--if there was some hacked version of it out there that gets rid of all but completely necessary services and processes, I'd be using it right now--it's all the extra crap that makes XP so vulnerable in the first place. I will NOT be switching to Vista once it's released, at least not until hacks come out to get rid of their built-in spyware, their DRM crap, their WGA crap, and until they make OpenGL not just an emulated layer in DirectX when ran in windowed mode. Vista will take 15 gigs on the hard drive--THAT is some serious bloatware.

It wasnt Lynn that made the blanket statement on not getting spyware

I know Lynn personally and I know that both of our computers have anti spyware protection, as well as dual firewalls, and plenty of anti virus protection. We both have WinXP Pro (and Win98SE for maintainance) and we both love it. Lynn posted all of this same information in another thread on the general forum, I dont remember the exact thread title but I believe it has been buried several pages deep and is locked.

We both also use IE, which also has the tabbed browsing.

I may not have the experience Lynn has, but she knows that I have enough experience that if my computer is not acting right, I notice it, and do maintainance and consult with her if I am not sure what to do, since she has more experience than me.

Oops--sorry, it was Maklin Deckard who made that blanket statement.

Sorry Lynn..

Sorry, but I don't think that's right. I've bought lots of stuff over ebay etc. using payment processors, and I'd know if they installed spyware.

ROFL.. internet explorer >.>

So tell me, how would you know, since most spyware gets installed instantly?

If you go to MSN, it instantly installs spyware. Then there's doubleclick (cookies), avenue a, alexa, hitbox, valueclick, advertising.com, adviva, fastclick, hitslink, mediaplex, targetnet, web trends live, and many others that are there instantly.

Spyware is spyware, no matter how simple or complex it is.

Hm, you're probably right, I wouldn't necessarily _know_ like _all_ the time. It's entirely possible that someone's created a completely invisible trojan. I just try not to leave the system open to attack. If someone's made a completely invisible trojan that's absolutely impossible to remove (if that's possible) then I guess I wouldn't know.



Er.. I don't think those are spyware. Those aren't even software. Surely you'd have to be software in order to spy on anything. Cookies don't "spy" on anything, they're just text.

Actually, they aren't just cookies, if you've had something like Gator or GAIN pop up in \progra~1\ before. On a default configuration of IE, this can happen transparently to the user. Of course, noone should really run on a default config of IE. I'm sure it does somewhat better with some tweaking, like I used to have to do a while ago.

Frankly, I don't care how fast or nice-looking my browser is as long as I can have peace of mind. Some people can have peace of mind running IE with anti-ad/spyware and anti-virus programs running, but I feel it's a reasonable statement that no single anti-adware program will catch all the bugs. While running IE, McAfee Internet Suite and Ad-aware, I used to have the most horrible problems sometimes. I've also in the past used Norton and PC-Cillin.

At the moment, I use Firefox because it comes pretty well configured for a reasonable balance of security and accessibility 'out of the box' and AVG anti-virus because it's free and very, very, very, frequently updated AND catches about as many bugs as the other leading products.

Even then, just this weekend I had to help a relative out who was running Firefox and Norton and had one of those dratted TSRs with periodically timed IE executers bringing up various advertisements including adult sites (and he has two little kids who are using this PC). He'd run Spysweeper, Ad-aware, Spyware Doctor and AVG on my recommendation (please, it's saturday morning and I've been out partying) but in the end I went over because none of them even detected it.

(edit: Yes, it brought up IE windows, even though he'd used Firefox religiously. Oh well.)

It ended up being a manual removal of 4 processes looking out for each other (restarting any one that's been killed), in turn looking out for the 5th process which actually popped up the sites. Halting all the processes didn't prevent their respawning as, of course, they'd managed to get the critical system processes to load an infected DLL. Not a problem - reboot into safe mode. However, the location of the 5th .EXE was masked because it was in a directory with a corrupted name (extended ASCII chars. Whee), listed in the process viewer (prcview) but not modifiable, invisible under windows and dos - Hurrah for new version of SLAX (Linux Live CD) with NTFS drive mounting.

Problem solved, pretty easily. However, he would definitely not have noticed if it had been something unobtrusive, like a keylogger. It's true that your average user does want a speedy browser, but he also doesn't necessarily know how to protect against adware/spyware when the commercially available programs fail.

I used to loathe Netscape precisely because of the slow startup, and always preferred IE. However, as adware became an increasing problem, I switched to Firefox and found that it had greatly improved security in this aspect. If the next version of IE was better, I'd switch in a blink. This isn't a browser popularity contest and it doesn't matter what ancient operating system you've used.

Even if IE is the fastest, slimmest browser on Windows, it is, by default, full of holes, and you know what this means for your average user who can't be bothered to take precautions beyond a single virus scanner and/or anti-spyware product, if at all.

But, that's alright, because he already has peace of mind. For all *I* know, I could have a couple of serious infestations myself, but I believe (as I'm sure you do) that I've done as much as I can be bothered to ensure reasonable security.

(Apart from staying on Linux, browsing with Lynx, never playing any decent games and calling people "Micro$haft Windoze n00b5"

To each his own, dammit, and nice to meet you.

Awww, wonderful post, Copper, you made me discover AVG

I was using ClamWin till today, but now I think I'll switch. I'm a firm supporter of the open source movement but AVG offers live detection and ClanWin doesn't (yet)

It must be noted that I spent 2 years and a half without ANY antivirus software, using Firefox, ZoneAlarm and Gmail. No notable viruses or any problems whatsoever. Then I had to format my hard drive and, after installing the OS, tried IE on the same conditions. In less than a couple weeks my home page was changed to one of those false search engines found in parked domains. I couldn't change it in any way...

I've been using Firefox exclusively ever since. Again, no problems. Doesn't load slower than IE, either.

No, they are NOT TSR's.

TSR stands for "Terminate and Stay Resident". This means that the program ends, but part of the program stays in memory. This is usually hooked to an IRQ, such as a com port (mouse.com) or keyboard port (screen saver).

The programs running in your system tray have NOT terminated, and are therefore by definition NOT TSR's. They are simply other processes in your system.

Firefox is great too. IE's huge advantage is that every site works with it.

I have had the best luck with Spybot Search and Destroy--it's free, and if you go to advanced options and let it download beta versions of the definitions, it picks up a lot more than the other programs. Granted, there are risks to getting the beta versions, but as of so far, I've not had any problems.

DUDE!! My fiance & her mother are one of those!! Well, at least my fiance is getting wiser. Her mother's icons in the taskbar are halfway across the screen.

AIM was also a reason we ALMOST broke up! She kept installing it, I kept UN-installing it & cleaning up after it. Man, was she pissed! So I eventually blocked it & used the settings on the router to block anything from AOL or AIM. To this day, she thinks its something wrong with my computer

Spybot rocks! Also using Ad-Aware, & Windows Defender. AVG Free for Anti-virus . Havent had any problems in a loooooong time.

Try Gaim.

Trillian works well for me.