SillyDog701 Message Centre

[DJGM]

Today, while I was attending the Friday half day session on the PC Install & Support
course I'm currently doing, I was attempting to demonstrate the benefits of Mozilla
over IE, but hindering by some people showing what I'd call "tech ignorance".

Whilst explaining the flexibility and usefulness of "tabbed browsing", these other
people insisted that the "Group similar buttons" taskbar feature of Windows XP
was better. While taskbar button grouping may be quite useful, particularly
with applications that aren't made for web browsing, I kept insisting that it
still requires more mouse clicking to switch between grouped IE browser
windows, than switching between browser tabs in one Window.

At this point, one of the other course candidates uttered the words, "I like IE."

The only good point one of them raised, is that having a very large number of
tabs running in one browser window, you can't easily make out which site is
under which tab, since you might only being able to see the website icon
or bookmark icon displayed on each individual tab.

The same person (who happens to be an I.T. tutor and assessor) then claimed
that "Mozilla contains malicious code". He explained that he has his PC system
tightly locked down, and (supposedly) has a malware scanner he referred to
only as "Sparrow". Has anyone heard of this program? He said "Sparrow" has
heuristic scanning that automatically disables anything it considers unsafe,
which, in essence, is a good thing, but what the heck is it finding within
an installation of Mozilla that is considers unsafe.

Eitherway, I ran a Google search for "Sparrow" and found nothing relating
to any PC security software programs or services. "Has the company or
organization that makes this Sparrow got a website?" I asked.
The tutor/assessor replied, "No . . . it's a trade tool."

I scoffed at these comments, and silently dismissed these views as FUD.

Trade tool? More like a trade secret! Assuming it even exists!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1

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Mozilla = Swiss Army Knife: It's versatile, reliable, and contains useful tools.
Microsoft Internet Explorer = Old Swiss Cheese: Full of holes, and it stinks!

[Fulvio]

This is a good one. I did a Copernic search(which uses all sorts of engines, but not Google), I came up with a ton of link for "sparrow" + "malware".
Examples:
http://www.gamblog.co.uk/2004_05_01_archive.htm and, my favorite:
http://www.mail-archive.com/nettime-l@bbs.thing.net/msg00881.html

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.16, FF3.0.1, TB2.0.0.16, IE7.0, Opera9.51, SM1.1.11, Safari3.1.2, Sygate5.6; AVG8.01, JRE1.6_05

[Don_HH2K]

Let me guess: More people that don't want to admit that they're wrong, perhaps?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

[Fulvio]

[Andrew T.]

[Don_HH2K]

Hmm... Another question:
Were there any users of OSes other than Windows XP? Sure, XP's Taskbar Grouping feature is OK, but what about users of Windows in non-XP, MacOS, and Linux?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

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Main rig: Turion64X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, 100GB HD, Radeon X300, 15" LCD, Vista Ultimate x64
Server: P2 @ 233MHz, 192MB PC66, 20GB HD, 13.3" LCD, Windows Server 2003

[orizng]

Its hard to explain the advantages in these kind of occasions, coz u dont have enough time, and switching browser normally require the user to use it for couple of hours.
And there are lot of people whose opinion is hard to change.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040727 Powersheep/0.9.1+

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Whatever,whatever,have a nice day.

[Z_God]

Taskbar grouping can only be usefull if you have less than about 10 pages open. With a tabbed browser, you can easily manage more than 50 open pages. And if you don't like tabs, just don't use them.
Also the malware stuff is nonsense since Mozilla is opensource software and through history even several backdoors have been found in M$ software.

Some people are indeed really stupid when it comes to these things. I usually call this pigheadedness. People want to do stuff their own way and aren't willing to listen to suggestions/improvements.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.2; Linux) (KHTML, like Gecko)