 home
Who Is Hurt By Microsoft's Neglect of Older Browsers?
(old news - 11:29AM Friday Sep 24 2004)
By David Coursey Browser security is a big problem. To you and me. And particularly, to Microsoft. Now, according to folks up in Redmond (and contrary to the expectations of many) it won't release the XP SP2 security fixes for earlier browsers and versions of its operating system. In fact, it is probably not in Microsoft's best interest to force such a move even if it could. Today, a Windows 98 machine that is orphaned because it lacks the necessary oomph to run XP SP2 can become a capable Linux box in about an hour, maybe less. More at EWeek
|
 dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
| Same old argument Supporting software costs. It costs money. It costs developer time.
If you're a software company, you have to decide whether to spend your available developer time doing bugfixes on versions N-1, N-2, N-3, ... of your software, or new development on version N.
The decision is economic. Do you make more money supporting the old stuff, or by working on the new stuff? Who's going to be pissed off most: customers with older systems who are left out in the cold, or current customers who aren't getting the improvements/features/whatever that they want?
"But Microsoft has a lot of money, they could just hire more developers". Maybe, maybe not. In my experience of developing software, there is a limit, fairly small, of the number of people you can have touching the same code base before it becomes unmanageable. (It looks like an O(N**2) problem to me).
The "hurts the entire Internet" argument is merely fatuous. | |
|  | BudBob
Premium
join:2003-01-01
Mckinney, TX | Re: Same old argument Just switch to another browser that is supported on a regular basis and runs as an application instead of an extension of the OS. | |
| | | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Same old argument said by BudBob  :
Just switch to another browser that is supported on a regular basis and runs as an application instead of an extension of the OS.
I wish someone could explain to me how IE is an 'extension of the OS'.
I know what MS Marketing says, but quite frankly, I don't see that it's the case on a purely operational basis.
I'm running Internet Explorer. I have a process running iexplore.exe. What, exactly, is the functional distinction between this situation and what would obtain if I were running, say, Opera?
Also, I don't see that it's relevant to this topic how IE "runs".
If you made the observation that, like say Notepad, you can't buy the program separately from the OS, then you have a point. If you use an "unbundled" browser, then yes, you might be able to buy/get an upgrade to the browser as a separate thing from the OS (though of course you're still subject to the decide of the browser author to support your particular OS version). But that's very different from anything to do with whether the browser "runs as an application instead of an extension of the OS", whatever that means. | |
| | | | BudBob
Premium
join:2003-01-01
Mckinney, TX | Re: Same old argument Tell me how you can say that when that was what XP SP2 was all about, to secure IE. I don't believe I have seen a patch for notepad, and I have never seen anybody uninstall IE. | |
| | | | | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Same old argument said by BudBob :
Tell me how you can say that when that was what XP SP2 was all about, to secure IE. I don't believe I have seen a patch for notepad, and I have never seen anybody uninstall IE.
Yes, fine. That's because IE, like Notepad, is bundled with the OS. You buy the OS, you get IE and Notepad. You upgrade the OS, you get any upgrades to IE and Notepad that might be available (maybe you didn't notice when Notepad started supporting UTF-8?).
But neither of that has any bearing on how Notepad and IE run. As far as the OS core is concerned, Notepad and IE are just applications. The OS core does not know that Notepad and IE happened to ship on the same CD.
Thus, there is no meaning to saying that IE "runs as an extension of the OS" and that one should get a browser that runs "as an application instead".
i.e., "running" is not a concern here. Packaging is the concern. | |
| | | | | | BudBob
Premium
join:2003-01-01
Mckinney, TX | Re: Same old argument Tell me when you figure out to uninstall IE without trashing the whole OS. Then explain how it is an application and not extension of the OS. | |
| | | | | | | dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Same old argument said by BudBob :
Tell me when you figure out to uninstall IE without trashing the whole OS. Then explain how it is an application and not extension of the OS.
Well, I think you'll have to define 'application' first.
I define 'application' by what it does. If a web browser is an application program, it's an application program. It has nothing to do with what CD it came on.
And then, I suppose it's perfectly easy to get rid of iexplore.exe. That's "Internet Explorer". Fine, there might be web-access functions still hanging around in some dll, used by other programs. That doesn't make the remaining pieces "Internet Explorer".
