Excellent CNET article on "Why you should switch to Firefox now"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

The article outlines the "GDIplus vulnerability"...and a few other frightening facts.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5515107-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd

"If you use a Windows operating system older than Windows 2000 or have already updated to Windows XP SP2, you're immune to the flaw. There are many ways to render JPEGs, but the Graphic Device Interface plus DLL, or gdiplus.dll, is enabled only in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Because gdiplus.dll is vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack, malicious code lurking inside an infected JPEG file could allow new, potentially malicious code to take over the use of your computer (or, at the very least, crash it). Unfortunately, the apps that run in Windows 2000 and XP are also vulnerable."

...and more.

Also: Microsoft is on the road to offering future "security updates" for Windows XP ONLY. If you own any earlier version, Mr. Gates warmly invites you to go Cheney yourself.



"Microsoft: Upgrade to Windows XP or else
In a separate but related development, Microsoft announced that future security enhancements for its Internet Explorer will be available through its Windows XP update service only. By refusing to offer separate security enhancements for Internet Explorer, which is the main vector for any JPEG-related worm or virus, Microsoft is essentially saying that anyone who hasn't yet upgraded to Windows XP won't be protected from future exploits. The average cost to upgrade to Windows XP is about $99; you do the math."

...and...

"Firefox is a start but not the whole solution
If you've taken my past advice, you've already bailed on Internet Explorer and installed Mozilla Firefox as your default Internet browser. For the most part, you can avoid the JPEG flaw, right? Wrong. Because Microsoft bundles IE deep within Windows, you can't avoid IE by not using it. For example, say you get an HTML e-mail message from someone that includes a JPEG image. If you're using Outlook 2002 or earlier, it calls on IE to render that image. The same is true for Microsoft Word and other Office apps that offer a Web view. Outlook 2003 at least gives you the option of viewing an image or not, but should you choose to view it, Outlook 2003 will still call IE. You can remove Internet Explorer from Windows, but it would take a column twice as long as this to cover all the Registry settings and such you'd need to tweak to do so."

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. I love firefox, it works great!

i used crazybrowser before and it did a good job of blocking pop-ups, but firefox has loads of plug-ins/extensions you can get that do lots of useful things.

[lightbulb]

2. Firefox feels good

Both in theory and in practice. Been using the betas for months on Mac and PC and they are both solid as can be. Sooo much better than Exploder.

[Misunderestimator]

3. Love Firefox... switched last week....

So many perks... and it's FASTER! By far.

[RC]

4. So why would anyone use Outlook for anything?

Does FireFox have e-mail?
I use Netscape 7.2 on XP, behind a router & firewall. I have never had a problem with virus and very little with any mal-ware.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Yes, it does.

The email program is a seperate download called "Thunderbird". It rocks.

Why anyone would continue to use Outhouse Distress, with Thunderbird available and free, is beyond me.

[HamstersFromHell]

6. If you love Firefox (which I do) try this...

MOOX offers freely downloadable compiler optimized builds of Firefox, and can give you up to 20% more speed in operation, with even fewer chances of crashes!

They offers 3 types of optimization:

For processors that can use the MMX instruction set, there's the M1 build.
(Intel Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium 2, AMD Athlon, AMD K6-2)

For processors that can use SSE insructions, there's M2.
(Athlon XP, Athlon MP, Sempron, Duron 1.0GHz - 1.8GHz, Intel Pentium 3, Celeron (533MHz - 1.4GHz)

For processors that can use SSE2 instruction set, there's M3.
(AMD Opteron, Athlon FX, Athlon 64, Intel Xeon, Pentium M, Pentium 4,
Celeron D, Celeron 1.7GHz - 2.8GHz)

For more info, or to download, see:

http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla

Hope this helps someone!

Hammies!

(On edit: Optimized Thunderbird builds also available there.)