Microsoft patches IE security hole, human rights activities fully resume
By Darren Murph 
posted January 21st 2010 6:22PM
posted January 21st 2010 6:22PM
posted January 21st 2010 6:22PM
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TAKE IT MSN.
It's ironic how much damage China does to its own reputation when things like this emanate from it. Even though it's probably done in the interests of stability it generates instability.
@(Unverified)
or maybe it's just the Americans generating instability to split China into pieces like Europe...
Who still uses IE8? Honestly
@incogneo
Those of us that need to use it at work. There are still many software programs that only run on IE.
@decypher44 I mean yea like when i worked at books-a-million we used IE5 in 2006. (BAM Fail) but as for the web based applications, don't Firefox and Chrome with those as well?
@incogneo: I occasionally bump into a website that won't work right on Firefox. But that's what the "IE View" plug-in is for.
@aubreyq are you serious? IE View uses Internet Explorer to render the pages, it's not some magic 3rd party web browser.
@incogneo Mostly just Chinese hackers.
@Edobe LMAO! this made their day then.
@incogneo Almost an equal amount of users use Windows 7 as Firefox. http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200812-201001
@incogneo
66% of all internet use.
And unlike Firefox, IE actually supports HTML4 standards such as the COL tag.
I know Engadget is biased against it despite the 66% market share. They don't even allow IE users to rank comments.
@Jimbojones : I know that, dude. But at least it allows me to resort to IE when I have no choice.
@incogneo
"If you're still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (versions 5.01 to 8) for some inexplicable reason"
whats wrong with IE8, its the one of, if not the safest browser. This security hole aside, Internet Explorer was the first browser to integrate features that protect you against phishing and malware, and the first to embed domain highlighting, Cross-Site scripting protection, InPrivate filtering—the list goes on and on.
IE8 is also one of the fastest browsers. A lot of Firefox and Chrome advocates like to cling to micro-benchmarking page load claims to measure browser speed. But in most cases, these differences can only be viewed by slow-motion video captures, and they just don't represent real world examples.
@Troll i Understand that most people use IE8 BECAUSE it comes with all pcs. My mom would use it chrome if it was pre-installed on her system. The same 66% that uses IE still I think are the same people who ask me to update their pc to windows 7 but only have a gig of RAM. I understand IE has come a long way from what it was. But it's still IE. I use Firefox and Chrome on my laptop and I am happy with both. But to everyone on engadget has anyone got their Zune to work with Ubuntu? Time is running out on my 7 RC1 but I dont think I will have the money in time.
@incogneo
EI6 was good, IE7 was fine, EI8 is a stinking pile. Right from the get go it starts insisting I choose accelerators and live which wots, after which it tries to set the default search engine to anything besides Google. Anyway, nothing can get around the fact that it's plain butt-ugly.
Chrome FTW. Super fast and pretty, and soon to have bookmark sync and all kinds of goodies.
@Ordeith hahaha, please don't start listing what IE supports. Why don't you list what it DOESN'T SUPPORT? HTML5 for starters. It breaks most sites designed for IE 7, etc....
@incogneo
I have to in order to pay some bills online. Some websites will only allow IE.
* browser-based software
You guys are too hard on IE. Its not easy being the leader in a field. You can even see now what increased market share is doing to Firefox. Its dramatically slowing development. Delayed 3.6, scratched 3.7 and 4.0 isnt even on the horizon?
And they wonder why my husband isn't following them on Twitter?
@Adamgs That doesn't cut it. If it weren't for Mozilla lighting a fire under MS's ass we would still be getting screwed by lack of innovation and Security in IE just like if it weren't for OSX and Linux we wouldn't have a windows 7 the way it is now. It's all about competition. That is what makes huge companies that stagnate when they get too big actually give a fuck. Look at Nokia the sleeping giant for instance as well as many other companies who fail to really improve their products because of a strong Market hold they think will make them too big to fail.
@Adamgs .. What are you talking about ? .. if all of Microsoft acted like the IE team then there would be no Windows 7 or Office 2007. There hasn't been serious competition in the OS/Productivity apps markets for years and yet Microsoft still listened to its users and made some brilliant updates. IE is a brown stain on the company.
