{"id":964,"date":"2007-11-04T15:51:10","date_gmt":"2007-11-04T20:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/11\/04\/just-get-firefox-already-geez\/"},"modified":"2012-01-28T17:07:40","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T22:07:40","slug":"just-get-firefox-already-geez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/11\/04\/just-get-firefox-already-geez\/","title":{"rendered":"Just get Firefox already, geez!"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are visiting this site with Internet Explorer 6 or 7, you will probably notice a large orange banner at the top that didn’t used to be there before, suggesting that you upgrade to Firefox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don’t be alarmed – this is deliberate.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen it happen, time and time again. You’ve probably read about it in the news or heard about it on TV – you almost can’t escape it these days. Of course I’m talking about viruses<\/a>, trojans<\/a>, worms<\/a>, botnets<\/a>, spyware<\/a>, spam<\/a>, and identity fraud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a statistically significant portion of cases where people get these sorts of things, it is because they use Internet Explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is possible to get your computer infected by just reading an email (with a client that renders the email via IE) or by just visiting a web page. You don’t even have to click “Yes” to download anything in some cases. And although Microsoft has taken steps lately to improve the security of IE (IE 7 is much safer than IE 6), it is still much, much more vulnerable than Firefox.<\/p>\n

So why take the risk? It only takes a few minutes to install Firefox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, granted, some cases are due to user error – after all, the fake emails & fake websites that entice you to enter your password or bank number or whatever are getting better looking & more sophisticated every day – but using IE is like shaving with a straight razor – sure, it gets the job done, but if you mess up just a little bit – you’re dead<\/em>! Firefox<\/a>, on the other hand, is like a nice electric razor with the skin-softening gel. You won’t slice your jugular open and it even soothes away the minor irritation of an every-day activity!<\/p>\n

I see news reports about things like the Storm worm<\/a> and I just think of all those poor people, unwittingly taking part of botnet-type activities – DDOS, spam generation, and so forth.<\/p>\n

In this day and age – with all these threats – with so many people getting their computers completely hosed<\/em> on almost a monthly basis – and with so much of our lives (photos, emails, banking info) on our computers, there is just no reason to keep using a browser that is so potentially dangerous. Especially when the safer alternative is both free, easy-to-use, and available right now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So stop procrastinating. Unless you enjoy<\/em> living dangerously, just get Firefox<\/a> already, Okay? You’ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My attempts to urge Internet Explorer users to upgrade to something better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[60,53,54,26,58,59,57,55,56],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","category-technology","tag-activism","tag-firefox","tag-internet-explorer","tag-security","tag-spam","tag-spyware","tag-trojan","tag-virus","tag-worm","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-fy","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":807,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/10\/17\/you-go-firefox\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":0},"title":"You go, Firefox!","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Although the statistics for my website are wholly unscientific, it's still gratifying to see Firefox with such a huge percentage!","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1203,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/11\/pimping-firefox\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":1},"title":"Pimping Firefox","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a sucker for analogies like this (emphasis mine): 38.16% of the people who visit this site are still using Internet Explorer (IE). It\u2019s like buying a hybrid car for the gas mileage and then driving with flat tires and the doors open. Go on, go read the post -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1554,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/12\/17\/nows-the-time-to-switch-to-firefox\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":2},"title":"Now’s the time to switch to Firefox","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A serious security flaw has been found in Internet Explorer - no big surprise there. But this one really IS serious - it was found by attackers before it was found by Microsoft. So exploits are already out there \"in the wild.\" (This BBC News story has more details.) The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1027,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/01\/16\/bad-user-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":3},"title":"Bad User Experience","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"You may have heard of this new-fangled thing from Microsoft called Silverlight. Well, I decided to take a look at it the other day, and when I tried to install it, I was greeted with this unfriendly screen: Well, actually it's not very unfriendly, but it certainly was unhelpful. Why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1178,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/17\/firefox-3-download-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":4},"title":"Firefox 3 – Download Today!","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Firefox 3 was released today - and of course I encourage everyone to go and grab it! It's really worth it - the new version not only looks nicer, but has thousands of little improvements - and those little things really add up. So what are you waiting for? Go\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/01\/14\/im-sorry-but-windows-vista-still-seems-too-slow\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":5},"title":"I’m Sorry, but Windows Vista still seems too slow","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was downloading a file in Windows Vista today - I would say it was a \"medium-sized\" file that took no time at all on my super-fast cable modem connection to download. However, once it was done, this popped up: This new dialog took longer to calculate the time remaining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}