In my sometimes humble opinion, the statement: "Say what you will about their competence, MS has a huge security department looking for and blocking weaknesses in IE..." is only partially true. Although I am an IE user, I firmly believe MS is happily accepting payment from some of these companies to allow and help them to get ads to our computers. I know they have a security department and all, but when you look at the business basics, it's in MS' best interests to encourage popups and ads. They don't care if we peons scream and yellIt's too bad, but I think it's true and have absolutely no facts to support it; it's just a belief.

Hi Tom,Obviously you know nothing about the history of Mozilla, or Netscape.You said:"Netscape looks good and acts ok (AOL), but Mozilla? I must be running a rouge version of Mozilla because my version has big blocky looking logos, and most of the menus and feel of the thing is like it was ripped off from Netscape and IE. Looks like a 10 year old wrote it ?"Mozilla is not ripped off from Netscape. Mozilla is the OPEN SOURCE CODE THAT NETSCAPE IS ORIGINALLY BASED UPON.Here is a link to help you out on your road to research:http://mozilla.org/projects/ You know before making a statement like that so full of disbelief, you should do a little research first. ;-)Oh, BTW - The Mozilla Browser, Seascape is different than Mozilla Firebird, or Mozilla Camino, or Mozilla Thunderbird, but you knew that too, right... :-lol10 year olds... Well, if that's what it takes, fine by me.And I don't use the Mozilla Browser anymore, I strictly use Firebird, the 100% FREEWARE OPEN SOURCE Project.So for the Record, Mozilla Browser is different than Firebird. get it, got it, good. :-)Got Gecko????Regards,Joehttp://aboutpolitics.net/images/bannerav.gif.About Politics.net - FORUMShttp://pub162.ezboard.com/baboutpolitics.Contribute to the Richard Harvey Scholarship Fund.http://www.avsim.com/pages/scholarship.shtml

I second that. It's much more user-friendly, more stable, more secure, has more features and it's faster than IE. Just look at all the security holes they keep finding in IE. The latest one is a possibly unfixable URL spoofing security hole (http://www.secunia.com/). Also, Microsoft has yet to explain what the hidden content.ie5 folder is for and why it keeps the internet cache even after you "clear" it from the IE Preferences dialog.Microsoft basically ceased development of IE after version 5. They added Print Preview and one or two other features, but that's about it. IE won't be upgraded until - Palladium - the OS with built-in policeware and spyware *shudders*So, the competition has caught up with them. Firebird is my browser of choice under Slackware 9.1 and Windows XP.

Hey WKZZO, Thanks for the tip about Firebird browser. Trying it out right now. A nice change from IE.

To get back to the original problem, there is (sometimes) an easy soloution to these popups, if you search your system for a file called "hosts", it has no extension, open it in notepad, you should only have one line,127.0.0.1 localhostif you have anything underneath this, that is the source of your popup problem.CheersDan.

Sure are alot of browsers out there!Well thanks for clearing that up- oh and it is surely clear now. I just install em and be sure the sites working right that's all. I was simply making an observational opinion on how it works and how it looks, no matter what the heck its called or who made it. Shwew- at least I know who makes IE..hehe

About annoying pop-ups that appear when online, go to Gibson Research, that's: http://www.grc.com/Poke around on his site and he has a utility that turns off the messenger service running on your PC. This isn't Instant Messenger, but if you read his stuff, all will be revealed. Oh yeah, click on the "Shields Up!" logo.His site is fantastic for the paranoid types (like me) and he has a wealth of info. He also has a security check you can run to see if you are vulnerable when on line.Like I said, check out his site.Rgrds and good luck!BC

>Firstly, a lot of the reason that the freeware browsers appear>to 'block' certain spyware, ads, etc, is that they simply>don't support many of the advanced website features that are>used to generate those thingsWhat does anyone need those advanced features for? Should we do something just because it is tecnically possible? Why should it be possible for websites to place crap on other people's computers? Why on earth should a webpage be allowed to change the size, shape and number of windows on your desktop. Whenever a webpage does that to me I curse the stupid

If you have WinXP this file is at:C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetc

Hi Tom,No problem, as it can sometimes be confusing. I just did not want people to think Mozilla and Firebird were the same browser.Camino is the MAC Version of FirebirdThunderbird is the Mail Client.Take Care,Joe

hehehe...I Like your sig...Spam bait.... Bwahahahahahahah..........ROFLRegards,Joehttp://aboutpolitics.net/images/bannerav.gif.About Politics.net - FORUMShttp://pub162.ezboard.com/baboutpolitics.Contribute to the Richard Harvey Scholarship Fund.http://www.avsim.com/pages/scholarship.shtml

>Be aware of a couple of things though if you decide to switch away >from either IE or Navigator...>Firstly, a lot of the reason that the freeware browsers appear to >'block' certain spyware, ads, etc, is that they simply don't support >many of the advanced website features that are used to generate those >things - that's fine, unless you're visiting a site that uses >something like an ActiveX control for a legitimate purpose, as more >and more do, in which case you just won't get that content. They also >tend to be behind the curve in things like running .ASP etc, which is >becoming the standard for interactive pages.I haven't encountered a single page that is not fully functional in Mozilla. Care to provide an example of one? Of course, what you call "advanced website features" I call "proprietary market-limiting bugs.">Say what you will about their competence, MS has a huge>security department looking for and blocking weaknesses in IE>- the authors of freeware browsers simply can't match those>resources, so I guarantee the weaknesses are there, the small>user base has just made it not worth while for a hacker to>look for them. Pardon me? Is this the same "security department" that says not to click on any links in web pages, but to type the links out by hand instead? The same department that is removing support for a standard, RFC defined user login feature because they can't figure out how to fix a security bug in the IE implementation of it? Face it, IE is fatally flawed, and MS knows it. They reason many of these bugs even exist is because of the lack of an abstraction layer between the system and the browser, and the lack of out-of-box configuration for user permissions in windows itself. As for your allegation that open source (not freeware, open source. There's a huge difference.) browsers don't have the resources to maintain a security department, Mozilla has several hundred programmers in the project, and 50 listed as specifically working security issues. Most of them are on the AOL payroll, BTW. This isn't something they do for kicks in their spare time.References:http://slashdot.org/articles/04/01/30/0428...&tid=186&tid=95http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...%5BLN%5D;834489> That means that if some geek in his Moms>basement somewhere DOES decide to show off by writing "The>first Firebird exploit!" it could well be a real doozy.(Same>deal as 'There's no viruses for Mac's' - it's because with so>few of them out there a virus can't spread as it can if>written for PC, so the scum don't bother writing viruses for>the Mac)You seem to have a basic misconception about the motives of hackers. Most of them are not out for money, but glory, and nothing would get a hacker more street cred than hacking a system considered to be secure. And you know what? Holes HAVE been discovered in the open source browsers. The difference is that they are fixed within hours. The Microsoft bug shown above has been known about for 2 or 3 months now. It's taken that long for them to respond to the threat at all, and their response was not to fix the problem, but to reccomend that people not click on links, anywhere at any time.Dan