Browser Hijackers Ruining More Than Just Computers
from the ah,-technology dept
As spyware and browser hijackers become even more evil, some are having an impact well beyond the computer that they take over. Apparently, some people claim that they've been arrested for child porn that such programs put on their hard drive, while others say they've been fired for similar things. The stories in the article don't have that much evidence backing them up - but even if they're not true, it's certainly possible that these things could happen. There have been (again, unsubstantiated) reports in the past about e-extortion rings that threaten to put child porn on your hard drive, so whether or not it's really happening, people have definitely thought about it. Of course, like most new malicious attacks on personal computer users (spam, viruses, phishing, adware, spyware, trojans, worms, etc...) things are likely to get worse before anyone tries to come up with a real solution.
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No Subject Given
Don't use IE
Problem 98% solved.
I could add use Linux to the list, but that is an unreasonable expectation for most people. Downloading Mozilla, which is free as in spech and free as in beer, and has a good email program attached, is certainlty do-able for most people.
You can still infect yourself with Mozilla if you actively click on a trojan, but it requires an active effort on your part, whereas IE with weak securty settings will auto install stuff you never know about.
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As for Outlook, I've never used it, so problem solved there.
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I hear what you are saying. Frankly, I hear it all the time. I'm REALLY curious WHAT things don't work properly in Mozilla?
I know I can rant about Microsoft with the best of them, and I AM a big fan of Linux...but my intention isn't to start a flamewar...I am simply really, genuinely curious as to what things don't work for you.
I likely have no solutions to offer you...this is a purely selfish post in an appeal to satisfy my curiosity :)
Personally I use Opera for everything (linux and windows) but I have also used Mozilla extensively and haven't experienced any problems even with the environment at work (which is very heavily dependent on Microsoft stuff...asp, IIS, C# etc..).
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I've had trouble with anchors in IE 5 and 6. Never had that kind of problem in Moz. Firefox 0.8 keeps crashing on WinXP. That's my only gripe with it. As far as Js goes, the problem that most people seem to have with moz is that you can't use it to code to IE's object model, which is non standard. There are a ton of things you can code in IE that are not standard.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but you can do the same things with the same level of complexity with standard scripting, but it seems like Microsoft really wanted people locked into IE. What other explination could there be for it?
Anyway, I can usually fix those kinds of problems. If you e-mail me the HTML output you're having trouble with, I can take a look at it for you.
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A good example of something that wont work in Mozilla is the Outlook Web interface "premium" version which in IE looks and works almost like outlook but wont work at all on any other browser where you have to use the basic version which is pretty horrid.
Who uses Mozilla anyway? Firefox everytime.
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As I said I was really curious.
Where do you use a spell checker? (I have never used one in the browser, IE or otherwise)
I'm surprised about the javascript doodads though...since the ones I've used work...but I DO concede that I don't use my browser as in-depth as you might.
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I Wish...
I was almost fired because I brought in my own hard drive, installed Linux, OpenOffice, etc... worked great for about 2 years but I've had to get rid of it "or else".
Now, of course at home it's 100% Linux, but work, sadly, is not.
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Porn hijacking
They were just about to haul the suspect teacher off when they realised that all of the porn had been posted to the IE Favourites within a 2 second time frame, which made it physically impossible. Further examination revealed a trojan which was doing the nasties.
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No Subject Given
I find myself needing IE for some sites that use Windows Media Player for streaming content, DirecTV online ordering of pay per view movies doesn't in Moz, and parts of our health insurance company site doesn't work in Moz.
I've worked for companies that had IT standards too. I always got away with installing my own stuff though. Just lucky I guess ;)
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That's not to say there WON'T be exploits...but they conceivably might not be as extreme or as easy to code/distribute AND they probably wouldn't last as long.
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hackers
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