Windows Vista comes with IE 7

Happy Camper

Spaceman
New versions of Windows are few and far between, but the Redmond machine is now preparing for Windows Vista which is billed as its most significant desktop release in a decade.

The IT industry has not seen this much hype over an operating system since the launch of Microsoft's last much delayed and much modified enterprise client OS, Windows 2000, on the cusp of the last millennium.

Windows 2000 was long previously known as NT5 and, like its predecessor, Vista was long known by another code name, in this case Longhorn. The newly released beta version indicates that Microsoft's biggest objectives with the upgrade are to improve security, deployment, manageability and performance.

The beta ships with Internet Explorer 7, which includes features to guard against spoofing and phishing attacks. Other security features include Windows Service Hardening, which monitors for abnormal activity in the file system and registry, full-volume disk encryption and support for Trusted Platform Module security chips. The firewall in Windows Vista has also been upgraded to filter outgoing as well as incoming traffic.
http://www.pcw.co.uk/vnunet/specials/2140939/windows-vista

And there was me thinking IE was dead.
 
Maj.Striker said:
Hmm, I like IE though...I'll reserve judgement until I have the new copy.

Yeah, I could never get used to Firefox.. and it sounds like IE7 will have the tabbing and whatever else that Firefox has. They announced IE7 will be in Vista months ago I think though.
 
IE7 or whatever Microsift releases, it will be in every hacker's sights. If it has tabbing and other navigation features as Firefox, I will consider to use it instead.

Anyway, I will never rely my virus/firewall protection on windows stuff!!
 
Alch said:
Anyway, I will never rely my virus/firewall protection on windows stuff!!
I've relied on XP's built-in firewall for years, never had a single problem with it. I've also at several points used XP with the firewall turned off for several months at a time, and also had no problems, except for one or two easily-cured virus infections.

People who complain about security in Windows are simply paranoid - unless you work for the US government or something, nobody's going to waste time trying to break into your computer, and the danger posed by all those virii and worms is hugely overblown. You might have a virus problem every once in a while, but it's generally going to be something so unimportant that you'll be laughing about it a few days later.
 
Quarto said:
I've relied on XP's built-in firewall for years, never had a single problem with it. I've also at several points used XP with the firewall turned off for several months at a time, and also had no problems, except for one or two easily-cured virus infections.

People who complain about security in Windows are simply paranoid - unless you work for the US government or something, nobody's going to waste time trying to break into your computer, and the danger posed by all those virii and worms is hugely overblown. You might have a virus problem every once in a while, but it's generally going to be something so unimportant that you'll be laughing about it a few days later.

Eh, those guys whose systems keep restarting would have to disagree with you - you don't have to be the US government to worry about random worms and virii hitting your PC up through ports 132 or 135, or else dealing with a zombie program that gets your ISP to turn off your connection. I'd recommend that everyone keep a firewall on, at the least, if only to reduce the changes of getting nailed with a passing worm, unless your ISP blocks those ports - which means that, for the poor saps who try to use their VPNs at home, that they're unable to do work from home until the IT people reconfigure their networks a bit.
 
Having random people affected with viruses and compromised security is always useful. They can use trojans to carry out DoS and Spam attacks, they can steal your credit card details, and other such nasties. Therefore, having an up to date virus scanner, firewall, spyware remover etc, is a very good idea. Anyways, I reckon IE7 will be awesome, as I would imagine Microsoft will plan on making up for some lost time. At the moment I use opera though.
 
Yes, I'm sure there's any number of reasons people would make worms and virii to attack random people. You'll excuse me if I remain sceptical, however - in spite of all the horror stories that abound on the internet, I have never, ever met (online or offline) even one person who had suffered from anything more than a minor virus infestation that took him all of half an hour to clean up.

Yes, of course, you should keep a virus checker handy, and yes, having some kind of firewall is generally a good idea. But don't go crazy reading about how hackers can exploit this or that flaw, and how you need to get the Latest Best Firewall software and such. This is the same kind of histeria as when people read about every single crime in their area, and become convinced that walking out at any time of the day without an armed escort will get them killed.
 
Quarto said:
Yes, I'm sure there's any number of reasons people would make worms and virii to attack random people. You'll excuse me if I remain sceptical, however - in spite of all the horror stories that abound on the internet, I have never, ever met (online or offline) even one person who had suffered from anything more than a minor virus infestation that took him all of half an hour to clean up.

