E-Musings Mon Immorata

Browser Blues & IE Exploits Internet Explorer Episode 7 may be vaporware, but MyIE2 transmogrifies to Maxthon with loads of new features This is a most interesting week. With lots of browser-related movement. The Microsoft Internet Explorer development team is trying to shrug off cobwebs collected over 2 years of zero innovation and sluggishly take on the competition. But if their public interactions (so far) are any indication they desperately need a lot of strong black coffee and fewer controlled substances! If you really want to know what's happening with Internet Explorer, there's Q&As on Web Standards, new features as well as the IE WiKi to leave new feature requests. There's also a tongue-in-cheek article about what Microsoft plan's not to include in IE7. But before we go any further on this theme, stay alert for more incidences of the Bagel.AD virus strain that's busy reinfecting the Web. There's also another Windows exploit that's been leaked to the web by a publicity-hungry self-professed security expert. Jelmer Kuperus posted code to demonstrate how the Shell.Application ActiveX exploit affects Windows XP. First detected in January 2004, news about the vulnerability was initially restricted to the SANS Institute's @Risk list. The new exploit uses "http-equiv" to take control of a computer. Visitors to Jelmer's demo found that their Windows-powered computers would freeze up! Luckily for general computer health, Kuperus' site has been taken offline. In contrast the Mozilla community response to an external Windows shell protocol transfer bug that affected Firefox, Thunderbird and Mozilla was far more mature. The whole process is documented in this time line. But just 13 hours after the bug was discovered, an update was released early on July 8, 2004 along with complete new builds of Firefox 0.9.2, Thunderbird 0.9.2 and Mozilla 1.7.1. If you, like I, use a Moox-enhanced version, just install the XPI instead. Getting back to IE Episode 7, you may be interested in a chat transcript recorded by A Ebrahim, an IE-watcher. However the transcript is quite unenlightening as the IE development team refuses to be drawn into any discussions about new features planned. Their responses are the non-committal variety so beloved of corporate PR who feel that new feature announcements is their prerogative alone! There's nothing even for conspiracy theorists attempting to read between the lines! Personally I doubt if IE is going to ever going to move forwards as a technology platform. I think its reached the apogee of what Microsoft envisages a Web browser to be. And if there really is a new IE version, it will be more a lateral shift building upon features available in MSN Explorer. An impression cemented by a peek at an recently (leaked) IE Beta from the Longhorn platform. Instead, it would be better to choose an IE-enhancer that adds extra features but use the core engine for page rendering. The most widely used utilities available are Maxthon (formerly MyIE2), NetCaptor and GreenBrowser. You could also changeover completely to FireFox; the browser component of the Mozilla Suite. As well as to Mozilla itself if you prefer one application managing all web-related tasks. Opera is another option, but remains ad-ware. MaxThon takes the features so beloved of MyIE2 to a whole new place. The user interface has been considerably revamped. And instead of multiple controls, these have all been grouped together using tabbed dialog boxes. The separate MyIE2 Options and Setup Center dialogs with long single screens have been replaced by tabbed boxes. This means more features can be added without a user interface overhaul. afford more micro-level changes. For example, the Options > General tab now lets you separately configure startup and close down behaviors. The .. > Address Bar control now integrates configuration for URL Alias as well as Services. And you can control Tab behavior better. Ad Hunter pop-up blocking is considerably improved. But many changes are the root cause of recent build instability. You can now control not just pop-up and -under ads, but floating ad as well. And for every ad blocked a toolbar overlay appears within the tab session for better control over session-specific ad management. The Proxy Control has been improved to the point where you can (in theory) define different proxy servers for different tab windows. But whenever I tried doing so, I'd end up crashing Maxthon! A key bug that's carried over is with editing proxy speeds. You can make so change except to set no speed at all! According to Bloodchen, the lead developer, this is a known bug. As someone who's forever (inadvertently) closing sessions, the Undo feature is very handy. You can review recently terminated sessions to see which ones needs to be restarted. Overall Maxthon is still in work in progress. But if you have a sense of adventure switch to Maxthon 1.0.0168 (most stable Beta) immediately. If you like living dangerously try v1.0.0170 instead. This version is so cutting edge that its crashes quite frequently. Some failures were caused by things as innocuous as a Flash animation to a web site trying to open too many pop-ups. Its pop-up filtering is especially buggy. With the browser spending both time (and system resources) thwarting my efforts to open a new blank window! If you prefer driving with training wheels, stay with MyIE2 0.9.27.68 (released May 5, 2005latest build). That's all I have time for this week. Stay Safe until the next time we meet. Click Here to Email Me