At noon today, Internet Explorer 8 will become available: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/download-ie.aspx
IE8 has the same familiar interface as IE7, but it is very standards-compliant, more secure, and faster.
Among its new features are Loosely Coupled Internet Explorer (tabs running in separate processes from each other and from the outer window, so the failure of one tab doesn't crash the whole browser) and an InPrivate browsing mode, in which no history of your Web surfing is recorded.
Also, Adobe recently released patches for critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that allowed malicious hackers to send malware to your computer and had been unpatched since January; if you noticed strange files like "banner[1].pdf" opening up when you visit certain sites, they're meant to exploit those vulnerabilities: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9129163
Whether you're on a PC or a Mac, and whether you use IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, or any other browser, you should protect yourself by upgrading, whether you use version 7, 8, or 9 of Reader or Acrobat: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-04.html
Also, if you had decided to switch to Foxit Reader for its greater speed and security...well that's also vulnerable, and you should update it too; it's easily done from within the program via the Help menu, though it's only a problem if you installed the plugin to view JBIG2 images embedded in PDFs: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/160977/foxit_pdf_viewer_also_open_to_attack_say_researchers.html?loomia_ow=t0:a41:g29:r10:c0.000616:b22882398
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I use Foxit PDF Reader anyway.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
^^,^ Also, remember to upgrade your Foxit Reader, because that is affected by the same vulnerability that Adobe just patched in Reader and Acrobat.
Warp wrote:
Was this a paid advertisement?
I wish, then again I'd much rather get paid to say good things about Opera because it is my favorite browser.
However, I do want a better browsing experience for those few times when I have to use a site that only works in IE, like Windows Update.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
actually, I don't open pdfs in my browser, I save them instead. And I only use Firefox.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
8.1.4 didn't hit Portage yet... as it will be released on March 24. Keep it up. Really. Neglect *NIX users. We're fine without you.
/fake edit: Cut out the profanities.
Maybe later, especially if it requires a reboot. nothx
I also stopped using Adobe Splashscre-- I mean, Adobe Reader long ago. FoxIt for me.
But yeah, I usually keep IE on hand for testing shit on occasion.
(P.S.: I also use Opera. :D)
Chrome isn't bad, but I still prefer Firefox. I don't know if they fixed those issues in the newer releases, but I don't like how Chrome ignores <blink> tags, and how it doesn't support the wheel click+scroll feature. And many other minor issues, I'm just a Firefox fanboy :P
Though, I have to use Chrome with Facebook because it gives me problems with both Firefox and IE. So yeah I have them all and while I use FF 99.89% of the times, there is the occasional website that forces me to use IE (yahoo answers) or GC (facebook) due to compatibility reasons.
Actually the linux version is on it's way. You can even try it on ubuntu. There's a guide to add a repository from launchpad. Actually it's a build of chromium and it's in alpha. But it is still able to load page and everything. And it won't be using Wine or anything else.
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
The <blink> tag was and is only ever used by idiots to annoy people anyways. And even then, very rarely. There is not a single legit use for the blink tag. So it's good if the browser just ignores it. It's a similar situation with the <marquee> tag. And if you ever combine the two, ..... I don't want to think about it, it's too horrible. (edit: Actually, it doesn't seem to work in Firefox!)
Anyway, I like Chrome as far as it goes, but it doesn't have Adblock, so therefore I don't use it. Other than that, I could easily get used to it. I don't mind ads so much, except when they're flashing and/or with sound. So I block them. (also if an ad server is taking too long to respond, etc).
blink + marquee works in Opera, which recognizes both tags: http://www.webdevout.net/test?relative-absolute
Go to that link and replace the body with a p element containing this code snippet...
<marquee><blink>text</blink></marquee>
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
actually, I don't open pdfs in my browser, I save them instead. And I only use Firefox.
1) PDF-based exploits can still harm you if you save the PDFs before opening them, regardless of what browser you use or even whether you use Foxit (with unpatched JBIG2 plugin) or an unpatched Adobe Reader, though I don't think Sumatra PDF has this problem (and it's open-source too!).
2) I don't open PDFs in my browser either, but this is only because the Foxit Reader plugin doesn't seem to install in Opera automatically, so instead the default PDF action is to open in Foxit Reader.
3) I guess the only way you're safe from things like "banner[1].pdf" opening when you visit a sketchy site is to make sure your browser never opens a pdf straight from the Web.
The main reason to save and open vs. opening them in-browser is to add that extra step of "Okay, did I really intend to view this?" and prevent automated attacks from succeeding. Obviously if you open a malicious file with a vulnerable reader you're going to get hit, but now the site has to convince you that you want to read the file before it can make its attack.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
The main reason to save and open vs. opening them in-browser is to add that extra step of "Okay, did I really intend to view this?" and prevent automated attacks from succeeding. Obviously if you open a malicious file with a vulnerable reader you're going to get hit, but now the site has to convince you that you want to read the file before it can make its attack.
Just remember to make this the default action whenever you click PDF links, because some sites will try to push malicious PDFs to you and it's a lot easier to say "cancel" to downloading a PDF than to close Foxit when it just opens out of the blue or to close the browser tab.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Blublu wrote:
The <blink> tag was and is only ever used by idiots to annoy people anyways. And even then, very rarely. There is not a single legit use for the blink tag. So it's good if the browser just ignores it.
The blink CSS property is different from the blink HTML element.
superjupi wrote:
arflech wrote:
However, I do want a better browsing experience for those few times when I have to use a site that only works in IE, like Windows Update.
Windows Update works just fine under Firefox.
It must be the IE Tab extension (which embeds the IE engine in a Firefox tab); I went to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ in Firefox 3 (with IE Tab installed) and it worked, and I tried it in Netscape 9 and Flock 2 (without IE Tab) and this is what it said:
Microsoft wrote:
Thank you for your interest in obtaining updates from our site.
To use this site, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later.
To upgrade to the latest version of the browser, go to the Internet Explorer Downloads website.
If you prefer to use a different web browser, you can obtain updates from the Microsoft Download Center or you can stay up to date with the latest critical and security updates by using Automatic Updates. To turn on Automatic Updates:
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Depending on which Control Panel view you use, Classic or Category, do one of the following:
* Click System, and then click the Automatic Updates tab.
* Click Performance and Maintenance, click System, and then click the Automatic Updates tab.
3. Click the option that you want. Make sure Automatic Updates is not turned off.
Of course it could also be that pesky .NET Framework Assistant extension: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7832
EDIT: It's IETab; I disabled it and then Windows Update didn't work in Firefox anymore.
EDIT Apparently there is a way to get Windows Update to work in Opera: Download an external plugin, place an extra button in your Opera menu, go to Google, search for "Windows Update", and go there; if you just type update.microsoft.com into the address bar it will switch back to the Opera engine, and when you click that "View in IE" button, you will still be viewing the "sorry but you can't download updates with this browser" page.
Thank you for making this topic, arflech. If you hadn't, I would've never known to update my FoxIt, and the exploitive PDF that just popped up a few minutes ago (fuck you and your malware-infested ads, Something Awful) would've gotten into my system. But thankfully I had updated FoxIt when I saw this topic a few weeks ago.
Edit: Uploaded that PDF to VirusTotal, and only one antivirus (BitDefender) caught it as a PDF JavaScript exploit.
