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Plugin Lets Users Turn IE into Firefox
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 31, 2005 03:49 PM
from the imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery dept.
from the imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There is a new plugin available for IE that can make Internet Explorer resemble Firefox by adding tabbed browsing capabilities and an integrated search box. Moreover, the plugin improves IE's privacy and security by integrating a firewall designed to block out Internet exploits, phishing sites, spammers, spyware and worms, with a special HTTP filter that removes private data, and an anti-spyware tool that can identify and remove all pests in less then 10 seconds"
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Plugin Lets Users Turn IE into Firefox
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Wrong Way (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://vinc.iclod.com/)
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.anserinae.net/)
It's not half bad... and it can be configured to use either the IE or Gecko engine (which, unless I'm completely mistaken, is at the heart of Firefox).
Maxthon ain't half bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.frag.co.uk/)
Supports multiple proxies, autorefresh (these are available as addons to firefox), and has tabs (inc undo), switchable disable of activex, download and ad managers.
Took me a while to find the Gecko engine, but there's details at their forums [maxthon.com]. Unfortuately its a bloody ActiveX plugin with the Gecko engine in, and its huge!
I'm impressed - Its certainly better than IE - and suitable as a replacement for it, and very quick. Surprisingly, it actually runs WindowsUpdate faster than IE6 does on my PC [after Disabling Windows Advantage [derp.co.uk], naturally]
There's some faults that let it down but working with IE, its probably the best they could do
Having said that and having used it, I'm still going to stick with Firefox!
Though I am going to keep it installed along with OffByOne [offbyone.com] - [thanks to Artifakt [slashdot.org] who i saw mentioned it yesterday] not many features (no iframes, even!) but small enough to run on a floppy! Comes in very useful occassionally!
Duguk
Re:Maxthon ain't half bad... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://suppafly.livejournal.com/)
No, they changed the name because it had IE in it.
Re:Maxthon ain't half bad... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.mix-networks.com/)
Or you can just double click a tab to close it. That's a big seller for me. I hate having to right click just to close a tab.
Maxthon also has the ability to open the last page that was viewed or if the brower crashes you can resume all of the paegs your were looking at!
Just a question. Why not turn off active X and scripts if you want IE to be more secure??
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Funny)
Merry Christmas (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.websitepromotion.ws/firefoxie/ [websitepromotion.ws]
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you could identify common locations that are used to identify Windows versions and leave pointers to a text file explaining exactly what you've done. This would allow tech support to determine that the customer has been deceived and has wasted their money, and to point them back toward you for vengeance (and give you the chance to supply an OSS program that does the same thing for free).
Re:Wrong Way (Score:4, Interesting)
When a "stealth install" blows up in someone's face and you find yourself in court, you will have reinforced all the negative stereotypes of the Geek. God help you if actually try to collect that 120 quid from an "older person," a pensioner, perhaps, who wants his Windows system back in order as you promised.
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, are a fucking disgrace. You embody everything the public finds repellent about the "arrogant techie" stereotype, and are unethical, deceitful and (if any money or reward changes hands as a result of your "service") likely comitting fraud to boot.
"All these users are older people who use their computers for web browsing and printing mostly, and I take my experiences so far as a kind of scientific 'evidence' that this class of users can't tell the difference."
So that makes it alright? Supposing one of them goes and buys a new family-tree plotting app, or garden-design program (to choose two examples my aunty recently bought) - what happens then? They're faced with a long, expensive call to tech support, which likely still won't the problem that you caused them. Eventually they (stupidly) turn to you again, and what do you tell them?
"Oh, right, yeah, that won't work - get your money back from the shop, if you can get them to believe that a version of 'Windows' won't run this certified 'Windows' application. Oh, and (if you're exceptionally lucky) here's a barely-maintained buggy-as-fuck butt-ugly hobby OSS version of something so pathetically niche that it'll never attract any kind of decent development community, to replace the version you just spent half your pension buying."
"If you service machines for friends and family try this. Don't ask, just do what is good for them. After all they are putting their absolute trust in your computer knowledge, to do anything less is to fail them in."
More like: "After all, they are putting their absolute trust in your computer knowledge, so to do this is to utterly and arrogantly violate that trust in the worst way possible."
Look, if you're sick of fixing computers for family, friends or others, just fucking tell them. Give them a choice of either switching to (your special version of) Linux or compensating you for the time you waste fixing their Windows boxes.
Alternatively, they can stop coming to you altogether and instead pay to have a computer shop fix it.
Under no circumstances is it ever ethical to violate their trust, especially not because you think you've got away with it so far.
For comparison, suppose you went to the doctor, and he told you you had gangrene. You'd expect some explanation of the options and some (pretty strong) recommendations, but ultimately it's your decision what happens.
You wouldn't expect the doctor to simply club you unconscious, chainsaw off your leg and bandage the stump.
"So what?" he might say - I've prevented it spreading to the rest of your system and killing you! You'll retain the use of your other limbs, and for anything you can't do with them, here's a half-arsed prosthetic replacement for your missing limb. Sure it might look a bit nasty, and doesn't always work too well, and sometimes breaks, but look - you can take the cover off and mess about with how it works inside! Ok, you're not a prosthetics expert, and so probably never will, but this clearly makes up for my complete lack of consultation before my arbitrarily rearranging your entire physiology!"
Jesus. Whatever happened to professional ethics?
You're the kind of person that gives us geeks a bad name.
Re:Wrong Way (Score:4, Funny)
(http://gleep.dhs.org/~vadim)
as IE??? That's how I read it at first
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Linux. Use it on all of my servers and maintain hundreds of them for a living. I even have a stuffed Tux hanging from my rearview mirror. But Linux is a real pain in the ass on a workstation.
On a server, I expect to recompile my software occasionally. It's a server. It's finicky. It takes time to do right. I don't mind that.
But I won't do that on my workstation. Screwing with dependencies sucks. 9 times out of 10 when I go to install or upgrade some package, it requires a new version of x, which requires a new version of x, y, and z, which each require a new version of h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p, and half of the packages refuse to install and only break my system with I try to force them.
Screw that.
Hey, I'm not defending Windows. It sucks in it's own special way.
Hmm. Now I don't know why I posted this, or what my point even was. Nevermind...
Re:Wrong Way (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.dolda2000.com/~fredrik/)
Re:Wrong Way (Score:5, Funny)
Oh dear, that's not good.
Re:Wrong Way (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.chrisamiller.com/blog/)
right... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday September 24 2006, @11:23AM)
Re:right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but there are certain occasions where Firefox is of no help (e.g., IE-only web pages, ActiveX stuff, etc.). An IE plugin with these security features would tremendously cut down on some of the major malware problems that many people are currently facing. All without having to switch browsers, too.
Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox as much as the next Slashdotter, but don't we all want a more secure Internet Explorer for our Windows-using friends as well?
Re:right... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is going to sound completely selfish but I say no - because in the longterm, I want people to have more of an incentive to turn away from Microsoft - not keep using it. Or at least not give companies an excuse to design IE-only compatible websites.
I think any other free alternative is better than a MS dominated future. Hell, MS didn't even make this plug-in so how can I trust them to secure the rest of their apps?
IE-only web pages... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/kamdrimar/)
Alternate download link (Score:5, Funny)
10 seconds? I doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
What heuristics are they using that can find and zap all unmentionables in 10 seconds? Has "anonymous reader" ever run a virus/spyware scan before?
Re:10 seconds? I doubt it. (Score:5, Funny)
Misleading title. (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday December 17 2005, @12:25PM)
Mods be damned, Scuttlemonkey's submissions are getting more and more similar to mass-media headlines. This title has the express purpose of starting a flamewar on the world's most popular anti-ms site.
It makes IE look somewhat like firefox, and adds some lacking functionality that makes it work somewhat like firefox. The two are neither identical nor interchangable.
