Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
- Valecnik
- Victor VI
- Posts: 3829
- Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:28 pm
- Personal Text: Edison Records - Close your eyes and see if the artist does not actually seem to be before you.
- Location: Česká Republika
- Contact:
Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Does anywone else who is forced to use IE (as I am from my employer owned PC) notice that the unwanted blue background surrounding your avatars has gone away? Is this a result of an actual improvement implemented by microsoft or of more brilliant work by MordEth?
- MordEth
- Victor IV
- Posts: 1148
- Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:01 pm
- Personal Text: Contact me for TMF tech support.
- Location: Boston, MA
- Contact:
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Bruce,
If you think Microsoft fixed something, I want copies of whatever mind-alerting Edison Re-Creations you’re playing.
Actually, I finally got around to getting the JavaScript that I had to fix inline PNG graphics for IE6 (while IE7 is still broken in a lot of ways—mostly in that it makes it easy for people to hijack your computer—it does at least display PNG transparency properly). You just beat me to posting about it...I was playing with more of Richard’s labels in Photoshop...
The current fix works as long as I don’t use PNGs called from CSS—the JavaScript trick only works on the HTML <img> tag, and I really should have fixed it a long time ago. It’s one of the things that can be done here but not on ProBoards (and there are quite a lot of those).
However, with all the holes in IE6, you’d think more employers would care about the security of their computers.
Plus, with Windows, since Internet Explorer is built into the operating system, exploiting IE means you’re in like Flynn. It’s like making the walls out of tissue paper, and then painting them to look like brick.
The worst part is that a lot of really nasty stuff can be spread by innocuous sites (most recently¹, Google’s DoubleClick, one of the biggest advertising sources), because most sites with advertising (and I’m sure everyone here goes to sites with advertising, somewhere) use third parties for their advertising. So if their ad provider is (unwittingly) serving malicious ads, if you’re using IE, you’re basically asking to have your computer exploited, and the severity of the possible exploit really depends on what gaping holes Microsoft’s not yet managed to patch this month.
So if you’re running Windows, get a different browser (Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome are all free), remember that the 2nd Tuesday of every month is ‘Patch Tuesday’ (so you want to be sure to do your updates), and get reputable anti-virus software.
Let me know if you have any questions, I’m here to help.
— MordEth
[hr][/hr]¹ When I say recently, I mean this story ran yesterday. But there’s been a long history of malicious advertising, and it is essentially exclusive to IE exploits. So be informed.
Proudly supporting phonograph discussion boards, hosting phonograph sites and creating phonograph videos since 2007.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
- Valecnik
- Victor VI
- Posts: 3829
- Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:28 pm
- Personal Text: Edison Records - Close your eyes and see if the artist does not actually seem to be before you.
- Location: Česká Republika
- Contact:
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
I should have figured it was you and not Microsoft. Actually I have not personally used Internet exploder in years, I'm a Firefox fan. My wife still insists in using it. I wish I could delete it totally from teh PC.
Still when travelling or sometimes when I am at work, I check sites like this forum with unsing an employer provided pc which runs only Exploder and they dont even give me access rights to download anything else. I guess it encourages one to do anything important from your own PC at home!
Still when travelling or sometimes when I am at work, I check sites like this forum with unsing an employer provided pc which runs only Exploder and they dont even give me access rights to download anything else. I guess it encourages one to do anything important from your own PC at home!
- MordEth
- Victor IV
- Posts: 1148
- Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:01 pm
- Personal Text: Contact me for TMF tech support.
- Location: Boston, MA
- Contact:
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
You could always get a USB thumb drive (≈ $6 for 2GB, which is more than enough) and put a portable version of Firefox on it (which would store all of your bookmarks and preferences on the thumb drive, for use with any Windows PC.
Although the latest beta of Safari is pretty nice—I’ve been playing with it off and on since it was released yesterday. It has some nice features, but Firefox 3’s location bar and the add-ons for it, I don’t see me switching...yet.
...and I do like Safari on my iPhone.
I’m with you on that one—I’ve been using Mozilla browsers since Netscape spun them off. Actually, while I was in San Francisco in January, thanks to the Mozilla shirt I wore the first day, I had a couple of people think that I was with the Mozilla Foundation.Valecnik wrote:I'm a Firefox fan.
Although the latest beta of Safari is pretty nice—I’ve been playing with it off and on since it was released yesterday. It has some nice features, but Firefox 3’s location bar and the add-ons for it, I don’t see me switching...yet.
