MS discovers flaw in Google plug-in for IE Microsoft has helped discover a flaw in the Google Chome Frame plug-in for Internet Explorer users. The plug-in allows suitably coded web pages to be displayed in Internet Explorer using the Google Chrome rendering engine. Redmond warned that the plug-in made IE less secure as soon as it became available back in September, an …
Oh if only they would put the same effort into their own products. I realise that these days no software product goes out 100% tested but rather than put the effort into proving a competitors product has problems, put the effort into ensuring your own doesn't.
Pointing to someone else's error only has meaning if you are error free
OK, rant over
Why do I get the feeling that Microsoft has gone balls out to find a flaw in the plug-in. Could it be that they want to deflect attention ffrom the huge number of flaws in their own product? Or could it be that they just want to find any excuse to bash Google. Ir could it be that they are pi**ed that Google has just parked their tanks on Microsofts lawn?
Either way adn word of advice to Microsoft. " people in glass houses.........."
While Google will obviously need to patch this bug, you have to wonder about the security of a browser where a bug in any add-in can cause "high risk" vulnerabilities in the browser (to use Microsofts own description).
If you are going to allow plugins, they need to be isolated and sandboxed, to guard against both bugs like this and malicious plugins.
As far as I'm concerned, the louder Microsoft shout about problems with the Google plugin, the more they emphasize the problems with their browser.
To quote:
>Successfully exploiting the flaw creates a means for hackers to bypass security controls though not to go all the way and drop malware onto vulnerable systems.
So using the plugin, will stop things getting installed on your PC, though there is some kind of bug?
If you don't use the plugin, IE will invariably install malware/viruses you don't want installed on your PC....
I must have read this wrong or something, or Microsoft are becoming more masterful at spin.
Next, "Microsoft claim you should use Internet Explorer, because Firefox sometimes has bugfixes."
Well, we ARE talking about IE 6. It's amazing it still works and people/companies still use it.
Of course, what Microsoft wants to do is find a good enough excuse to say "Srry, mst remve plgn! Everyone must depend on IE, not your sucky, standards-compliant browser."
I wonder how many people they pulled and time they burnt in their desperate attempt to find a flaw, no matter how small, so they could score a point. I'm starting to think all board rooms are run like triple velvet:
http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=29816
It would be very nice if Micro$oft invested as much into fixing the bugs, back-doors and open exploitations in their OS's as they just did to find this one bug in Chrome. I personally am done investing in buying M$ OS's. Their main model is not customer based. They don't fix their last OS before they dump millions into their next OS leaving customers in the lurch and paying through the nose to upgrade all of their apps. MS is no longer a leader in the industry but rather an example of greed. The future of MS is as a VM Image safely encapsulated in a secure Linux host - on display as an oddity of engineering used to block innovation, a marker of the way not to go.
"MS is no longer a leader in the industry but rather an example of greed."
Nothing unusual there. It seems like the standard corporate business model these days involves making as much money as you can outside the normal exchange of money for specified goods or services. Forced upgrades, hidden fees, charging for things formerly provided free as a matter of course, lies, distortions, and untruths.
All to provide the dickheads in charge with unjustifiably extravagant salaries. Tell me, Mr. Corporate Hotshot, just what do you do that justifies your salary?
"It's amazing it [IE6] still works and people/companies still use it."
I agree that it's amazing that home users still use it, but not companies. You clearly have no idea how expensive it would be to roll out a new browser to 15,000 PCs. The testing alone would require a sizeable budget.
MS could fix the bugs in their own browser.
I just finished developing a website for a family member (something I don't do very often), only to find that it just doesn't work in IE. The worst thing is that IE does support the features I used, but it just doesn't work properly in all situations. Microsoft knew about and acknowledged these bugs before it released IE8 (I found they had been reported to Microsoft during the IE8 betas), but their response was essentially that they had better things to do than bother fixing such trivial matters as making the browser actually work as designed.
Testing of the browser is almost unnecessary. It's testing and redesigning the in house intranet systems that cost time and money. Some of that could mean complete rewrites as thousands of lines of MS-mutilated code needs to be brought back to standards compliance.
Of course they're going to have to do it sooner or later, so it seems odd so many are still stuck with IE6 after over 3 years. IE6 is now considered a security problem in itself.
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