Yes, of course, you should keep a virus checker handy, and yes, having some kind of firewall is generally a good idea. But don't go crazy reading about how hackers can exploit this or that flaw, and how you need to get the Latest Best Firewall software and such. This is the same kind of histeria as when people read about every single crime in their area, and become convinced that walking out at any time of the day without an armed escort will get them killed.

It's not the 'hackers will steal your computer because you're on' thing that I'd suggest worrying about - it's more that 'your system will become damned slow, and you'll have to learn to disable various parts of Windows which force it to reset when something like Blaster or another worm wanders onto your PC' problems which get to me. Those aren't delivered by hackers directly to your computer - those things 'wander' by themselves using infected PCs to poll random addresses, IIRC. That's the 'threat' that a firewall and antivirus are useful for, especially when Blaster and Sober and all those stupid programs were 'rampaging' over the Internet a few years back.

Given that I was doing tech support at the time, I had to deal with a LOT of calls... and Mom got hit with one too, so I had to clean HER PC out. Those things hit a lot of people - I didn't see a whit of it because of the firewall, but others who didn't have theirs up often did. That's where the firewall comes in handy - to handle everday annoyances, not 'super hackers are coming for your identity' issues.
 
Chicken's Guide to an uninfected system:

1. Use a firewall
2. Try Firefox or Opera, of if
3. Keep up-to-date antispyware and antivirus programs, I recommend a combo of Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Spyware blaster. Add Spyware Guard for that extra layer of security and an antivirus program (I use AVG).
4. Use common sense; otherwise don't download shit that you don't know about and avoid websites you don't know or trust.

Sadly Rule 4 is not followed well...
 
Chicken said:
Chicken's Guide to an uninfected system:
1. Use a firewall
I only got a firewall a few months ago when I installed a router. I haven't had trouble with any of the Blaster variants since Winnuke back in 1998. And that was more funny than anything.
3. Keep up-to-date antispyware and antivirus programs, I recommend a combo of Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Spyware blaster. Add Spyware Guard for that extra layer of security and an antivirus program (I use AVG).
I've had some kind of antivirus software installed since 1999 or so and it's never ever flagged anything as bad. It's all hugely unnecessary since stuff like that wouldn't just magically appear on your computer in the first place.

4. Use common sense; otherwise don't download shit that you don't know about and avoid websites you don't know or trust.

As long as you keep your Windows up to date, #4 is all you need.
 
Unfortunately, I have had more than my share of the virus situation. However let me say this, Quarto is right. Don't start freaking out every time you read about the latest exploit in Windows or IE. Chances are it's not going to affect you. My problem was I never really had a good anti-virus program in place. Since I have downloaded AVG I have never one time had a single problem! The only firewall I have in the Windows XP native firewall...

Just have a good Anti virus program (just in case) and like others mentioned, use common sense and you'll be fine.
 
I found some virii a few times, but never got infected. The spybot finds many weird spyware stuff. and there are thousands of zombie machines being used as DOD proxies and spam senders...

But Firefox is just better than IE in all aspects, it is faster, smaller, has tabs (I simply cannot browse without tabs anymore), a decent download manager (even if it is not great)...
 
Opera has a much better download manager, as there is no limit to the number of simultaneous downloads, whereas the version of firefox I've used did have a limit. As for the thingy about not worrying, yes it's not hugely likely that you'll get infected, but that will be of little comfort if you're credit card details get stolen, and people with such attitudes are unpopular with those who get DoS attacks and spam attacks.
 
What idiot keeps credit card info on their computer? Not even IE stores CC data when entered in forms, let alone other browsers.

As for the other stuff, yes it does happen, but it's trivially easy to avoid most of it without a single piece of third-party software. You just need to use the 2 neurons that seem to be the sole occupants of the skulls of many people, and make a few changes in certain programs (like IE's stupid default settings).

But, hey, if you want to fill the pockets of the fear-mongers and others who prey on the ignorant, be my guest.
 
Death said:
What idiot keeps credit card info on their computer? Not even IE stores CC data when entered in forms, let alone other browsers.
It's called keystroke logging. If it weren't an issue, then people's identies would be stolen without them knowing.

death said:
But, hey, if you want to fill the pockets of the fear-mongers and others who prey on the ignorant, be my guest
You can secure a P.C. for very little money. You can use AVG for anti virus duties, Zonealarm for firewall duties and Adaware for anti-spyware duties. Total cost= £0
 
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