Microsoft's "Wow" Factor

It's been a long time coming, but Microsoft is "getting groovy." I read nearly daily news about new software, improved software, new hardware, new partnering, new acquisitions, and more key apps for more operating systems.

• Office 365
• Office Now
• Office Monitor
• Delve
• Mix for PowerPoint
• Editing via multiple OS
• Office Now
• OneClip
• Cortana
• Flow
• Revolve
• Hello
• Sway
• Hyperlapse
• Continuum
• Hololens
• Music app improvements on the way
• Acquisitions (September 2014 - May 2015)
• Wunderlist. German To Do list app.
• Datazen. Mobile business intelligence leader
• Sunrise. Creator of an innovative calendar app for mobile devices
• Revolution Analytics. Helps customers find big data value with advanced statistical analysis (R programming language)
• Equivio. Israeli text analysis company
• HockeyApp. Leading mobile crash analytics and beta distribution service for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
• Acompli. Provider of innovative mobile email apps
• Aorato. Israeli Cybersecurity Firm
• Mojang. Minecraft developer

IE8 more secure than Firefox

A report on Browser Security testing by NSS Labs shows that Internet Explorer 8 security is far better than Firefox, catching 81 percent of "live threats" vs. only 54 percent caught by Firefox 3, which came in second place.

The tests include rating the browser's protection against malicious software using socially engineering and phishing attacks.

The lab tested the most recent versions of Microsoft's IE8, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera. Opera caught a mere 2 percent of the threats.

IE8 is gr8

I installed the newly released IE 8 and am already liking the enhancements.

• Web Accelerators looks like something I'll use a lot, for example:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/videos.aspx?mname=accelerators
• Automatic Crash Recovery (tab closes, not all of IE).
• Web Slices.
• Faster page display.
• Better pro-active built-in security (domain highlighting, SmartScreen filter -- sites ID'd with Spyware or PII collection get a pop-up warning [I assume it uses a database, so frequent updating is hopefully provided].
• InPrivate browsing, easier data deletion/cleanup.
• Compatibility mode for pages coded for older browsers (with compatibility updates pulled from MS as available).
• Love the grouped, suggested URLs as you start typing in the address bar.
• Oooo ... a "Read mail" toolbar icon automatically opened my Thunderbird email.

Next I'll have to see if FireFox 3.5 will match or beat that. As of now, IE8 is my preferred browser experience.

Firefox less secure?

Firefox has often been touted as fundamentally "more secure" than Internet Explorer. If you have been led to believe that, you need to look at some cold, hard facts:

• From March to September 2005 (yes, even as early as 2005), FireFox had 40 vulnerabilities to IE's 10. [ZDNet article]
• From April through September 2005, the number of published Firefox exploits was 11 compared to IE's 6.
• The most recent FireFox-related security problem is that some Russian criminals are using it to add malicious software as a "Plug-In". The malware detects when you connect to any of over 100 banks and then steals your account name and password, sending them to the criminals. [read the SC Magazine article]
• In terms of vulnerability numbers reported in March 2008, Opera had the most, followed by Safari, FireFox, then Internet Explorer.

The biggest problem with malware is not the browser, it's the person using the browser. People are either too trusting of links and unknown sites or just think they will never get attacked.

Firefox 3 leaps ahead

While not revolutionary or even truly evolutionary, version 3 of the Mozilla Firefox web browser looks very good. Some of its new features may even get me to use it as my default, which is now Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Some of the new features I look forward to most relate to security and ease of use:

• Site ownership. The "Passport Officer" lets you know who really owns a web site. This helps reduce accidental visiting of malicious sites.
• Malware protection. A "Reported attack site!" message box with a red background pops up when the site you asked to visit is on a list of malware sites. Firefox blocks access and you must select the "Ignore" link if you really want to visit that URL. I also like that the link is small, in the lower right corner, and not a normal button. The two buttons are "Get me out of here" and "Why was this site blocked". This is a good security precaution.
• Page zoom now zooms both text and images.
• Multiple text select. You can now use the Control key to select and copy multiple blocks of text on a web page.
  

Features I an unsure about until I try them extensively include the new "keyhole" shaped navigation control. IE7 font rendering is better than FF2, so I am also curious about how well the font rendering in FF3 will work.

Features I already like in Firefox 2 include spell-checking in Web text areas, including Blogger, and the wide range of add-ons for blogging, editing, and web development.

I do wish Firefox would support the "standard" MSIE hot keys for such things as create a hyperlink (Ctrl+K), as using Firefox in Blogger is less useful than IE at this point (except for Spell-check).

It would help if at least Firefox and Mozilla had consistent hot keys. For example, Thunderbird uses Ctrl+L to insert a hyperlink. It doesn't match MSIE, but the Ctrl+L is easy to remember (L for "link"). But Ctrl+L in Firefox accesses its "Location Bar" (what IE calls the address bar. Bummer.

• Download Firefox (FF3 will be available as of 6/17/2008)
  

Firefox 3 to better indicate "safe" site

For many people, the "padlock" symbol showing in their browser status bar means "safe" or "secure". Actually, it only means that someone has bought a certificate and is using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) -- encryption.

Since it's possible for criminals to buy a certificate and use SSL, the padlock is no guarantee that you won't get duped or have your identity stolen. What's important is to know that the site is really what it seems and to know who really owns it -- identity.

Firefox developers are now working on a different way to indicate the potential safety (or not) of a site by concentrating on identity, not SSL. In the process, Firefox looks like it will abandon the padlock symbol as an indicator of safety. This should appear in Firefox 3.0 when it comes out.

• The shape of things to come
• "Beyond the Padlock" (WMP video)

IE 7 Add-ons make surfing better

Internet Explorer 7 is a nice browser, but certainly not perfect. I also have Firefox installed on my PC, though I routinely use IE7. Among other things, online Blogger post editing seems to come out better than Firefox. No browser is perfect.

Case in point -- spell checking. I like the Firefox spell checking feature. Well, if you are an IE7 user, there's a free spell check add-on (but I like the Firefox implementation better). Actually, there are different add-ons that let you add features or customize IE7 more to your liking.

Here are a few IE add-ons that I wish Microsoft had included in IE7:

• IE Spell (See IE7Pro below, though). Note that this spell check is only for form fields and similar ares to be filled in -- not for general web page views. It works fine within the Blogger post editing area, for example, though you have to manually force the check.
• Inline Search (from IE Forge. See IE7Pro, below, though.)
• Add Search Providers (surprisingly, from Microsoft)

Other handy Add-ons:

• IE7Pro. IE7Pro adds several features, including Spell check and inline searching. The IE7Pro spell checks as you type, unlike the spell check on request method of "IE Spell" (above). That can be a blessing or a curse -- you decide.
  Note: IE7Pro didn't function well on my system, perhaps due to a couple of other browser helper objects installed. It crashed on use.
• Web Developer Toolbar
• Feed Folder. I prefer the IE7 Feed display in the left pane, but if you like Firefox's feed display better, check out Feed Folder.

User Agent String Utility gives IE7 access

Some web sites don't respond well to Internet Explorer 7. That's usually because they have hard-coded various browser versions into their web page code and have not updated it to add IE7 to the list.

So though many (most?) web sites have updated their code or never hard-coded the browser versions to start with, some present challenges. On the other hand, I have not run into any public web pages with this problem yet.

As a temporary workaround (until those sites fix their code), you can use Microsoft's special User Agent String Utility to let IE7 access sites that currently block it.