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Its HAPPY DANCE TIME in Redmond, WA.....
By Andrew Pollack on 05/10/2005 at 09:30 PM EDTI'm sure you've heard this story already...
"A pair of unpatched vulnerabilities in Mozilla's Firefox Web browser -- rated as "extremely critical" by one security firm -- could allow an attacker to take control of a PC simply by getting a user to visit a malicious Web site, Mozilla said Sunday. Because proof-of-concept code has been leaked -- as were the vulnerabilities -- before a patch was ready, Mozilla recommended that Firefox users either disable JavaScript or lock down the browser so it doesn't install additional software, such as extensions" or themes, from Web sites."
What I find even more interesting, and the source of what must be great jubilation, is this quote....
"The release of Firefox 1.0.4 would be the fourth security update to the browser since the beginning of the year. Others appeared in late February, late March, and mid-April. In that time, Microsoft has released two patches for its Internet Explorer browser."
With Microsoft Internet Explorer losing market share like clothes on prom night to open sourced Firefox, you can bet you'll see this quote repeated a few times. Firefox has a lot going for it, and once you start using it you find quickly that you no longer WANT to use IE -- however, the reason so many users are giving it a try in the first place is security. Now the tables are turned. Even if the number of vulnerabilities draws roughly even, guess who has spent the last couple of years cementing an automatic update process? Yep, Microsoft.
The moral of this story? Go buy ZoneAlarm Pro, install Microsoft AntiSpyware, build a mote around your PC, and hide under the desk. If that doesn't work, try this...
upper right fo the firefox window? No? Do you see a little red circle
instead? That means there's a critical update available. It doesn't reach out
and grab you the way MS's new auto-update does, and maybe it should, but it's
there.
-rich
-rich
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continuing to use applications on the Windows platform, you're always going to
have these issues?