June 26, 2004 - Well, well, well; another exploit has surfaced that takes advantage of a flaw in Internet Exploiter (not a typo) and installs a trojan on a web surfer's PC simply by visiting a web site. News today is that this threat has been disabled because the server in Russia that was doing this was shut down. From Cnet.com: "Compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers' PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached." In other words, Microsoft has not issued a fix yet so someone else had to solve the problem. A quick resolution, yes, but with the seemingly increasing number of "drive-by" exploits going after the culprits directly is akin to swatting at flies.

A few years ago viruses were spread on floppy disks so to protect your PC you scanned the disk after you inserted it. Easy enough, but waiting 60-90 seconds or so to do this was a slight inconvenience. Next, once computers all started to hook up to the Internet, viruses were passed via email. This was countered with warnings like "don't open suspicious looking email" as well as being forced to buy and use virus scanning software and updating it weekly - which added to the cost of simply using a PC. Last summer, the Blaster Worm slithered its way across the Internet and infected computers that were simply connected, without a firewall, taking advantage of yet another flaw in the Windows operating system. Now, there is the risk of simply visiting a website and having your credit card number skimmed.

Don't forget spyware either, which we can thank Microsoft for by ramming Internet Exploiter down our throats. Viruses? Microsoft again - by hiding file extensions by default and allowing executable programs to be run by default too.

Microsoft got into some trouble for booting Netscape off the desktop and allowing 94% of web surfers to use IE. I never use Internet Exploiter unless I have to - the library, that's it. When I was in grad school I used to take a disk with me to the lab and install Mozilla on the computer I was working on. Tabbed browsing, built-in pop-up blocker, custom themes, and no spyware are benefits of using Mozilla.

Given this rampant onslaught of problems with the default browser and email clients that come with Windows, what Microsoft should be forced to do is ship their operating system with no browser and no email client installed. Instead, include a disk with a host of choices like Mozilla, Netscape, Internet Exploiter, Outlook/Outlook Express. Those who already know that Microsoft's offerings are inferior will install Mozilla or Netscape. Plus, novice users will call a techie they know and chances are many of them will convince the novice to use Mozilla or Netscape. To paraphrase something I saw yesterday: "If people are going to use Microsoft as an OS, the less Microsoft they use, the better." Maybe a better option would be for the big PC companies to offer the option of selling PC's with no OS installed and let the consumer choose.