Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Swampert13 · Post by **Swampert13** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 5:22 am

(I couldn't find a more suitable place for this, so I posted it here, if it violates anything, please close it immediately or move it to its suitable place.) What browser do you use? Internet Explorer, Firefox, or another browser? (Such as Safari, Opera, etc.)

I use Internet Explorer, personally. I always get the latest updates for my computer, so I have Windows XP Service Pack 2 which adds a Pop-Up Blocker to IE, I have had no problems with IE for as long as I have used the internet. I don't bother using Firefox or any other browser because IE suits me fine.

Pikachu90000 · Post by **Pikachu90000** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 6:35 am

Here is my problem with IE:
First of all it's owned by MS. It's coding is not their own, but instead bought from Spyglass and NCSA. It's the least secure browser out there. There are 92 (IE w/SP1 which older versions of windows support)/ 45 (IE SP2, only XP SP2 can run it so to ppl with older compy's good bye modern browser!)unpatched security bugs and 2 of them are very crital compared to Firefox's 0.

Wikipedia wrote: On June 23, 2004, an attacker using compromised Microsoft IIS Web servers on major corporate sites used two previously-undiscovered security holes in IE to insert spam-sending software on an unknown number of end-user computers [1] [2] [3]. This malware became known as Download.ject and it caused users to infect their computers with a backdoor and key logger merely by viewing a web page. Infected sites included several financial sites.

Art Manion, a representative of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) noted in a vulnerability report that the design of IE6 SP1 makes it difficult to secure. He stated that:

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878">There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, local file system (Local Machine Zone) trust, the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) document object model (in particular, proprietary DHTML features), the HTML Help system, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ IE is integrated into Windows to such an extent that vulnerabilities in IE frequently provide an attacker significant access to the operating system.

Manion later clarified that most of these concerns were addressed in 2004 with the release of Service Pack 2, and other browsers have now begun to suffer the same vulnerabilities he identified in the above CERT report. [4]

SP2 is not availble for older windows users so if people don't want to waste $199 on a newer browser why bother using IE anyways? The new IE 7 also supports XP Sp2 and the same thign as I said above, who wants to spend $199 on a new browser? Even Opera's outrageous price of $29 beats that. A hacker can easliy access the admin account of a NT based system with IE installed. Lots of people are saying that IE is a security risk. Even the US-CERT is telling people that IE is unsafe! Many of the IE's security issues are related to components based on Component Object Model (COM). The embedding of COM into the Internet Explorer via ActiveX or Browser Helper Objects (BHO) created a combination of functions that provided a gateway for computer virus, trojan and spyware infections. These malware attacks mostly depend on ActiveX for their activation and propagation to other computers. ActiveX scripts can easily control a user's compy it gets full acess to yoru compy, unlinke Java which only gets limited acess.

Wikipedia wrote: Microsoft's Craig Mundie has admitted that Microsoft's products were "less secure than they could have been" because it was "designing with features in mind rather than security."

Even patches that do get fixed don't get fixed for atleast a week. The fastest time that the Mozilla FOundation fixed a bug that was critial was about a day. Since about version 4, there are no huge changes. Heck the UA even reads something like Mozilla/4.0 (blah,comp. IE 6.0, WinNT5.1) It's not really standard of HTML 4.01. It reads some page done in pure HTML 4.01 incorrectly. The follwing image will show how IE sucks at transparent png's

Any cliams of XHTML support in IE was never mentioned.
more info here:
HERE!

ShinyRock · Post by **ShinyRock** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 11:02 am

I use IE because it comes with my computer and if I got anymore advanced, my dad would blow a fuse by now!

Post by **Pikachu3828** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 11:25 am

I use Firefox mainly because of the handy features it has. And the fact that it's more secure. For example, tabs are a brilliant feature, I can open up multiple windows without cluttering up my desktop.

Extensions are another great idea, I can tell the weather from my browser for the next few days, I can tell a site's pagerank, if I don't know a word I simply have to highlight and right-click on it to give me an explanation and lots more. Also, I love Firefox's built in search functions. I can search Google, Dictionary.com, Amazon, eBay and more. It's even customisable. Since I am learning German I have a German <-> English translator there.

Bookmarks also are a lot easier to manage, I feel. And you can even place bookmarks in a sidebar so you can view one page while browsing others

The bookmarks toolbar is really handy, I can view a select choice of bookmarks on my main browser display and just click them to view it. Also keywords are another great feature. If I wanted to view The Pika Club, all I'd have to type into the address bar is "pika" because I set it to that and it sends me straight here.

Themes are another great feature, but I think by this point I've made my point as to why I use Firefox over Internet Explorer

surskitty · Post by **surskitty** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 4:14 pm

Firefox, hands down. Besides the fact that my dad's PC freezes if you have more than two IE windows open...

Pikachu90000 · Post by **Pikachu90000** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 5:59 pm

I too use Firefox. (like nobody didn't know that). Firefox's tabbed browsing feature is a godsend. I don't have to clutter up my taskbar. Pop-up browsing is great. I can block all of thoese unwated ads. Extensions are very useful. If I want to supersize my browser, I can install useful extensions like Adblock, ChatZilla, Mozilla Calendar, SpellBound, EditChorme, HiddenPref and many more. (TBE sucks) If I want to change the appearence I goto some theme site that is either Mozilla Update or The Extensions Mirror and install the prefered theme. I even made some themes of my own. You can't do that in IE. My prefered theme is Pinstripe Modern (made by me, used icons from Mac OS X)

corleoneXYX · Post by **corleoneXYX** » Tue 19 Jul, 2005 7:58 pm

Firefox is the ultimate browser.

no spyware, no popups.

and i love the tab system

Pikachu90000 · Post by **Pikachu90000** » Wed 20 Jul, 2005 6:15 am

If you were using IE the nhow come that bug on TPC that only IE users can have.

Jtl · Post by **Jtl** » Wed 20 Jul, 2005 7:02 am

I personaly use Opera. I used once FierFox, but i don't like it...

Pikachu90000 · Post by **Pikachu90000** » Wed 20 Jul, 2005 7:03 am

It's Firefox, not FierFox...

Jtl · Post by **Jtl** » Wed 20 Jul, 2005 7:06 am

Sorry... I'm doing many mistakes this time.... I've even done mistake writing this post...

Sasuke Uchiha · Post by **Sasuke Uchiha** » Mon 25 Jul, 2005 9:44 pm

I use both, but mainly Firefox. It is the better fo the two.

Moon Shine · Post by **Moon Shine** » Fri 29 Jul, 2005 12:27 am

I mainly only use FireFox, I only use IE to scan my computer for viruses, but that's about it. I prefer FF for because it's faster and it prevents some risk of getting a virus.

UltimateYoshiMaster · Post by **UltimateYoshiMaster** » Wed 25 Jul, 2007 3:14 pm

Jtl wrote:I personaly use Opera. I used once FierFox, but i don't like it...

I use Opera too.
On my computer, Firefox freezes when I download files and only becomes responsive again once the file has finished downloading.

UltimateYoshiMaster · Post by **UltimateYoshiMaster** » Wed 25 Jul, 2007 3:30 pm

Acording To Secunia
For the newest versions of the browsers:
IE-8 Security Holes
FireFox-6 Security Holes
Opera-0 Security Holes
Safari-4 Security Holes
Konqueror-2 Security Holes

That's odd how the number of security holes for each browser are all multipules of 2.

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Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Which do you use?

Internet Explorer or Firefox?