View and vote on the article here: A Radical Suggestion To Microsoft
A Radical Suggestion To Microsoft| Category | | | Summary | Over eighty million Firefox users can't be wrong. There wouldn't be a Fox if there wasn't a problem. There is a growing divide between Firefox and IE users that will only cause trouble for the future of the Internet.
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| | Body | Over eighty million Firefox users can't be wrong. There wouldn't be a Fox if there wasn't a problem. There is a growing divide between Firefox and IE users that will only cause trouble for the future of the Internet.
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Discouraging Fox users from using the Microsoft site to download updates is a shortsighted and immature reaction which will only serve to further alienate those users. In addition to leaving their systems vulnerable, this will increase the already enormous number of hijacked machines. Further discouraging Fox users from betatesting IE7 is just plain foolish, in my opinion.
Bill, these are your children! A lot of them entered the world of computers with a Windows system. You taught them about email and using applications to do all sorts of useful things, and you made it all user-friendly. You are acting like a father who tells his children not to come back if they move out of the house!
I'm sure a number of Fox downloads represent users caught up in the frenzy, and the numbers are skewed a bit by updates, but I believe the vast majority of Fox users are people who know enough about software to want to change their browsers. They have switched for more than just code compliance and tabbed browsing - they are changing for the security and the underlying philosophy! These are users who have the best interests of themselves and others at heart.
You were a pioneer. When Windows came out you gave us business and personal applications, and a little fun and education too. The hackers were as likely to wear white hats as black and "E-commerce" was exploring ways to utilize this new medium.
When the "Browser Wars" were in full swing, I believed (and still do) that Microsoft was within their rights to ship their product with whatever browser they wanted. It made sense to me for Microsoft to use the Explorer as an integrated package. This was a wonderful concept, and it brought the Internet to millions. At the time of "The Lawsuit", I remember statements by Microsoft to the effect that people could change their browsers if they knew what they were doing. So what happened?
Threats to security and privacy have increased drastically and they are coming from commercial interests as well as criminals. Millions of computers are infected with trojans, viruses, worms, malware, spyware, and tracking cookies, in addition to phishing scams and spam. Users are fed up!
These days, a lot of users know what they're doing. A lot uf users realize they can do more with a few simple free security applications than they can with ten megabytes of Microsoft patches to safeguard their privacy, their systems, and their security. They are jumping to Fox because it addresses these issues.
Explorer is still vulnerable to malicious Javascript unless the user shuts Javascript off entirely, thereby making a widely used technology a juggling act to use without the addition of filtering. The same holds true for ActiveX and Java. A number of peripheral Windows applications that handle email, messaging and other media are considered unsafe by both users and the security community. In the face of better solutions from other groups and no solutions from Microsoft, users are going to continue to desert in ever-increasing numbers.
My suggestion is this: Welcome Fox users to the Microsoft site and keep an open dialogue going. Allow "Fox friendly" access to your other products that enhance Windows. If you want to make IE or Vista competitive, do it by taking something more than features (like tabbed browsing and alliances with search engines) into account. The "Honeymonkey Project" (1), with its real-world approach in assessing safety and privacy threats is a great idea, but you need to expand on it and make it part of any new browser project to keep your users safe and secure.
You need to take a serious look at the security applications that have been most successful in defending users, and build a browser that solves these problems. A case in point is the situation regarding open ports. Take a lesson from Steve Gibson here and look at the success of ZoneAlarm many years ago. There is absolutely no good reason for a new and inexperienced user to operate a computer with open ports for anything except a browser when they begin to surf. The next thing they may need is a media player and when they first use it, it is a simple matter to begin to teach the user about ports. Set closed ports as a default and back this concept up by only allowing only trusted applications access to the Net. By doing this, you will instantly save new users from becoming unknowing victims of trojans and causing untold harm to the Internet. Right now, it is estimated that there are just under two million compromised machines out there, most of them running some form of Windows with all ports open, with any application able to access the Net at will, and in most cases, without the user's knowledge or consent.
Without solutions to these problems, commercial use of the Internet will never reach its potential. The present situation is an opportunity to rethink some core philosophies that involve standing up for user safety and privacy in a real way, instead of coming up with solutions whose implications are worse than the problems they seek to correct. This just might very well allow you to increase the marketability of a complete package operating system in the future - one that allows its users safe and secure access to the Internet. If you don't, someone else will, and you'll have more than a browser to worry about.
Opinions by 1746
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Footnotes
(1). Microsoft's "monkeys" find first zero-day exploit.
Lemos, Robert. SecurityFocus 2005-08-08
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11273
Accessed: 2005-09-10
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