NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Some remarks on IE 9 and MS Security
----- Forwarded [with permission] message from "Edge, Ronald D" <edge@indiana.edu> ----- Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:40:10 +0000 From: "Edge, Ronald D" <edge@indiana.edu> Subject: Some remarks on IE 9 and MS Security To: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> Accept-Language: en-US Just in context of your remark about IE 09 as a dying browser: As someone who is still installing both personal and production Win 2008 R2 servers for clients, let me just say that the one thing I hate most about it is how MS has configured IE to function on a server. It is the ultimate dumbsh*t security by obscurity imaginable. The browser is so locked down you simply cannot work with it, even on Microsoft sites. It impossible to simply turn off the security that drives you mad with pop-ups, or refuses to let you download files, with a single adjustment to a middle level of security. Even after unchecking the box for 'protected mode', it keeps on behaving in the same brain-dead way, impossible to actually work with. You have to go in and individually read and try to figure out literally DOZENS of different options. Or laboriously go through the stupid secure zone tab and add domains to trust by manually entering them. NoScript in FireFox is something the IE programmers really, really need to study. The dialogs that pop up to allow you add on the fly are useless, e.g. you go to download Mozilla (so you can actually you know do some freakin' work), and you click to yeah, add that to the trusted sites. And then the download fails, of course, because mozilla is dynamically rotating you to mirrors all over the world, and IE cannot recover and load the URL you just trusted, you have been flipped back to mozilla without continuing the download from the URL that stopped you. I truly, truly hate IE on a web server. I just brought up a new Virtual Machine server for current client, and finally just gave up trying to get IE to do certain things, which I swear I had figured out before. I should not have to waste an hour on every server every time figuring this crap out that is nothing but classic security by obscurity, which NEVER works. Just trust my good sense not to go download porn on a production server, for Pete's sake!! As a developer, I have to use IE to go to MSDN to research and download. Why? Because MS has designed the KB and sites so they simply will not work correctly with FireFox. I finally just gave up trying, and use IE pretty much only when I have to go to MSDN for research or downloading software under my MSDN contract. Ron. Ronald D. Edge Retired from Indiana University Mar 1, 2011 http://edgeinfotech.com http://www.bidstart.com/stores/edgeonlinesales "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going,because you might not get there." “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” --Yogi Berra http://iuhoosiers.com <http://iuhoosiers.com/> ----- End forwarded message ----- --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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