E-Musings Mon Immorata

Browser Death Throes With Internet Explorer's advanced security features unavailable for Windows versions older than XP, browser choices are limited, on security grounds, to Firefox and Opera If you use any Windows version predating Windows XP, are committed to Internet Explorer. Yet want to be protected against the evils of Cyberspace you are clearly out of luck! According to Microsoft the new IE security features available in Windows XP Service Pack 2 such as the Pop-up (ad) Blocker and elimination of "drive-by downloads" is not available to users of older Windows versions. So what really is your choice? It's a toss up between an IE-add-on like Maxthon that attempts to introduce some level of safety. Yet still uses the IE rendering engine (with all its related faults and problems). Or you could instead choose Firefox that's almost as good as IE ever was. What few usability 'holes' remain are patched using add-in extensions. The official Firefox 1.0 build is supposed to be launched November 5, 2004. Let's see if the development team is able to make this deadline bug-free. And if you don't mind paying to use a browser. Or can live with Google-powered text ads in the top of your screen, use Opera. This is a great browser if you like revisiting the past. Both cache management and page rendering far surpass Firefox. However Opera often trips over Java Scripting as well as specific CSS elements. Even the latest version is unable to render the now-ubiquitous text area editor common to most content management systems (CMS). Personally, I use a mix of all three, depending on the sites I'm visiting. Maxthon is for web-based mail services. Or when I'm trying to locate information in a hurry, since its drag 'n go feature is the best. The latest Maxthon 1.1.0161 is a bug fix release that also improves skin-related rendering issues and adds a new startup dialog. The latter's excellent when restarting Maxthon after a tab session-induced browser lockup or crash. I used to frantically keep Shift+Esc pressed to stop tab from reloading. But now I can choose what I want to open right on load-up. Firefox is for when visiting relatively insecure sites or those that delight in installing software including warez search engines. Luckily, all 3 browsers have very robust pop-up blocking. And all can restore a previous browsing session. While Maxthon minimizes itself to the system tray by default regardless of Windows version. Opera 7.6 only supports this feature on Windows XP and later. The Firefox extension is very buggy, crashes frequently and is not a recommended install.

This weekend I've been previewing Trillian 3 Alpha. This time around there's little difference between the Basic (free) and Pro (paid) versions. The former supports video chat as also chat transports for Novell GroupWise, Rendezvous and Jabber. But if you can live without this, the Basic version will do you just fine. Also new is a unique keyword and phrase lookup feature powered by WiKipedia. Interesting as this feature is I found it a bit too intrusive. As chats don't necessarily need to become a knowledge discovery. Its a hard drive hog too since each definition is downloaded to your computer presumably for later reference. To disable the feature, use Preferences > Message Windows > Instant Lookup.

And in a significant departure from previous versions, the interface has been considerably improved. The Preferences dialog is now a single screen instead of a collection of linked dialog boxes. New is support for tabbed chat windows. You can group active chat tabs by IM service, buddy group or by a custom state (desktop, away, etc). For a more complete list of features, and a version comparison, go here. And you can download a copy here. Thunderbird 0.9, the Mozilla project's next generation e-mail client, was released late last week. New features include improvements to spam detection and spell checking. And introduction of new features like saved search (virtual) folders to display messages based on previously defined search criteria. This organization can transcend existing folders and sub-folders. And is somewhat like Google's mail labels. Also new is Message Grouping to group messages within a folder by attributes like the date, sender or priority. The user interface too has been improved and messages with attachments are so displayed in the message pane immediately. However, Extensions meant to work with version 0.8 or older will break. And if you get a theme not supported error, just reinstall the theme.

And finally for road warriors. Don't despair about configuring your notebooks to work with different network connections. There's a free utility available, Net Profiles. That allows you to configure your IP address, subnet mask, as well as the default gateway and DNS Server. As well as WINS Server addresses (if required). You can also custom setup mapped drives by profile. As also the default (network) printer to use. And easily modify Internet Explorer's proxy settings and change the browser's default home page. And to round up, here's a security nugget. Do visit the Firewall Leak Tester web site. This combines information, tips and links to various vulnerability-specific testing resource available. The English grammar is suspect. But the enthusiasm makes this site worth a visit That's it from me. Stay Safe and don't open any suspicious email attachments. Click Here to Email Me