Weblog of a “Switcher”

One of the biggest pet peeve's of mine is when an OS doesn't follow it's rules and does something it's not supposed to do. This happens frequently in Microsoft Windows, but as John Gruber writes, it happens in OS X too.

Daring Fireball: Mac OS X's 'Search in Google' Safari Tie-In:
"Cocoa’s contextual menu ‘Search in Google’ command, as currently implemented, does hook specifically into Safari’s Google Search feature: the terms you search for appear in the Google Search field in Safari’s toolbar. A simpler way to implement the feature would be to construct a Google search URL containing the terms and open that URL in the default browser. This would make the feature work equally well in all browsers — but would deprive Apple of a few pennies in Google affiliate lucre for each such search."

As my families IT director, I make it a point to make sure they are using Firefox as a browser so that 95% of the crap out on the web won't sneak into their Windows box and otherwise destroy their installation of Windows. This happened to them back in 2006, but I'll get to that soon.

What happens is that the user sets up Windows or OS X to use a specific browser as the "default" browser. In my parents case, Firefox. Later, some program wants to take one of my parents to a webpage, so instead of following the "default" browser setting, it launches Internet Explorer and takes them there. From that point on, my parents think that they are using Firefox when in fact they are using Internet Explorer. Now they go off surfing somewhere else and bam!, they are hit with a virus or trojan and the OS is no longer usable. This is what happened back in 2006 for my parents and was the main reason I switched them over to OS X and a Mac Mini.

You see, my parents don't know Firefox from Internet Explorer from a hill of beans. All they know is that they are using a web browser and are able to get to where they want to with it. You and I are different, we can tell right away that there is something wrong and deal with it. I imagine that 90% of the computer using population are like my parents and don't know one browser from another.

From my experience with the Mac at that time, it seemed that OS X followed the rules it had set up and always launched the "default" browser no matter what. Now I learn that there is a way that OS X will launch Safari even if I have set Firefox up as the default browser. Now, fortunately, my parents will probably never use the "Search in Google" right click pop-up menu item, so they are unlikely to see Safari due to that. However, if the "Search in Google" item does it, then what else does it? At some point, there is going to be another program that will launch Safari instead of the browser selected as "default".

To me, this is a much bigger offense than the Apple Software Update program adding Safari to it's list in Windows. (But let's not go there again. That news item has been bantered to death) Mainly because the user is expecting to get the browser that they set to be their default browser to launch each and every time. With Windows, as I found out, this can be a huge security hole that just shouldn't be allowed to happen. Some could say that it's also a huge hole in OS X since Safari has some pretty serious holes in it that Firefox or another browser might not have.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: default browser, Internet Explorer, Mac, Os X, Safari, Windows

While checking out my statistics at Site Meter this morning, I notices something rather disturbing. The majority of my readers are using Firefox 1.x.

It's not disturbing that those users are using Firefox. In fact, I would further suggest that all you Internet Explorer 6.x and 7.x users (22.2%) should consider looking at Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any other browser that doesn't use Internet Explorer as it's rendering engine (means of displaying web content). Your Windows computers will be much happier if you do.

No, actually I'm concerned that 37.4% of my readers, the majority, are using older versions of Firefox. Firefox 2.x has been out for quite some time now and is a faster, more reliable version than it's older 1.x version. In fact, version 2.x (and many later versions of version 1.x) support the ability to update themselves automatically. In fact, click the image below to go straight to Firefox's download page:

Download Firefox

Making sure that Firefox automatically update's itself is very important. The folks that develop Firefox stay on top of security issues that arise from security experts and hackers finding holes in Firefox. As soon as a fix is made and tested, it's released as an update that Firefox will prompt you for the minute it detects it.

To make sure that Firefox will update itself for the Mac, go to the "Firefox" Menu and select "Preferences..." (or Command-,) to bring up Firefox's Preferences dialog.

To make sure that Firefox will update itself for Windows, go to the "Tools" Menu and select "Options..." to bring up Firefox's Options dialog.

Once there, switch to the Advanced tab by clicking on the word Advanced tab (the icon that looks like a gear), and select the Update tab inside. Now, make sure that "Automatically check for updates to: Firefox is checked. The "When updates to Firefox are found: options will allow you to have Firefox automatically download and install any updates, or ask you to update when you are ready. Even the automatic update will ask you if you want to update now or later, so it's pretty safe to use either option.

Making this change will allow Firefox to keep itself up-to-date and safe from any malicious website bent on making your web browsing experience, and general computer experience, unpleasant.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Explorer 6, Firefox Browser, Hackers, Internet Explorer, Older Versions, Opera, Options, Os X, Safari, Security Experts, Security Holes, