Strategic Innovations, Inc.

According to studies of users and their software, most of you reading this site are doing so on a computer running Windows and you are probably using some version of Internet Explorer (IE) to access this web page.  If you have been following tech news lately, you also know that Microsoft recently released a new service pack (a bunch of patches bundled into a single file) to update Windows XP.  This was done to help address the many security flaws that exist in Windows and in IE.

In fact, IE's security flaws have become so numerous and so problematic, that the United States Emergency Computer Readiness Team (US-CERT) recently recommended computer users avoid IE, as noted in this vulnerability note :

Use a different web browser
There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, the DHTML object model, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser, especially when browsing untrusted sites. Such a decision may, however, reduce the functionality of sites that require IE-specific features such as DHTML, VBScript, and ActiveX. Note that using a different web browser will not remove IE from a Windows system, and other programs may invoke IE, the WebBrowser ActiveX control, or the HTML rendering engine (MSHTML).

Fortunately, there is an excellent alternative available - Firefox. Firefox is a browser based on the technology that used to be known as Netscape.  However, the developers decided to make a vast improvement by creating this new browser from the ground up. And today, the Mozilla Foundation announced that it was releasing Version 1.0pre, a pre-release version of their final version that is scheduled to come out in the fourth quarter of 2004 (right around the corner).

Another nice feature is the pop-up blocking capability.  Of course, you can buy and install third-party pop-up blockers for IE, but that seems like such a hassle now with it shipped "out of the box" with Firefox.

About the only negative that the general public might notice is the inability to access some sites and services.  This is especially true with web sites that rely heavily on Microsoft technologies, like Windows Media files or ActiveX script.  Of course, I find that to be a positive as I can now quickly recognize sites (organizations) that are not using open standards and working to make their sites available to all users.  And in case you are wondering, yes, I believe many of those Microsoft technologies are the source of so many of our on-line problems like malware, adware, spyware, zombies, etc.

In addition to the release of Firefox 1.0pre, the Mozilla Foundation also announced the release of Thunderbird 0.8. This is another "technology preview" from the organization, this time for e-mail.  Again, since I've been working with Linux, I had to find an alternative to Outlook, which I had been using for years.  Of course, if you have had to install anti-virus programs, junk mail filters, etc., you know some of the problems that Outlook can introduce your computer to.  For Linux, it was a difficult choice between Novell Evolution (formerly Ximian Evolution) and Thunderbird.  Evolution is very similar to Outlook in that it includes calendar functions, task functions, etc.  Thunderbird is limited to e-mail and to doing e-mail well.  Though there was a calendar plug-in available at one time and surely a new one will be ready soon for this new version.  Thunderbird is a very capable e-mail client that includes most any feature you could imagine for e-mail.  I should note though, Evolution is scheduled for a major new upgrade release sometime before the end of September, so if you really need the features of personal information manager (PIM), that is another alternative you may want to check out.