-
Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
Microsoft Windows XP SP2
- Thread starter MATRIX
- Start date
You know, I have had SP2 for at least 6 months now. There are two major features I like in it. It's popup blocker and email image blocker.
Other popup blockers stay visible, either by your clock or on your browser so they can advertise. XP blocker is unseen until a plopup is attempted. Then it's still out of the way and can be ignored, or you can click on it if you want to see the popup/download. This good especially now that popup providers are flooding the markets with their own popup blockers, which do their own random popup ads.
I especially like it's email image blocker. This is the first time I have seen someone do this. Even if you dont open an email, if you click it to delete it, any image in the email still load. The image loads from the spammer's server, so they know your email is good. XP now blocks all images in all emails, and gives you the option to let them load up if you want. This will go a long way in combating spam as long as idiots dont view images on all the spam they get. Spammers will remove the emails which dont record loading of images in order to lower resources usage. Most are just abusing whatever host they are using at the time, but probably dont want to waste abuse opportunity on resending to invalid emails, or ones that previously showed no record of image load.
So congrats to MS for taking the initiative. I think the email image blocking was the best thing they put into SP2....but then, I get a lot of spam because I cant simply change emails that I have had for years. While I have spam filters on my host email (WorldzonePro), my isp email (Charter) has no filters. So, I have to stick to Spambully for my Outlook Express, and SP2's image blocking.
Other popup blockers stay visible, either by your clock or on your browser so they can advertise. XP blocker is unseen until a plopup is attempted. Then it's still out of the way and can be ignored, or you can click on it if you want to see the popup/download. This good especially now that popup providers are flooding the markets with their own popup blockers, which do their own random popup ads.
I especially like it's email image blocker. This is the first time I have seen someone do this. Even if you dont open an email, if you click it to delete it, any image in the email still load. The image loads from the spammer's server, so they know your email is good. XP now blocks all images in all emails, and gives you the option to let them load up if you want. This will go a long way in combating spam as long as idiots dont view images on all the spam they get. Spammers will remove the emails which dont record loading of images in order to lower resources usage. Most are just abusing whatever host they are using at the time, but probably dont want to waste abuse opportunity on resending to invalid emails, or ones that previously showed no record of image load.
So congrats to MS for taking the initiative. I think the email image blocking was the best thing they put into SP2....but then, I get a lot of spam because I cant simply change emails that I have had for years. While I have spam filters on my host email (WorldzonePro), my isp email (Charter) has no filters. So, I have to stick to Spambully for my Outlook Express, and SP2's image blocking.
Last edited:
Not if you can't spell genius properlytandoc said:Curse You And Your Intelliegence!
I Am The Genuis Of This Forum!
.
I did get it. From The Way You Capitalise The Start Of Every Word.
The forum made you dumbertandoc said:
Webdude said:
Wouldn't it be simpler to simply install firefox and set unrequested popups to not be opened for sites you don't choose to trust?
It seems that (other than the firewall for those who don't have one) the effects of SP2 are nil on anyone who was smart enough not to be using Microsoft's outdated browser and email client in the first place. SP2 could've been a much better product by simply removing Internet Explorer on installation... then you'd have all kinds of new browser features with firefox [not to mention thunderbird] and not have to worry about the next million IE [and outlook] security bugs yet to be patched.
I'll agree Windows is good for some uses, but I can't think of any actual use for having IE or Outlook installed (except to invite bugs and security holes).
Last edited:
Someday someone will design something even worse taking advantage of the huge holes (if something worse is possible) and people will get the sense the hard way.
Then again, I would guess that about 80% are morons so maybe they will never learn.
(Disclaimer: i am not calling people who use IE morons. I am inferring that if IE becomes a even more serious threat to computres and the world of morons still use it, then itd be a sad state of affairs)
Then again, I would guess that about 80% are morons so maybe they will never learn.
(Disclaimer: i am not calling people who use IE morons. I am inferring that if IE becomes a even more serious threat to computres and the world of morons still use it, then itd be a sad state of affairs)
I'm too lazy to adapt to new stuff, though I use Opera/Firefox occasionally.
Sorry to break up this IE bashing, FireFox/Mozilla loving get together.
