“The attack surface for password-stealing Trojans currently targeting an unpatched flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has expanded to include all versions of the browser, including the newest IE 8 Beta 2,” Ryan Naraine reports for ZDNet.
“IE users should bear in mind that there’s a growing list of exploitive sites taking aim at this vulnerability and now that the exploit code is publicly available, the threat will certainly grow in the coming days and weeks,” Naraine reports.
“Until Microsoft can issue a patch — out-of-cycle or otherwise — you should consider using an alternative browser,” Naraine reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Windows sufferers, even before you finally wake up and get a Mac, you too can experience the web the way thinking people do: Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world. With its simple, elegant interface, Safari gets out of your way and lets you enjoy the web instead of fearing it. Once you try it, you’ll want to repeatedly punch yourself in the face for ever booting up Internet Exploder. Yes, your OS sucks, but that doesn’t mean your browser has to. More info and download links here.
Apple’s Safari Web browser for Windows:
I hope it spreads and bites a bunch of people in the ass. IE is the worst browser in the market. It has so many users only because of lazy uneducated lemmings that don’t have the wit to understand how bad the built-in out of the box MS solution is.
I must say that Safari on Windows sucks. Even slower than Internet Explorer IMO.
@Larry,
Slower to start up? Yes, that’s because IE is always running, so it’s already started.
Slower to render pages? That’ll depend on the page. Which pages can you offer us to use for comparison?
I’ve tried making alternate browsers my default, but keep coming back to Safari. It just feels right.
“…repeatedly punch yourself in the face for ever booting up Internet Exploder.”
@MDN – where do you guys come up with these lines….OTFLMAO….
IE Password Virus? Uh-oh!
Someone call Sophos and let them know they need to publish a warning about Safari. The browser’s getting un-obscure enough someone might just write a virus for it. And we all know Safari is potentially the most potentially insecure browser ever. (potentially)
Here it comes, I expect a Safari vulnerability any second now! Wait for it… wait for it… [holding breath] wait for it… wait for it… [Brain… losing Oxygen!!] weight four it… weight four it…! [GASP!!]
IE has literally killed pure CSS. The best way to design a web site. But since 70% of your potential audience is using crummy IE we are stuck, as developers with tables. What a joke.
Alternate browser? He should just say alternate OS like Mac OS X, and keep Windows under BootCamp or Virtual if you have to.
@coolfactor:
Take no offense. I use Safari full time on my Mac, but I find that on Windows, Safari is not the same snappy (haha) thing as on OS X. It hangs right before finishing loading a page and sometimes doesn’t finish at all. Also, Safari has a slight blueish tinge when on Windows which bothers me. The pages I visit are mostly Mac and tech related sites like Macdailynews, Engadget.
Note that almost 100% of the sites known to be using this exploit are in .cn domains … at least today anyway.
Tomorrow is a whole new world!
@mac-nugget:
You are so right. It makes me wonder how the web might be today if people had the flexibility of using web standards. We could be at web 3.0 by now.
“with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world.”
Sarari the fastest? Firefox absolutely blows it away on all of my Macs.
I am just learning web design, and I am sticking with learning XHTML and CSS. Even though most people use IE, there is no way I am bending over backwards trying to get a page to work in a deliberately non-standards compliant piece of crap like Explorer. Using Explorer? Sorry. Try a real web browser like Safari or Firefox.
Microsoft should make the next version of IE into a Webkit browser. Microsoft will somehow mess that up too, but it will be better than what the unfortunate majority of Windows users use today (by default).
“Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world. “
Safari is such a turd. Most people who buy a Mac are running Firefox within a week.
Supposedly IE 8 will be web compliant, after more than 10 years of trying to shove IE down our throats as the standard. Ironic that it was IE that made so many people demand web standards.
Fortunately there are options, Firefox has it’s issues also. As long as there is competition between the browsers we’ll be reaping the rewards for years. Complacency is what’s killing Microsoft, if it wasn’t for it’s competitors we’d still be on IE 3.
Perception of snappiness is subjective, but by the stats and when tested … yeah Safari is faster than Firefox.
@ SafariTurd
I work in an all Mac environment with about 3-400 users and about 10% use FireFox. Safari is currently faster (and likely to remain that way), so it’s kind of a no-brainer.
Complacency is what’s killing Microsoft
Someday MS will be like the Detroit automakers, panhandling Congress while imminent bankruptcy looms.
And like Detroit, MS won’t get serious about fixing things until they’re in irreversible crisis.
We might have President Chelsea Clinton before it happens, but rest assured MS’s judgment day is coming.
Firefox? Nope… Camino maybe. But I prefer Safari.
I use Google Chrome more and more on my work Dell.
Safari for PC just is not that great… Except, you can set the dev tools in the preferences… just like on a mac, and you can forge the client browser…
I just trashed Firefox on my MBP. I only used it for one IE compliant newspaper site but I kept getting pop-unders even with AdBlock. I’ll never have it again. Safari stays on my Mac.
Microsoft=Turd.
The shareholders need to revolt, and get rid of that idiot Ballmer. Then they need to get somebody in there who will fix the turd that is Windows instead of engaging in idiotic pursuits such as yahoo, and since that turd IE is “part of the OS” fix that POS too.
Windows really needs to get good. I will, of course, continue to use Mac OS, but cripes, we need *something* that is remotely competitive, on the OS as well as the browser front.
Microsoft is our only hope for anything remotely competitive with OSX, and they are blowing it badly.
You hear that, MS? This Mac user *wants* you to make something good! For the love of God, sh!tcan Uncle Fester and get on it!!
/rant
The single greatest thing Microsoft could do for internet/PC security, would be to finally just throw in the towel on IE, push out an update to completely wipe it from everyone’s hard drives, and tell everyone to start using another browser instead.
(For foolish companies who based their intranets on IE6, they could rebrand IE as “InTRAnet Explorer”, and leave the inTERnet to programs which actually provide security for their users.)
Mac daddy,
Actually they need to keep Ballmer because in a negative sense he’s the best thing going for the Mac platform. The positives are Apple and Steve Jobs and co.