Re:Misleading title. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://hivearchive.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 07 2002, @10:39PM)
Re:Dead (Score:5, Funny)
(http://perlworks.com/)
Or you could just use Firefox... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mom always said (Score:5, Funny)
My recent horror story (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, fate finally caught up to me. I was browsing a Google cache of a discussion group. Within seconds, the IE toolbar had been taken over, icons were installing on the desktop, and my computer rebooted, only to never come up again.
The aftermath was really messy. I got about four hours of sleep that night, trying to clean and fix things. By the next day, I'd mounted the drives on another computer and cleaned it, but it still wouldn't boot. I then had massive problems with Windows Activation, getting stuck in Microsoft call center Hell. Eventually I managed to install the Windows 2003 Server setup from an inactivated Windows XP Pro installation and it worked.
Needless to say, I've added additional security, as well as switching to Firefox. Going through that level of pain and suffering is the biggest motivator to moving away from Microsoft that I've experienced in a long time. My guess is that since the Windows 2003 Server browser is so locked down, they don't bother fixing holes.
Momentary layout change? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it could have been a glitch in the rendering; it looked too orderly and intentioned.
Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plugin Control (Score:3, Funny)
What about fixing IE's broken rendering engine? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this plugin address any of that? I'm guessing not, since it wouldn't likely be possible to do that with IE through a simple plugin. At any rate, that makes this thing much less interesting IMO.
Can it... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://sharpy.xox.pl/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 14 2005, @02:12PM)
Does it support popup blocking? Find-as-you-type?
well...
Trademark infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://markshroyer.com/)
Trademark infringement, anyone? Did you see their logo? And the layout of their web page is clearly designed to blur the distinction between the Mozilla Foundation and whatever organization or company owns this project.
It appears to me that this group is trying to piggy-back on the success of the Firefox name and image in order to further their own product.
Re:Trademark infringement? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Full mirror of article (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.networkmirror.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 05, @04:34PM)
It wasn't obvious to me if you needed to be admin to install. If so, it kind of blows the argument of giving corporate types who are locked to IE an alternative.
OK, have installed it. Report time: (Score:5, Informative)
(http://craig.dubculture.co.nz/blog/)
It's heavily tied in with Ask Jeeves; it comes bundled with their desktop search, and you can't change the search button to go anywhere else.
It comes with a desktop firewall, spyware cleaner and privacy shredder (cookie/temp files deleter) but I'll leave someone with a clean VM image to try those things on thankyou!
While it would be nice to have tabs and a search box in IE, those are not the features of Firefox that make me use it. If you did something like "block ActiveX in IE", you'd get close, but then all those things that require IE wouldn't work.
The adblocker works. It displays boxes with "Ad blocked" rather than no ad at all, and lets you show them by clicking on them.
I look after a lot of people who need to keep using IE for various sites, but I still think that Firefox for general browsing and icons on the desktop for broken sites is the best option.
Hats off to the Foxie people though; it's not OSS and it's likely to be funded/sponsored by a search engine, but will be interesting to see if it gets better. It might be worth throwing on the PCs of people who need to use IE for regular browsing.
Enough!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just for one second PLEASE realize that there are legitimate reasons for this plugin. They might not be reasons you would choose, or it could be that are forced on you (businesses), but they are valid nonetheless.
I have made IE work EXACTLY like Firefox, like so: (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.h3c.com/)
2) when your site detects IE, try sending your page as data for the plugin you just had the user install.
3) the plugin passes the rendering of the HTML to firefox which renders inside of the IE window. Your IE window appears to have all of the benefits of firefox while your users still think they're using IE.
You laugh, but I've done it before and it works. The only problem is the big install and making sure that your site uses the plugin if its available.
Plugin Lets Terrorists Turn Firefox into Firefox! (Score:3, Informative)
(http://nullref.se/)
Internet Explorer rendering in Firefox [mozillazine.org].
NOTE: I haven't tried it out or anything (you'd probably have to read the entire thread and use the unstable branch of Firefox -- 1.0.5), so I can not guarantee anything.
Virus?!? (Score:3, Informative)
This Program is a Hoax! (Score:3, Informative)
Doesnt MAKE it firefox. (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.calvin-and-hobbes.org/)