...and I do like Safari on my iPhone.
— MordEth
Proudly supporting phonograph discussion boards, hosting phonograph sites and creating phonograph videos since 2007.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
- Steve
- Victor VI
- Posts: 3176
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:40 pm
- Location: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Evesham
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
As an occasional IE user ( ) I have to report that I NEVER saw blue around any of the avatars, so I wonder if it was not a local PC issue at work here?
- Valecnik
- Victor VI
- Posts: 3829
- Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:28 pm
- Personal Text: Edison Records - Close your eyes and see if the artist does not actually seem to be before you.
- Location: Česká Republika
- Contact:
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Steve, if you NEVER saw the blue around your avatars, it means the gremlins have already breached your security and are probably draining your bank account as we speak. Get Firefox or one of the alternatives. You will never go back.
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Yeh, I used to get the blue box when looking at the site at work where have haaaave to use IE. But firefox at home - its all been hunky dorey from the word go.
I guess not many people use IE unless they have to and thats cetainly not a good recommendation for a piece of software!
RJ
I guess not many people use IE unless they have to and thats cetainly not a good recommendation for a piece of software!
RJ
-
- Victor IV
- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:22 am
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Nice! Thanks David!
- MordEth
- Victor IV
- Posts: 1148
- Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:01 pm
- Personal Text: Contact me for TMF tech support.
- Location: Boston, MA
- Contact:
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
Steve,Steve wrote:As an occasional IE user ( ) I have to report that I NEVER saw blue around any of the avatars, so I wonder if it was not a local PC issue at work here?
You were using IE7 and not IE6. The problem with PNG transparency is specific to IE6 and before. IE7 has different problems—mostly involving how easy it makes doing malicious things to your computer with a website you visit.
At the moment the breakdown of our visitors and their browsers looks like this:
Browser | Visits | % Visits |
---|---|---|
Internet Explorer | 4,524 | 49.23% |
Firefox | 3,495 | 38.03% |
Safari | 868 | 9.45% |
Opera | 218 | 2.37% |
Netscape | 75 | 0.82% |
Chrome | 10 | 0.11% |
Here’s where using transparent PNG images becomes a problem (and why most web developers hate Internet Explorer):
IE Version | Visits | % Visits |
---|---|---|
7.0 | 3,251 | 71.86% |
6.0 | 1,250 | 27.63% |
8.0 | 23 | 0.51% |
It’s generally easier than trying to educate the people looking at pages, although it can take hours (if not longer) to correct for all of IE’s failings—if it’s even possible, depending on what you want to do. Only Microsoft thinks they’re completely above implementing published standards (like HTML and CSS), although supposedly IE8—the beta version of which accounts for 0.51% of our IE traffic—is going to fix this. I’ll believe it when it gets released and I see it with my own eyes.
And the truly sad thing is that very few of the people running Windows cannot at least upgrade to IE7 (as you need Windows XP or newer to run it):
Windows Version | Visits | % Visits |
---|---|---|
XP | 4,754 | 62.53% |
Vista | 2,624 | 34.51% |
2000 | 180 | 2.37% |
NT | 23 | 0.30% |
Server 2003 | 19 | 0.25% |
ME | 2 | 0.03% |
98 | 1 | 0.01% |
And here’s a final bonus table—the breakdown of our visits based on what operating system the visitor used:
Operating System | Visits | % Visits |
---|---|---|
Windows | 7,603 | 82.73% |
Macintosh | 1,308 | 14.23% |
iPhone | 273 | 2.97% |
Linux | 4 | 0.04% |
SunOS | 2 | 0.02% |
Note, these statistics are as of midnight, 25 February, 2009 and will no doubt change.
— MordEth
Proudly supporting phonograph discussion boards, hosting phonograph sites and creating phonograph videos since 2007.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
Need web hosting or web (or other graphic) design? Support MordEth by using BaseZen Consulting for all of your IT consulting needs.
Want more phonograph discussion? Be sure to visit The Online Edison Phonograph Discussion Board.
- WDC
- Victor IV
- Posts: 1015
- Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:07 am
Re: Apparent internet exploder improvement re. this board
What you can do is to install an IE theme for Firefox such as Neofox IE 6 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4327) and then change the IE icon's redirection to Firefox. That way, one will click on the big e Icon and will see a browser that looks like IE but instead is FF.Valecnik wrote:I'm a Firefox fan. My wife still insists in using it. I wish I could delete it totally from teh PC.