Firefox 3.6 was released today.
Something tells me France and Germany won't be making public announcements telling their citizens that its now safe to go back in IE's waters.
@d0mth0ma5 .. Good as far as I'm concerned. Having IE dominate the web browser market has been damaging to the progress of the web and I don't like ANY company controlling the web.
And that includes you Adobe Flash.
@d0mth0ma5
https://www.bsi.bund.de/cln_174/ContentBSI/presse/Pressemitteilungen/Sicherheitspatch_IE_210110.html
They announce there that they previously had an advise on IE being vulnerable and that now IE was patched for 8 issues and that you should apply that patch ASAP and how to do that.
@Wwhat Good spot
Oh and the previous advise was a *temporary* avoidance of IE, then later followed by advise to watch out with : Microsoft Outlook (upto and including Outlook 2003), Outlook Express, Microsoft Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Help, Microsoft Sidebar.
and various ways to avoid risk
Since they all use IE technology.
Here's the us gov warning site incidentally
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB10-018.html
"US-CERT is the operational arm of the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is a public-private partnership. "
Patched. NEXT!
Well, I'm sure if we go based on vulnerabilities and updates IE will not be on top when it comes to browsers. Let it be known, I am a FireFox user. These vulnerabilities are nothing new, it's part of developing software. Welcome to the Internet!!!
@Krazie
The issue with IE is that it relies on stuff in the OS itself, stuff that's also written decades ago often when gates didn't even believe anything would come from that internet thing, and it leans on stuff flawed in design from the very core.
So that argument of marketshare causing it is not true, in fact only after gates went into the background MS started to actually seriously do something about security at all in windows before that they weren't interested in it really, they didn't consider it an issue for the OS itself, and certainly not for the consumer versions of windows, they took an attitude the user or system manager should take care of that him/herself.
And you can easily verify it by checking statements made by MS themselves over the years, and by changes they made to the OS to try to patch in some security, and by reading the details of the windows update patches and the details of many of the flaws found in IE.
@Wwhat
I must agree.
Hey Engadget, speaking of IE, when do y'all plan on fixing the comment ranking systems for at least IE8 users, eh? I can understand how the other versions of IE are too much trash to bother with, but not even proper IE8 support? Please fix it soon. I'm not interested in using a different alternative just to see Engadget.
@Quikboy
And the fix is so simple.
@Engadget
Get your Web Developer off his Mac and get to it!
@Ordeith
exactly! because who uses Safari?
Be careful Engadget, you might just find yourself on the arbitrary Chinese blacklist and lose 50% of your audience.
@Alex
http://cn.engadget.com/
Do you see that keyboard? Man those chinese must all be geniuses http://www.blogcdn.com/chinese.engadget.com/media/2009/12/dsc_0077_resize_resize.jpg
All those characters to learn
IE is a joke. they need to start again with it. sure, a lot of the security problems come from the fact that it's the most targeted browser by hackers due to market share (same problem with windows in general) but if they just started again they could build a faster browser from the bottom up, which they desperately need to, they could build in the functionality that we expect from modern browsers from the get go and, if they really did build it new, then the legacy of security problems would be vanquished. seriously microsoft, you're just digging a hole at the moment
Hold the fuck up, are you telling me there are people out there running an IE version BEFORE IE 6? What the hell man!
Does anyone else still hate the 'new' engadget?
@Redon Gor
Not I.
@Redon Gor
Hate is a strong word. It's ok, just. I wouldn't go as far as to say I like it though. The design is too messy. Loads of unfocused "2.0" features.
Also, if I click on reply and I'm not logged in, would it be possible to do something vaguely useful (login box maybe?), rather than absolutely nothing?
(Sorry, moan moan moan moan moan :-)
Yup me- can't stand it! And the iPhone view is broken- so thumbs down engadget :-(
@Redon Gor
At least the old one actually worked.
@Redon Gor I've adapted, I just hope they don't tweak with the interface as often as Facebook does.
@HardToBelieve
Thats hard to believe.