Tony Mechelynck wrote:
~snip~
I'm not convinced the Mozilla Suite is fit for "the average Internet
user" in the same way IE is. Faster bug-fixing also means more frequent
upgrades and more "hassle". IE has a major version upgrade, how often?
every three years? with a bugfix maybe every month or six? Fx has bugfix
releases every few monthes, and two publicly-downloadable new binaries
every day (one more-or-less "stable" and one "alpha"). Panurge's sheep
don't even know they're in jeopardy, so they stick with IE and its
relatively infrequent "automatic updates", period -- and they become
victims of viruses, trojans and worms targeted at the slowly-fixed bugs
in IE.
for the slower updates with the strengths of the mozilla suite /
firefox, avarage users can use netscape. the only problem with that is
some people have decided they don't like netscape, so they won't switch
from ie.
Which leads me to wonder aloud whether there
is much point in Mozilla deciding that its target
user should be the average user. Practically
speaking, it seems much too tough a target to
protect these people; we can't as a community
even understand them, and we are forever
making statements that amount to denial of
their right to exist.
iang
Oh, everyone has a right to exist. However I believe more
computer-literate people like us have a duty to try to "educate" their
neighbours as to which behaviour patterns are "safer" qua Internet.
"What everyone does" is not necessarily the best or the safest thing to
do -- if it were, sticking with Bill Gates would be safest of all. Alas,
there are people who never learn, people who believe every rumor, people
who flock like sheep -- or lemmings -- wherever they see people going,
without pausing to think about what they are doing and what are the
consequences of it. I look for patterns. That Netcraft product fits too
well into the pattern of spam and hoaxes for me to feel confident about
its validity.
When I say we have a duty to "try" to educate our neighbours, I am not
saying we must "succeed" in bringing to "what we think is best". That
would be too meddlesome. I think we have an obligation of means, not an
obligation of result. If people are too hard-headed to listen, I don't
think we should make a nuisance of ourselves to force them to change
their behaviour patterns. We can do our best to explain things to them
-- calmly and with respect for the person in front of us -- but we
cannot force them to listen, and we mustn't try to force them to obey.
so you are saying, nudge them towards the knowledge rather than ram it
down thier throats? ;)
or the complaint I have started hearing about firefox..
it defaults to downloading to the desktop, and doesn't give any option
to save a file elsewhere. ( checked on 3 different computers, saving a
file in firefox goes to windows desktop and was not given option of
saving elsewhere. even infernal exploiter gives that option. )
gonna have to file a feature request about it I guess. those three
constitute 60% of firefox users that I know. if it's indicative then it
is something hurting the usage of firefox. ass all three are using ie
more than firefox because of it.
Jaqui
_______________________________________________
Mozilla-security mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-security
