Step Away From Your Browser
Are you still using Internet Explorer? Maybe you should look for an alternative.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
BY : Brian Ashe
It's pretty simple. Each time you get into your car you reach over your shoulder and pull your seat belt around you and click it into the buckle. If you have kids you also make sure that they are in proper booster seats and buckle them up as well. Yes, there are laws that say you must or you will be fined. In reality though, you know that not following that simple step could have extremely dire consequences. A situation that you are not willing to deal with.
What if one day you got in your car and the seat belt won't pull out? Would you take it to a shop to get it replaced? Sure you may not be that worried about the day or two until the appointment, but you likely don't want to have this protection missing for an extended time.
Right now, on your computer, you have a piece of broken equipment. You may not even think about this lone piece of software much because it is so integrated into the system. If you are running Microsoft Windows, you have Internet Explorer (IE for short). Worse then that is you won't be able to remove it.
For those who are not sure, IE is the little"e" icon on your desktop. It is a Web browser that allows you to surf the Web, do you banking on-line, etc. It has also been extended to be much more (from a computer programmer's viewpoint) and can be extended even further by third party software.
So how does this one program affect your security so much? It's all in the design. Internet Explorer was "integrated" into the Windows operating system. This means that what would normally be a simple benign program that displays text and images was given far greater power over the computer than is normally done with any program that will rely so heavily on remote untrusted content (ie. web pages). So any little flaw that would normally be just a nuisance can turn into maelstrom of chaos and destruction on your PC.
The majority of viruses for the last five years have counted on two things. One is that you are using the Windows Address Book (WAB), which is the default for all Outlook and Outlook Express users, so that it can get new e-mail addresses to spread to. Second, and perhaps most important, is that you will have IE on your PC so that it can take advantage of some flaw in it to take control of your computer. Additionally, most of the adware and spyware programs also depend on you using IE to both be able to infect you and to monitor/advertise to you.
IE is not just a victim of it's own success. The fact that it holds such a large percentage of browser usage is not the reason it is attacked so much. There have been over eighty flaws found in IE 6.0 alone, with around twenty of those remain unpatched today. The biggest problem for users of IE has been a lack of competition in the browser arena.
The good news is that you can reduce the threats posed by IE. Competition has arrived and it comes not only with additional features, but improved security as well.
This is the perfect time to check out the alternatives to IE. They are easy to install, standards compliant (which means they will display properly done websites well) and have far better track records with regards to the frequency, severity and time to patch release. Both of these alternatives can be downloaded and tried out for free. So don't wait. Put one of these on the desktop and stop clicking on the little"e".
Firefox 1.0.4 by Mozilla Foundation - This browser is the new darling of the Net. It has made numerous headlines for it's innovative features and excellent security. Features include :
- Popup Blocking
- Tabbed Browsing
- Integrated Google Search
- Advanced Find on Page
- Easy Download Management
- and more...
Get it Here
Opera 8.0 by Opera Software - A very strong contender in the browser market. With Opera, there are two versions. One that is free to download and use, but is supported by an "advertising block". If you want to get rid of them, you will need to pay $39. Opera is a very quick and secure browser, well worth checking out. Features include :
- Popup Blocking
- Tabbed Browsing
- Integrated Google Search
- Highly Customizable
- Password Manager
- and more...
Get it Here
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