Re: Ad-Ware remover.... [Firefox?]

Aron Roberts wrote:

> At 13:29 -0800 2004-11-16, Roy A. Baril wrote:
>
>> As always, you are the ultimate thorough warrior! One other item
worth mention. Is the University looking at using an alternative
browser, like Firefox? This would help to cut down on many
problems....
>
>
> I can't even pretend to speak for the campus or university, but
certainly a number of us involved in producing the C@B CD are
personally users of Mozilla's Firefox browser, and in stakeholder
meetings for this year's CD, we asked whether Mozilla's email client,
Thunderbird, should be investigated for possible support.
>
> Your comments - and those of other Micronet members - about these
products are very much welcomed, both now and over time. Information
regarding Firefox's compatibility (or otherwise) with campus Web-based
applications, and your ability to support users of Firebox and
Thunderbird, particularly regarding such issues as migration from
existing products, initial user experiences, ongoing configuration,
and troubleshooting, would be obviously useful.
>
> Aron Roberts
> Workstation Software Support Group
>
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Well, if anyone wants this user/administrator's opinion:

I use both firefox and thunderbird, due to the fact that they are cross
platform, so I have the same interface on my freeBSD machine as my
windows/linux machine. There used to be an activex plugin that worked for
firebird 0.7, but there is none that works for firefox 1.0, and it doesn't
look like mozilla is ever going to support an activex control for firefox,
or at least anytime soon, and I don't blame them... increased security is
one of the cheif advantages of firefox over IE, along with standards
compliance. What bothers me is that UC Berkeley's web applications are
moving in that direction at all... as it is basically adding a third layer
of microsoft dependence on top of IE and Windows. Which is like having
three levels of insecurity, really. I'm certain there are very good
reasons for this, but as I don't use or develop those web applications I'm
not exposed to the reasoning.
Personally, I'd say firefox should be on the CD, along with a message
saying something along the lines of "We strongly suggest using this over
Microsoft Internet Explorer whenever possible, and only reverting to
Internet Explorer for sites that you absolutely need to use that only work
with IE." Possibly mentioning BAIRS or BLU or anything else that requires
activex. This is what I have told anyone recently who asks me about the
browser issue.
When I switched, the only site I used on a consistent basis that required
IE was yahoo's launchcast radio, because I liked the rating system and had
trained it pretty well for my own tastes. But clearly I didn't absolutely
need it, as there are alternatives that are firefox-friendly.

For email, I started out long ago with Outlook Express but switched a
couple years ago to Eudora, and switched again recently to thunderbird. So
far I like it the best. Outlook Express does a terrible job with IMAP
folders, and the free version of Eudora is ad-supported. It also supports
encryption and digitally signing emails on an individual basis. However,
I'd suggest holding off putting it on the CD, as technically it's still
beta (0.9 as opposed to 1.0).

As an administrator, I'd love to be able to put firefox on all the
machines I look after, and have it be the browser supported by the
University. It would take care of a lot of the problems I deal with on a
daily basis.

Tim Rew
ESPM Computer Support
trew@nature.berkeley.edu

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Received on Wed Nov 17 00:46:32 2004