vs Transponder/DLMax
I was had just started checking my mail via web-based email at a friend’s place today and out of nowhere a window popped up advertising cheap airfares. Just before I had been watching aircraft videos on FlightLevel350.com with my friend’s son. Coincedence or not, in a perfect world windows shouldn’t just pop up on their own. I was using Internet Explorer for some reason, I think because I was upgrading their Firefox at the time.
I immediately redirected the browser over to doxdesk.com, which has long been my source of testing IE for “parasites”. The result for my friend? Transponder/DLMax, which is just one of many such parasites. Luckily, doxdesk.com has instructions on removing the parasite, which I proceeded to do.
Unfortunately, the parasite was smarter than me. It really wasn’t my fault though, since my friend had several (read: nine) instances of the parasite on his machine, and although I would get rid of one, the others would replace the one I had just removed. Finally, I broke down and, on suggestion, installed Microsoft’s new AntiSpyware program, which identified all the parasites and nicely removed them all.
After that, my friend vowed to never use Internet Explorer (except for Windows Update) and has permanently switched to Firefox.
But it brings up an interesting discussion point around software development. At what point should the developer protect the users of his software? Microsoft’s response to things like ActiveX and such is that it’s a great technology and that you should be careful what you install. But how does my Mum know what is safe and what isn’t? Should she only run Microsoft products that must be purchased? Or should Microsoft have thought things through a bit more and said “maybe we shouldn’t let critical libraries be overwritten”. I’m not sure which is right, but I do know that saying it’s all the user’s fault when the underlying platform is seriously flawed is not right at all. And it’s enough to continue to keep me away from the Windows platform for that much longer.
Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:38 Posted in Technology
