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Microsoft Responds To IE Security Concerns | |
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| Time: 12:58 EST/17:58 GMT | News Source: InformationWeek | Posted By: Chris Hedlund | ||
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Full text of a letter from Microsoft, in response to coverage of companies moving from IE to Firefox and other alternative browsers. You mentioned that many or the respondents in the self-selecting survey recommended against IE and that many people have said Microsoft needs to address security issues more fully. Regarding the recommendation, we're aware that some people have recommended against IE, but we also know that hundreds of millions of users use Windows because of its broad ecosystem of applications that are constantly being tested and implemented, and this ecosystem demonstrates the rich choice out there for customers. | ||
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| #1 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 1/18/2005 1:38:08 PM |
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With IE supported by the vast majority of Web sites, consumers can be confident that their browsing experience with IE is supported and optimal.
Actually, they got that confused. It should read: "With a vast majority of Web sites forgivingly rendered by IE" Our enterprise customers ask us to make sure that the browser provides a solid platform for application development and solutions, and therefore, IE is the choice of many thousands of enterprise customers. IE is not a choice. It is the default Windows browser. It's not as if companies had a default Windows installation with IE, Opera, Firefox, etc. to chose from and they picked IE. Regardless, any "rich" enterprise applications that use a browser generally require IE and dreaded ActiveX controls (Siebel comes to mind). In addition to the improvements that SP2 brought to IE, a vibrant ecosystem involving hundreds of partners and independent software vendors continues to develop on the IE platform. The applications they are building deliver some of the most popular browser features and add-ons for customers to download and enjoy today. These range from complete browsers with tabbed browsing built on the Internet Explorer platform, to toolbars, RSS and blogging tools, search functions, parental controls and many others. With over 900 extensions available currently, customers can customize IE to meet their specific needs and interests. We feel that this ecosystem demonstrates that Internet Explorer is an extensible and reliable platform for experimentation. Spin doctoring at its finest. Why would you need Firefox with over 900 IE extensions available? No thanks, I'll stick with Firefox with no extensions necessary, no scripting follies, no need for configuring secure zones, unsecure zones, in-between secure and insecure zones, an uncrowded task bar, and so forth. Waggener Edstrom = spin source. MS Management = FUD source. |
| #2 By 16797 (65.48.183.157) at 1/18/2005 1:50:19 PM |
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You do have a choice on Windows. You can use IE or Firefox.
On Linux you don't. You don't have IE. (other browsers are really not important) Besides, I know 0 companies where Firefox or any other browser is used. Simply, nobody cares, while supporting one browser makes life so much easier for in-house developers. |
| #3 By 1474 (160.125.253.9) at 1/18/2005 2:58:48 PM |
| On a normal day of web surfing with "IE" , (IE cnn, msnbc, mp3, weather, download, my own websites, and the other 100 million website) no funny stuff detected by Norton, Spy Sweeper, Adware, Spybot, or on my hardware firewall and proxy server. But as soon as I go to the adnormal websites (IE miss type google, micrsoft, fodo - you know the sites playboy 'ch') time for a system rebuilt. Some of the coding is great, SH@#$ HOT code; do these people have jobs. On my linux box (SUSE 9.1) I'm starting to see some great coding as well. Not on the kill system, but coming soon. @@ It doesn't matter what you use, IE, Foxfire etc. they will get you. Try safe web surfing 'ch'. If you don't have on your seat belt, you'll get what you got. |
| #4 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 1/18/2005 3:11:48 PM |
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#5: No plug-ins? No flash? No pdf's? No shockwave?
Yup. And no problems. Used the same policy with IE prior to switching over to Firefox. #6: ...playboy 'ch'... Try safe web surfing 'ch'. If you don't have on your seat belt, you'll get what you got. After wading through your mangled mess of words thrown together in an affront to grammar (and the gentle readers of ActiveWin)... I concluded that you are trying to say that I surf scummy sites, don't practice safe browsing, have malicious code on my computers, and need to rebuild my systems. Uh, no. |
| #5 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 1/18/2005 4:53:07 PM |
| ch: Actually, the lack of security zones in Firefox is a major security limitation, IMHO. |
| #6 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 1/18/2005 5:13:23 PM |
| #8: And juxtaposed to your (humble) opinion is mine that finds the lack of security zones in Firefox completely inconsequential. For my use, where security zones were critical in IE, they're unnecessary in Firefox. |
| #7 By 16797 (65.48.183.157) at 1/18/2005 7:25:54 PM |
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#10 I agree, but IE and Firefox are two most important browsers these days, wouldn't you say so?
I mean, there's Opera too, but.. its market share is insignificant, etc, etc. My point is: every company I know targets IE only, for their in-house web applications. Firefox still has no presence in business environments. It's not going to change any time soon. Therefore, Linux sux, 'cause you don't have IE :) You think they are going to rewrite all those in-house web apps any time soon? Well.. (Just to remind you: "DOS ain't ready till Lotus runs on it.". That is, Linux ain't ready till there are Linux versions of all those well known and widely used apps such as AutoCAD, MasterCAM, Photoshop, Quicken, TurboTax, etc, etc. And no, GIMP is not Photoshop. It really doesn't matter if it's good enough or not.) (Same thing with many other tools: on Windows I can run IIS, Apache, MS Office, OpenOffice, IE, Firefox, MySQL, SQL Server, PHP, ASP.. etc. On Linux, my choice is limited.) This post was edited by gonzo on Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 20:13. |
| #8 By 16451 (65.19.16.84) at 1/18/2005 9:21:17 PM |
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>>> every company I know targets IE only
Then you really need to get out more. |
| #9 By 2332 (66.92.78.189) at 1/18/2005 11:21:20 PM |
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#1 - IE 4.0 gained "critical" market share (between 35% and 40%) before it was ever bundled with Windows. Clearly, that was a choice.
Despite the incredible security problems that plauge IE, I suspect a large percentage of Windows users would choose to use IE even if it weren't part of Windows. |
| #10 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 1/19/2005 2:58:54 AM |
| ch: But why not have the extra security measure / configurability? |
| #11 By 19992 (164.214.4.61) at 1/19/2005 10:28:30 AM |
| #2 Most of the Federal govt (US) uses Netscape as well as IE |
| #12 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 1/19/2005 10:45:43 AM |
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#13: IE 4.0 gained... before it was ever bundled with Windows. Clearly, that was a choice.
I don't recall the last version of Windows that did not come bundled with IE (pre-Windows 95 OSR 2, late 1995, I believe). Every version of Windows from then on has had IE. IE gained market share for several reasons: (1) it was free, (2) it was part of the OS, and (3) it eventually became a better product. #13: Despite the incredible security problems that plauge IE, I suspect a large percentage of Windows users would choose to use IE even if it weren't part of Windows. "Large percentage" being the key phrase. If the rest of your statement held true then Firefox would have a chance. Regardless, MS has slacked off on IE beginning with version 5. Firefox would not be the phenominal success it is against the entrenched incumbant if IE was still a superior product. #14: But why not have the extra security measure / configurability? Sure, I'll take it because I know how to make use of it: putting financial sites in trusted, web mail in the internet zone, and everything else in restricted with each having custom options set. The problem is that nearly all users don't know how to make use of this. So why not have a browser that is more secure out of the install without the hassle? I have to bend, tweak, set registry keys, and install add-ons to make IE work as well as Firefox does with its default install. (Well, actually unzipped to the Firefox app directory simplicity for me). |
| #13 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 1/21/2005 3:42:01 AM |
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#17 IE came bundled with Win 95 OSR2B just before the release of Win 98.
It came packaged on a second CD and the user elected to install it. Unlike previous versions of IE, it, 4.x W/SP1 transformed the OS and provided the same experience as found on the first release of IE on Win 98. It added the "Quick-Launch" Bar, desktop content and much more and a new version of OLE as well. With the same release was an add-ons folder which contained USB support - however limited it was and pwshoot.exe - a special diagnostic utility for debugging then fragile USB drivers [for those interested in the trivial]. That version of IE beat Netscape and millions of users began moving to IE over Netscape 4.6 and 4.7 - from that point on, it was over and it was a better experience that did it, not including it with the OS...a practice begun with the first version of Win95 where MSN was also featured. At the same time, a free version of Outlook 98 was available for download - which seeded interest in Office 2000 - it rapidly became among the most favored downloads. In both cases, features and speed caused adoption and sustained use. Both were available a full eight months before Win 98 and by the release more than 52% of PC users were using IE more frequently than alternatives. By the time Win 98 was released, IE had grown even more and on its own merit - a trend that continued until 6.x got hammered by a) people making really bad decisions about where they went on the net, and b) naive handling of signed code in many COM Clients. SP2 fixed that and IE 6.0.2900.2180 stabilized user confidence. This post was edited by lketchum on Friday, January 21, 2005 at 03:42. |
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