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Community Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: MattVDB on March 26, 2005, 05:37:40 AM

Title: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: MattVDB on March 26, 2005, 05:37:40 AM: Here's the link

What is it with honest people these days? Everyone is out to make a buck. Then there are those out to further their monopoly. IE had a 90+ percent hold on the internet community before Firefox. Firefox made the first significant dent in that, and now they are being picked on. Just think of how many mindless americans removed it from their system because their computer told them to. This kind of stupidity just makes me mad.
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on March 26, 2005, 06:02:24 AM: Hmmm sounds like Microsoft alot, I hope Mozilla wont be chomped up by microsoft.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: King of Twitch on March 26, 2005, 10:08:54 AM: Hopefully there is a huge backlash about this. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Bill Aurion on March 26, 2005, 10:30:21 AM: MS Exec: What? This Mozilla thing is trying to force us to make a GOOD internet browser? PREPOSTEROUS! *spouts lies and deceit*
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: MysticGohan24 on March 26, 2005, 10:34:06 AM: Good Grief, Another example of MS going off their rocker. It's insane, I will never uninstall Firefox, it's proven to be far reliable than IE. MS Exec should be shot and reshot again.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: BiLdItUp1 on March 26, 2005, 03:58:22 PM: I love Firefox guys, use it all the time if I could help it. But don't delude yourselves...if the situation were switched, do you really believe Firefox would prove to be more secure than IE? It's obviously a superior program, but if Firefox were king, Microsoft would probably be trumping the fact that they use ActiveX, and doesn't use Firefox's plugins, which are susceptible to attack.
(I'm not sure exactly how it works, just throwing a hypothetical thing in the air- DON'T flame me. If you like, educate.)
I doubt there's such a thing as a 'secure' browser...it's like saying there exists an encryption scheme that's uncrackable.

BACK TO TOPIC:

That doesn't make Microsoft's tactics any less deplorable, which is the real debate here. I have to see screens of this, the spreadfirefox guys could use it against them.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: BiLdItUp1 on March 26, 2005, 04:25:59 PM: BTW, I just dl'ed the program, and ran a scan...it didn't detect Firefox as a severe threat...maybe the story is fake? Their screen is illegible also...I shoulda made one meself...
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: MattVDB on March 26, 2005, 06:47:30 PM: Wow. Now I feel like an idiot. I just ran it myself, and didn't bring up anything against Firefox... So, what do you think then of Microsoft Security Officials using Firefox? Personally, I find it very ironic (and it is after all what led me to believe that was true.). Linky If Microsoft won't even use their own software (and this isn't including the Linux they use for their servers. Completely different topic), how can they expect the world to? Is there something I'm missing?
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: KDR_11k on March 26, 2005, 10:40:22 PM: Anticompetitive behaviour. That's a few hundred millions right there.

BildItUp: Nonsense. Firefox was build for security and stability and gets patched in minutes. IE was made for "multimedia" and flashy crap. A plugin must be explicitely downloaded. What did Microsoft say about ActiveX? "It's superior to Java because it doesn't run in a sandbox". That should throw up red flags with anyone who knows what the term sandbox means in this context. IE is simply sub-par software. Apache isn't problematic despite being more widespread than IIS or something. *nix is more reliable than Windows. That's because MS wants to implement insecure features that appeal to the common user.

There are practically uncrackable encryption schemes. Yes, what can be decrypted can be broken but realistically, you're not going to brute force a 2048 bit key, at least not if you want it any faster than Deep Thought provided the answer "42". Quantum computers will change that but consumer-grade quantum computers are still far off.

Also, it is absolutely possible to build an 100% secure application. A computer program is an algorythm. Algorythms can be proven. That's hard and definitely non-trivial but possible. An algorythm that was mathematically proven will work in 100% of all cases and have exactly zero bugs. There is an operating system that consists only of proven code but I don't remember its name.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Guitar Smasher on March 27, 2005, 05:43:08 AM: KDR: Just wait for quantum encryption. That's literally, 'uncrackable'.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: BiLdItUp1 on March 27, 2005, 10:13:31 AM: Fair enough...I was obviously trying to make a comparison without knowing all the details. The browser wars were before my time.

BTW, what is a sandbox in that context?
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Shift Key on March 27, 2005, 02:32:22 PM: Quote
I just dl'ed the program, and ran a scan...it didn't detect Firefox as a severe threat...maybe the story is fake?

I've seen the program detect Firefox and call it a "severe risk". The pic of it appeared a while ago, and the OS community chuckled. Since the program is still in beta they've probably "re-evaluated the risk level".
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: KDR_11k on March 27, 2005, 10:10:01 PM: "Sandbox" means the system is closed and nothing can get out. Basically, Java couldn't access any data outside of its sandbox (i.e. not format your harddrive or read your passwords). ActiveX has full access to all aspects of your computer. It can format your drive, crash programs, read passwords you have saved somewhere, plant viri, etc. Basically it's like automatically downloading and executing .exe files off the net. That's why every single security advise recommends disabling ActiveX.

wiki
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Hostile Creation on March 28, 2005, 09:49:36 PM: My computer is severely screwing up right now, and it was fine before. Maybe it was Firefox?!?!?!

'Cept I've had it for several months now, so probably not
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: BiLdItUp1 on March 30, 2005, 02:53:24 PM: Wow. That's pretty stupid. Why would they do something like that, as opposed to the sandbox way?
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: GamecubeBoy2005 on March 30, 2005, 03:31:15 PM: i was using a crazy broswer but i just found out about the firefox broswer so i use it now. it is a pretty good broswer i dont see anything wrong with it you know.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: ThePerm on March 30, 2005, 05:29:54 PM: yeah firefox is good browser you know
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Caillan on March 30, 2005, 06:46:46 PM: Quote
Wow. That's pretty stupid. Why would they do something like that, as opposed to the sandbox way?

Microsoft just don't seem to care about security. They supposedly focus on usability and features.

I think the classification of Firefox as spyware probably wasn't malicious. It's just too stupid a thing to do intentionally. The people who have Firefox are the people who know it's more secure than IE anyway, and wouldn't remove it.
Title: RE: Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: PIAC on March 31, 2005, 01:19:57 PM: I hear firefox is for nerds, is this true?
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: cloudstrife111 on March 31, 2005, 01:52:29 PM: i use internet expldeor on my PC and i can not go to some pages. ;(
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Shecky on April 03, 2005, 10:09:17 PM: Quote
Originally posted by: BiLdItUp1
Wow. That's pretty stupid. Why would they do something like that, as opposed to the sandbox way?

Good question! Probably the same thing that prevented them from fixing a FTP bug with IE from it's early days (like ~version 3). I believe they finally fixed it in the current version (6). (I can elaborate on that reason but am not going to here)

In general, a lot of things would benefit by being run in a sandbox...

Especially certain email clients
Title: RE:Microsoft calls Firefox a "very high risk threat"
Post by: Avinash_Tyagi on April 04, 2005, 05:08:46 AM: I've been seriously toying with the idea for a few months of permanently switching over to a Linux or Mac OS(and emulating a windows environment in order to use windows software, currently I've been running a dual boot setup on my PC) and when MS pulls junk like this it makes the idea more and more attractive.