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Internet Explorer 7 Automatic Update

October 31, 2006 By

I had read and have been reporting that IE7 would be pushed as an update as part of the November 14th regular “Patch Day” from Microsoft.

However, some blogs (example) are reporting that IE7 is being pushed out TODAY as an automatic update. I haven’t seen anything from other news sources, but the issues below apply whenever the update occurs.
Well, not completely automatic, as it appears to put a recommendation on the screen — with options Ask Me Later, Don’t Install and Install.

This is necessary because the IE7 Update recommends that you disable your anti-virus and anti-spyware before starting the installation. This is a REASONABLE request — since both of those tend to try to protect your IE installation, and would royally mess up the upgrade process.

Whenever you install, expect it to take 10 to 20 minutes. The IE7 will also end with a recommendation to reboot immediately. Nicely, it doesn’t force the immediate reboot. You get an opportunity to save anything else first.

Of course, you really should save and close all the other windows before starting the update.

Filed Under: Communications, Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Web browsing, Windows Updates

PC Magazine Picks Firefox 2.0

October 31, 2006 By

In a review published on October 30th, PC Magazine picked Firefox 2.0 as their Editors’ Choice, over Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9.

Looks like I’m using the “right” browser.  Yea!

Read their Firefox 2.0 review.

They also have reviews of IE 7 and Opera 9 .

Filed Under: Communications, Security, Web browsing

IE7 vs Firefox 2 – the battle heats up…

October 30, 2006 By

The bloggers and news sites alike are getting into the Internet Explorer 7 vs Firefox 2.0 war already.

Which is more secure? The questions really should be “should I upgrade from IE6 to IE7″ and “should I upgrade from Firefox 1.5.0.7(or earlier) to Firefox 2.0?”

The answer in either case, in my opinion, is YES.

Both are big improvements over the earlier versions, especially IE7 over the 5-year-old IE6. Sure there are safety tweaks you can make to the default IE7 settings — why would anyone think otherwise? Microsoft has a long history of pushing workability and ease of use over security.
Should you switch from IE7 to Firefox 2.0? I’ll leave that for others, for now. I’m continuing my past practice — Firefox for surfing and IE for Microsoft Updates.
Of course, for people running Windows 98, Windows Me or Windows 2000, the ONLY choice for security is to go to Firefox or Opera, since they can not run IE7 (which is only for Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server and Windows Vista beta).

ZDNet has an IE7 vs Firefox 2 blog article (probably several) but this one seems to miss the mark. It rehashes history and quotes some older security problems as if they’re current ones (Firefox 1.5.0.6? ? ? The latest was 1.5.0.7 and the current is Firefox 2.0!).

Get Firefox

Filed Under: Operating System, Security, Web browsing

IE7 Vulnerability to Phishing Attack

October 26, 2006 By

Security researchers at Secunia have discovered and reported another vulnerability with the newest version of Internet Explorer – IE7, as reported in heise Security‘s blog.

On the day of its release, Secunia reported a vulnerability where phishers were able to spy on the content of other open windows. As usual, the recommendation was to disable Active Scripting (Microsoft’s name for its implementation of JavaScript). [How to turn Active Scripting back on again, later]

Microsoft quickly announced that this was not an IE6 and IE7 vulnerability, it was a problem with Outlook Express code that was in Windows. According to the heise Security article, Microsoft has known of that vulnerability for about six months.

Gee, isn’t that reassuring?

In the latest vulnerabilty reported by Secunia, malicious web sites could fake the data in the “address bar” of a popup window. This despite Microsoft’s touting of the new anti-phishing, high-security IE7 and its new address bar display in each window.

By spoofing the address of a legitimate site into its popup window, phishers could convince unsuspecting visitors to reveal personal information such as userIDs, passwords and credit card data.

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spam, Anti-spyware, Communications, Operating System, Security, Web browsing

CounterSpy Monster of a Sale

October 23, 2006 By

Read my CounterSpy Review

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware

Learn to Tune Up Your Windows XP Computer

October 21, 2006 By

Would you like to learn how to make your Microsoft Windows XP computer run faster And more reliably?

Do you have trouble reading technical articles and technical books?

This may be just the tool for you. It’s a set of 11 videos to teach you — step by step — how to tune up your Windows XP computer.

Visit Learn to Tune Up Your Windows XP Computer

Filed Under: Dust, Dirt, Junk, Memory Issues, Operating System, Speed Tweaks

Windows XP SP3 delayed to 2008

October 21, 2006 By

With the emphasis on IE7 and Windows Vista, Microsoft has announced that the next Service Pack for Windows XP will be delayed until 2008.

2008?

Already some of the press is speculating that this is part of a Microsoft push to get people and businesses to upgrade to Windows Vista.

Like that’s going to happen… Microsoft is going to have to do a real sales job on WHY we ought to upgrade to Vista — given that we’ll have to spend a fortune on the latest video cards and memory to upgrade our current computers.

Of course, notebook users like me will be out of luck. We’ll stay with Winodws XP until we replace our notebooks for other reasons. Vista’s cute graphics won’t be usable on our notebooks, since most of our notebook video cards don’t meet the graphics requirements for “AeroGlass,” so Vista would revert to XP-style graphics.

With Microsoft saying 512MB memory minimum, you know that means you need 1GB if you want to run one program — and 2GB if you like to multi-task like I do.

Windows XP is here to stay for a long time.

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware, Blue Screen, Memory Issues, Operating System, Web browsing

Minor issues surface after IE 7 launch

October 20, 2006 By

Joris Evers of Tech Republic reports, has a good report on IE7′s first day in his article Minor issues surface after IE 7 launch.

Events for the initial day of IE7 included:

  • a reported security flaw (Microsoft said — that’s ok, it an Outlook Express bug that we might fix later, not an IE7 bug).web sites that did not work properly with IE7 (duh!),
  • a false positive that the MS download page was passing a virus (MS said the AVAST report of VBS:ZULU was false)
  • and crumpling of Microsoft’s download servers due to high demand.

None of those are big surprises, except that I’d think Microsoft would use Linux-based servers for large download sites <grin>.

Filed Under: Anti-virus, Communications, Operating System, Web browsing

Computer Running Slowly — Adware & Spyware

October 20, 2006 By

In the article before this (Computer Running Slowly), I wrote about extra programs running in the background, slowing up your computer.

Sometimes, those programs are malicious. They may want to reroute your searches to their own site. They may want to spy on you. They may want to use your computer to send spam. They may pop up advertising. They may block access to certain sites. Or they may do other things you wouldn’t want, either.

Some of them even replace the advertising that you would have seen on a web site.

Why are they doing all of this? Money.

Continued in Computer Running Slowly — Adware & Spyware

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spam, Anti-spyware, Operating System

Computer Running Slowly?

October 19, 2006 By

Most of the time, when our computers are running slowly, it’s because of all the things we have running in the background. Computer manufacturers seem to delight in loading up computers with 10 to 12 programs that run automatically and put little icons in the Windows Status Bar.

One would hope that these programs didn’t interfere with our other computer activities. But, all too often, that is not the case.

So, how can you get them under control?

There are a number of tools that will let you control programs that start automatically — if you can figure out which ones you don’t need…

Read more in Computer Running Slowly

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spam, Anti-spyware, Operating System
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