Jumping Ship

By Jerry Pournelle

July 19, 2004

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We have a number of issues this month, all important, in addition to some review items. One of the review items will be the Xandros Desktop OS, which is the easiest Linux to install and use I have ever seen. If it will install at all—and it will on most hardware—It Just Works, and is very Windows-like; it will even install and run Microsoft Office 2000 as well as Linux software.

And on June 21, 2004, Mike Melvill flew the Paul Allen/Burt Rutan SpaceShipOne 62 miles straight up to become the first astronaut to fly a privately owned ship into space, and was awarded Astronaut wings by the FAA. Take that, NASA!

First, though, the Great Internet Explorer vulnerability issue: Should we abandon Microsoft Internet Explorer? The question arises because of multiple attacks on different vulnerabilities, including an attack on Microsoft IIS servers. Read on.

Adware and Spyware and Worms, Oh My!

For the few readers who don't know about tracking software, spybots, and other malware, I suggest you go read that section of last month's column, where I go into it in some detail. For today, you need to know that it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between spyware and adware. Most adware is legal, and much of it is installed with your permission, even if you don't know you gave it: The authorization was buried in some tedious license agreement that came with a free program you downloaded and installed. Secondly, perhaps because it is legal, none of the major virus detection programs see it or complain about it: Once you start the adware download and install process—and that's easier to do than you might think—it's going to get into your system, and you won't be warned. This is often known as "drive-by downloading."

If this sounds horrifying, note that adware does pay for a lot of shareware and freeware program development. Whether the results are worth the price is something else again; there was a time when adware was relatively unobtrusive and used largely to generate profiles so that you would be offered advertisements of products you might actually be interested in.

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