I think you're simply confused by how programming is done these days. | |
| | | | | | | | BudBob
Premium
join:2003-01-01
Mckinney, TX | Re: Same old argument I think you are confused! I can remove firefox but can't remove IE. That is not what I call modular programming. That is what I call embedded programming which then makes an extension of the lager program ie Windows. | |
| | | | | | | | | 
Konaguy
Live From Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Premium
join:2000-10-21
Kailua Kona, HI | Re: Same old argument Let me pose this question Dave,have you tried to remove IE
from Windows. I have and Windows won't work at all. The reason
why is IE is a part of the operating system. | |
| | | | | | VirtualLarry
Premium
join:2003-08-01
| said by dave :
Thus, there is no meaning to saying that IE "runs as an extension of the OS" and that one should get a browser that runs "as an application instead". i.e., "running" is not a concern here. Packaging is the concern.
You're right. The biggest issue, was the "commingling" of the browser application code, with the code that normally provides system API functions in the OS. MS intentially "mixed" the code, into many key DLLs, to: a) prevent easy removal, and b) provide an excuse to the courts, that simply deleting those binary files containing IE code, would cause the OS to cease proper functioning, and was therefore an inseperable part of the OS itself. Basially, techies know that isn't true, and armed with the source code, it would probably easy to resolve that issue, but the courts bought it, and that's all that really mattered at the time.
(As a counter-example, Win95 'gold' didn't have "integrated IE", and yet it ran fine.)
As a second correlary to the inter-mingling of code within the same DLLs, those that get pre-loaded into RAM when the OS boots, are therefore resident, so startup of the IE "application" (really just a shell executable that calls code already loaded), happens nearly instantly.
Not to mention, all versions of IE, I think version 4.x and up, that include "shell integration" (support for Active Desktop), basically replace standalone Explorer.exe to also be a shell executable that calls preloaded IE DLLs to provide the default user shell for the OS. (And how Windows Explorer provides a "web view" for directories, and also lets you type in URLs into the "address bar". It's all still really IE under-the-hood, which is why when IE crashes on a web page, you often lose your Explorer.exe user shell too.) | |
| | 
cwnorris
join:2000-01-17
Longmont, CO
 ·Mesa Networks
| Windows 2000 is NT 5, XP is NT 5.1.
There are apparently so few differences between the two that the version number only needed to be changed by 1 minor.
So, are you saying that they cannot afford to support their current version, and the previous one, when they share the same major version number?
They are still supporting 2000 for security fixes, and service packs (I presume, I don't know if an SP5 will be released).
I don't know what their income is these days, but I know it's less than they would like. Are they sacrificing the support for customers who still run a previous OS, just because sales are down? | |
| 
keith2468
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-03
Winnipeg, MB
| MS Needs a low cost high efficiency XP for old PCs There is more to security than just updating the browser. The OS also needs updates.
OS updates you won't get with MSIE, Firefox, Mozilla, or even Opera.
But is it worth the big bucks to buy XP for a PII or PIII?
And would XP work properly on an old PII or PIII?
I think the answer to both questions is "no".
What MS needs to do is make a stripped down high-efficiency of XP designed for older slower PCs.
Maybe market it for $50 or $75 (and restrict it to not take advantage of CPUs over 1GHz, so that it doesn't compete with full-blown XP).
--
(Virus&Hijacking FAQ + Submit suspected malware + Backups FAQ + Security FAQ TOC) | |
| | | | | | | 
jhboricua
ExMod 2000-01
join:2000-06-06
Minneapolis, MN
clubs:
| Re: MS Needs a low cost high efficiency XP for old said by dave :
Spend a lot of money developing something that's obsolete before it's released? Why?
I can't see any business case for that one at all. There's no "wow" factor in a new OS for old PCs - it presumably can't add much in the way of new and interesting stuff, since you've got a bounded CPU budget, no chance of new hardware, etc.
And there is already a Microsoft OS tuned for 5 year old PCs - it's whatever version of Windows was shipping 5 years ago. Presumably you got one when you bought the PC? Then why not keep using it?
Except MS is doing it in Asia to compete with linux. A scaled down (well, more like gutted out of features) version of XP is being released over there. It will probably run pretty good on old hardware.
--
Jose A. Hernandez * IT Technician * MPLS, Minnesota, USA * My website: Zerochill | |
| | | |
|
|
·
Re: MS Needs a low cost high efficiency XP for old PCs