And you thought they were over ...

[dibl]

The "Browser Wars", that is: http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/06/tech...dex.htm?hpt=T2

[MoonRise]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

I think we've only begun to see a war. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them found a way to sue over something. It'll be interesting to watch.

[toad]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

I wouldn't be surprised if one of them found a way to sue over something.

Now that you mention it one has to admit that that is one of the things M$ excels at.

[GreyGeek]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

<sarcasm>
How convenient for Microsoft that the article quotes Net Applications claim that IE is still "59.7%" of market share, Net Applications being totally independent of Microsoft or its products, of course.
</sarcasm>

Even more pathetic is a posting by an IE fan who claims:

IE is a pain in the butt.......but part of that is it trying to be more secure. I only use IE when doing banking and such. Otherwise it's Chrome or Firefox.

I'm speechless. He's clueless.

Forget about using IE. DON'T EVEN USE WINDOWS to do online banking. Brian Krebs made that recommendation this week.

An investigative series I've been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.

The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don't use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

I do not offer this recommendation lightly (and at the end of this column you'll find a link to another column wherein I explain an easy-to-use alternative). But I have interviewed dozens of victim companies that lost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 dollars because of a single malware infection. I have heard stories worthy of a screenplay about the myriad ways cyber crooks are evading nearly every security obstacle the banks put in their way.

But regardless of the methods used by the bank or the crooks, all of the attacks shared a single, undeniable common denominator: They succeeded because the bad guys were able to plant malicious software that gave them complete control over the victim's Windows computer.

His recommendation? It is here. It is an Ubuntu LiveCD, and he includes easy to follow instructions on how create one.

[Adrian]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

In general people who count in IT don't use IE by their own will.

[verndog]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

Even more pathetic is a posting by an IE fan who claims:

IE is a pain in the butt.......but part of that is it trying to be more secure. I only use IE when doing banking and such. Otherwise it's Chrome or Firefox.

I'm speechless. He's clueless.

On first blush this does appear to be an oxymoron, but my online banking requires IE only. I found a way around it though, using of all things Opera. All the others except IE kept giving me , "you need third party program, see your admin..."

When calling the online bank they said that they only support IE. I wonder what servers were donated to them

[The Liquidator]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

My bank, NatWest, seems to be rather more enlightened. Even the firefox 4 beta works with it.

It won't work with Konqueror though, unless I change the browser identification. I assume you have done that to see if your bank will run with FF?

[toad]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

Hm, interesting. I've got to use Opera for my Royal Bank of Scotland account as FF doesn't work. Never thought of changing FFs identity...

[Ole Juul]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

I remember the month that Arachne made it to about number 6 or something like that. Hehe. Really, I don't think the browser wars are going to stop any time soon. The thing about browsers is that it is essentially an OS to many users. The difference between the browser and the underlying OS is that it is much easier to change browser. Still, for some strange reason, people tend to stick with one for a long time.

[toad]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

I'd opt for rekonq if it had a decent number of add-ons...

[Detonate]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

If my bank required IE, I would change banks. I currently have accounts at two banks which I manage online. Both are friendly to both chromium and FF on Ubuntu.

[The Liquidator]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

Hm, interesting. I've got to use Opera for my Royal Bank of Scotland account as FF doesn't work. Never thought of changing FFs identity...

That surprises me, given that Natwest and RBS are the same bank and, so far as I can tell the sites are identical, apart from branding.

http://www.rbs.co.uk/personal/online...#tabs=section4

suggests it should work - it's exactly the same as Natwest which gives me no probs.

You don't have noscript installed by any chance do you? I do know that it will stop you logging in, or at least keying in your user name and password.

[toad]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

Christ on a bike! It works! My info was about two years old and I haven't tried FF since. I've always had opera just for banking - made me feel kind of even more secure, my bank had its own browser

Thanks for passing the light, Liquidator

[The Liquidator]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

Excellent ! I can confirm that Chrome works as well.

What an enlightened bank we have, now if only they did interest-free loans

[dibl]

Re: And you thought they were over ...

I've been a happy user of chromium-browser for some months now, on both Debian and Kubuntu. Prior to that I was a FF devotee for 7 or 8 years, but chrome seems substantially less resource-hungry. Java, flash, and the few plugins that I use all seem to work flawlessly. The only bug I know of has to do with opening AOL e-mail messages -- it always does a "double" and opens the message twice. I can live with it.