billso.com

Tech: InfoWorld: You know you’ve got a browser problem when �?�: July 09, 2004: By Oliver Rist : NETWORKING : SECURITY: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, otherwise known as Dancing with Big Brother, tells the world to stop using the Web browser you fought long and hard to tie into your operating system. That’s what happened to beleaguered Microsoft when the department’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recently recommended users switch to alternate browser platforms to avoid the security holes in IE caused largely by ActiveX. And Microsoft isn’t objecting. icrosoft’s own Slate even posted an article advocating Firefox, a Mozilla offshoot, in favor of IE until Microsoft gets its security act together. Naturally, those alternate browser platforms have leaped on this opportunity with enthusiasm. Apple, Mozilla, and Opera jointly announced their development of an extension to their plug-in API that will handle ActiveX scripts differently — and apparently more securely — than IE does. All this work is being done in conjunction with Adobe, Macromedia, and Sun Microsystems, specifically to allow support for the companies’ plug-in versions of PDF, Flash, and Java.”