SillyDog701

[James]

...enough to use it? I mean... with the warnings from Secunia regarding the security flaws in Netscape 7.2, does anyone still actually have the moxie to go ahead and run it ANYWAY?

How would it be possible to run NS and still feel relatively safe? What precautions would one have to make? I'm assuming that no one would do any business transactions or make any purchases with NS 7.2, right?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Ramona]

James,

If you are careful in your browsing, and only go to trusted sites for downloading, etc., then the security vulnerabilities are not likely to happen to you. Just be cautious, and if you do lots of online ordering, banking, then use Firefox for that purpose.

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[James]

Okay. Thanks, Ramona.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

[Fulvio]

James,
just an extra comment. You have been making a lot of the security vulnerabilities. The are real, but I should ask you if you trust Internet Explorer or Windows, for that matter?
I said this before, that these vulnerabilities have been around in the past, except that now Secunia advertises them, especially in relation to Mozilla which started a campaign to talk people into shifting from IE.
Mozilla\Firefox vulnerabilities are being addressed, while Netscape's will probably never be.
Ramona's reply is to be followed, to be on the safe side, but who can guarantee that whatever is good today will be good tomorrow?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[James]

James,
just an extra comment. You have been making a lot of the security vulnerabilities. The are real, but I should ask you if you trust Internet Explorer or Windows, for that matter?
I said this before, that these vulnerabilities have been around in the past, except that now Secunia advertises them, especially in relation to Mozilla which started a campaign to talk people into shifting from IE.
Mozilla\Firefox vulnerabilities are being addressed, while Netscape's will probably never be.
Ramona's reply is to be followed, to be on the safe side, but who can guarantee that whatever is good today will be good tomorrow?

Hello, Fulvio

I've understood your message. But let me ask you something. If Mozilla has addressed these issues which Netscape devs have not (thanks to AOL), isn't is only natural that one is going to avoid using Netscape based upon its less secure nature? Yes, the vulnerabilities have always been there BUT they were not well known AND now that they have been advertised, Mozilla has taken steps to correct them. Mozilla is not perfect but it is certainly moreso than Netscape at this juncture. And I fully agree that there are no guarantees for tomorrow. However, for today Mozilla is safer.

I suppose what I was trying to get at is:

- whether or not there was any indication AOL would address the issues
- whether or not people were still using Netscape even knowing the vulnerabilities (sort of like saying, "Are you still smoking even though you have been made aware of the dangers?") and if so, how could they put themselves at greater risk? Yes, I know there are risks in every browser and every email client BUT there are fewer risks with some than with others. Therefore isn't it common sense to go with the browser with the fewer risks? I guess I was looking for their rationale.
- what exactly these risks are. I've read them but quite frankly I need them put in layman's terms. I don't speak geekese. I'm not a techinical pesron and need the language dumbed-down as it were to my level.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

[Edward]

I've heard rumors about a new version of Netscape being released towards the end of the year, along with (another) redesigned Netscape Network web portal.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[James]

Yes!!!!!!!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Edward]

If this article is to be believed.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041110

[Fulvio]

Just, one comment. I don't know if AOL was, at all, influenced, by the screaming and yelling which went on just before the release of NS7.2. Probably not, but I can forget all the e-mail at this site, as well as others which wanted AOL to release 7.2 by the original "promised" date. I don't care a bit about AOL, but I am sure that the delay allowed it to be based on Moz1.7.2, rather that 1.7.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[Antony]

If you are careful in your browsing, and only go to trusted sites for downloading, etc., then the security vulnerabilities are not likely to happen to you. Just be cautious, and if you do lots of online ordering, banking, then use Firefox for that purpose.

Ramona

I have some more to add to Ramona's recommendation.

1. pay more attention to the website URL in the location bar. And don't trust [sdt=5775]phishing websites and identity thief emails[/sdt].

2. use only one browser when you are doing your online ordering or banking. Exit (completely) of other internet connected applications, e.g. ICQ, AIM, Kazza... and any P2P or newsfeed applications.

3. Keep your browser only opened to one site, don't open multiple websites at some time.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9

[James]

Thank you, everyone. You all know my feelings about Netscape by now. I have always preferred Netscape since discovering the internet back in 1997. I think it was Netscape 3.1 or perhaps even 3.0. I've tried to like Opera and have 7.62 on my computer but frankly there is just something about it (particularly the email) that I find clunky. I refuse to use IE for anything other than critical updates. That leaves Netscape 7.2, Mozilla and Firefox.

Having now read and considered your advice, I'll permanently uninstall Netscape. Should AOL actually update it, it's easy enough to re-install it. I'll keep Mozilla and Firefox/Thunderbird as my browsers/email clients and frankly could care less which gets the nod from day to day. I can't see that one has a distinct advantage over the other in spite of all that has been said to the contrary. I think it's more a matter of taste and since I don't prefer either I'll just go with my mood from day to day. Thanks.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Antony]

If Mozilla has addressed these issues which Netscape devs have not (thanks to AOL), isn't is only natural that one is going to avoid using Netscape based upon its less secure nature? Yes, the vulnerabilities have always been there BUT they were not well known AND now that they have been advertised, Mozilla has taken steps to correct them.

Simply, Netscape can't fix things as fast as Firefox.

And how serious are those security vulnerabilities reported by Secunia? To me, I do feel they exaggerated the "seriousness" a bit by using words like "vulnerabilities" and not explaining the situation in detail.

Okay, they explained, but usually I don't think they explained enough and in most cases, things are not sure serious as the way they mentioned.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9

[James]

Ah... and that was exactly what I was driving at, Antony. The seriousness of the so-called vulnerabilities and exactly what they were in layman's terms. Thanks anyway.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Ramona]

James,

This site gives an excellent explanation of cross site scripting and exactly what it does: Cross-site Scripting

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0