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Researchers have uncovered evidence that “some major web sites have been hacked and will infect your PC if you visit them with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer”:http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5247187.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed. This article is from ZDNet, which is a major news organization for the IT industry–it would be the rough equivalent of the Wall Street Journal for investors. You can consider it a credible and reputable source.
The viruses in question take advantage of two flaws in Internet Explorer which Microsoft *has not yet fixed*. That means that you could get a virus just by visiting your bank’s web site. Now then, that’s just an example–I’m not implying that your bank is one of the major web sites that’s been infected, rather that it could be.
This is not the first time Internet Explorer was bad news for everyday web surfers. It will not be the last. How can you avoid these problems? Don’t use Internet Explorer. I’d recommend using the “Firefox browser from Mozilla”:http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/. In fact, I’ll do more than recommend–please, please do not use Internet Explorer. Get rid of it ASAP and get Firefox installed. I say this not because I hate Microsoft or because I love Firefox, but because as one of the geeks in the family I want to help make everyone’s Internet experience as problem free as possible.
That said, go “download Firefox”:http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/download.html?http%3A//ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.9/FirefoxSetup-0.9.exe, install it, and delete that Internet Explorer icon from the desktop.
I’m currently in the process of writing a series of articles on safe Internet surfing for the average household. One of the first articles will be a more in-depth look at Internet Explorer, Firefox, and safe browsing; however, I felt the security problems above were too dangerous to hold off until I’ve wrapped up that article, so consider this posting a preview and a quickstart guide.
*Update*: great minds “think alike”:http://jeremy.marzhillstudios.com/personal/archives/000129.html.
June 25th, 2004 at 12:48 pm
Testimonial: I have been using Firefox for some time and I love it. Very stable, very low learning curve when transferring from IE. Several significant upsides (tabbed browsing is likely the best); no significant downsides.
June 30th, 2004 at 10:58 am
FYI, it appears others are coming to the same conclusions I have after this latest round if IE problems. See the following articles:
Internet Explorer Is Just To Risky, http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2004/tc20040629_7734_tc120.htm
Internet Explorer Is Too Dangerous to Keep Using, http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617931,00.asp
July 2nd, 2004 at 5:11 pm
LOL thanks for the trackback Kyle
great minds do indeed think alike. Do you use camino or firefox on your mac?
July 2nd, 2004 at 9:22 pm
Shiira is my primary browser–it’s got the UI of Firefox but uses OS X’s Web Core, the same rendering engine Safari uses (essentially an Apple-approved release of KHTML). I also have Safari and Firefox.