If you did some actual research you'd find that 94% - not 80% - of the people online use IE as their browser. If you want to develop a virus or trojan, take a big guess at which browser you're going to target?
Furthermore there are more people scrutinizing over IE looking for flaws on a day to day basis than there are people who actually develop Mozilla, let alone look for flaws in it.
If you switched over to another browser from IE because your PC got infected with spyware, adware, viruses, etc then that only goes to show that you are either uninformed on how to keep your PC safe, or don't care enough to bother.
I've never used any other browser than IE and I've yet to come across a single piece of unwanted software on my PC in all those years. My mom - who is completely clueless about computers - also solely uses IE and each time I come over her PC is completely clean as well.
Why? Because she will actually bother to stick with the common sense tips that I gave her. "If you don't know what it is, click 'No'". "If someone forwards you e-mail with an attachment that doesn't end with an extension you know, ask me and don't open it."
The sad fact is that most people (and that includes people here I'm sure) will happily click "Yes" should "Do you want me to install and destroy your computer?" come up and then go on to scream that their OS/browser/email application/take your pick is insecure.
Firewalls, virus scanners, adware removal tools are the last line of defense. The very first and most effective protection tool you can ever hope to have is your own common sense.
If you can't spare 5 minutes to go through IE's settings and secure it, then you have no right to complain. There's a blog from a Microsoft employee dedicated to how to minimize the issues you'll encounter when running as a limited user account vs a full administrator one as well which should block mostly everything serious since most of it is written with the assumption that it'll have free reign.
Critizing Microsoft for not shipping IE with its default settings already secure is a whole other topic for discussion. The bottom line is that they didn't, it's not hard, it takes but a few minutes and you only have to do it once.
All that said, competition is a good thing and I do believe Microsoft is wrong in halting IE's development until and only for Longhorn since it's web standards support is either outdated or just plain broken.
Everyone is free to use the browser of their choice, but do so for the right reasons and don't get swayed by all the hype and media misinformation.
People also need to learn to take some form of responsability. Microsoft doesn't go without fault, but neither do they. Your day to day spyware/virus/spam pests are 100% preventable.
If you did some actual research you'd find that 94% - not 80% - of the people online use IE as their browser. If you want to develop a virus or trojan, take a big guess at which browser you're going to target?
Furthermore there are more people scrutinizing over IE looking for flaws on a day to day basis than there are people who actually develop Mozilla, let alone look for flaws in it.
If you switched over to another browser from IE because your PC got infected with spyware, adware, viruses, etc then that only goes to show that you are either uninformed on how to keep your PC safe, or don't care enough to bother.
I've never used any other browser than IE and I've yet to come across a single piece of unwanted software on my PC in all those years. My mom - who is completely clueless about computers - also solely uses IE and each time I come over her PC is completely clean as well.
Why? Because she will actually bother to stick with the common sense tips that I gave her. "If you don't know what it is, click 'No'". "If someone forwards you e-mail with an attachment that doesn't end with an extension you know, ask me and don't open it."
The sad fact is that most people (and that includes people here I'm sure) will happily click "Yes" should "Do you want me to install and destroy your computer?" come up and then go on to scream that their OS/browser/email application/take your pick is insecure.
Firewalls, virus scanners, adware removal tools are the last line of defense. The very first and most effective protection tool you can ever hope to have is your own common sense.
If you can't spare 5 minutes to go through IE's settings and secure it, then you have no right to complain. There's a blog from a Microsoft employee dedicated to how to minimize the issues you'll encounter when running as a limited user account vs a full administrator one as well which should block mostly everything serious since most of it is written with the assumption that it'll have free reign.
Critizing Microsoft for not shipping IE with its default settings already secure is a whole other topic for discussion. The bottom line is that they didn't, it's not hard, it takes but a few minutes and you only have to do it once.
All that said, competition is a good thing and I do believe Microsoft is wrong in halting IE's development until and only for Longhorn since it's web standards support is either outdated or just plain broken.
Everyone is free to use the browser of their choice, but do so for the right reasons and don't get swayed by all the hype and media misinformation.
People also need to learn to take some form of responsability. Microsoft doesn't go without fault, but neither do they. Your day to day spyware/virus/spam pests are 100% preventable.
Last edited:
