OK somebody sell me on this thing.

While I agree that Mozilla is more secure than IE, you have to remember than nowhere near the same time has been spent trying to exploit it. IE has massive market saturation, and so it's natural that this has been the focus of most exploits up until now. I'd suggest that as the take-up of Mozilla increases, we'll start to see more and more security holes as the browser attracts more and more attention.

 

I agree with your statement that more and more security holes will be revealed as time progresses, but let's not ignore one important fact. Mozilla Firefox doesn't use ActiveX controls. IE does. This is where spyware comes into play. The majority of spyware is installed on your system through Active X controls. If you use IE and Firefox and compare them you will see that you get an enormous amount of spyware while using IE as compared to when you are using firefox. This is because Firefox doesn't use Active X. I use firefox 99% of the time, and use internet explorer if a page is not compatible with firefox which doesn't happen very often. No browser can ever be perfect. There will alway be security holes in products..that's just how it is, but Firefox is the best browser out there as of right now in my opinion.

 

I agree with you. ActiveX is a big, wide-open gateway deep into the heart of the OS that Mozilla doesn't have (by default) and IE does. That's why I said that I believe Mozilla is the more secure broswer.

I have ActiveX disabled on my pcs. In many years of using the internet, I've not had a single virus, piece of spyware, work, trojan or anything else unsavoury. And most of that time was using Windows and IE.

 

I agree with what you said. IE can be used securely if one knows how. The default setting for Active X controls is set to active, but it can be disabled. I guess you could say by default that Firefox is a more secure browser. I guess uneducated users are a bigger problem than the security flaws in the browser though.

 

what's this you say? the end users are morons? say it's not so!

/...my programming is fine...you're just an idiot.....

 

I do have a firewall...but I do not know what kind it is. I didn't put it on...perhaps it came with the computer? Either that or the person who setup the computer put it on.

 

You can always install an alternant browser like netscape or preferably firefox (kudos to anyone using Lynx!!!!!) just dont say yes to any 'would you like to make blahblah your default browser' questions until you like it, you can always load up iexplore if you want to later.

 

Hahaha I came to the hipforums on lynx once... It was confusing and scary... Actualy made a few posts and such though...

 

Newer versions of Winblows come with the built-in firewall switched to OFF...make sure you have it on.

Download Zone Alarm and AdAware...then go BUY an anti-virus (not the smartest thing to bootleg off Kazaa)...go download Firefox or Opera or Lynx (preferably Firefox).

After all of this, you should have a %100 safe setup; though there are a few tips for n00bs: don't let unknown programs (e.g., "q1913248124.com, 18234812341.exe, coolsurf, etc.") have access to the Internet. This means actually LOOKING at ZoneAlarm when it asks permission for certain programs (time pertaining, I may actually throw together a list of known necessary Windows resources vs. spyware progs).

Look for programs on your comp (99% P2P progs, any other "freeware" prog) that include third-party software...after running AdAware, these will NO LONGER WORK; and therefore contain spyware necessary to function properly and should be removed from the harddrive.

As for Firefox vs. IE, the tables will soon turn as the general consensus decides that FireFox is "hax0r pr00fz0r" (or whatever jarg0n you "4@x0R$" use now-a-days) and IE becomes the Underdog competitor...who wants to hack the browser nobody uses, now that FireFox is the hot shit?

 

Actually, AVG offers a very nice FREE antivirus, updates and everything.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

[did i mention it was FREE?]

 

I run both I.E. and Firefox in unison with no problems.

 

...what trotsky311 said. mozilla will be right up yer alley

 

I'm also using AVG Free. I can easily have Norton, McAfee or any of the other paid antivirus programs for free, but I still think AVG is better. It has done a great job for me, and it uses up less resources on my system than Norton.

Shouldn't Crummyrummy be sold on using Firefox by now?

 

Just in case he isn't, Let me sum it up.
Most Spyware, Adware, Browserjackers and Viruses are written specifically for Microsucks Internet Explorer. They won't affect Motzilla or any other browser at all.
(The code is different.) Hell. Even A-O-Hell is protected from most of them.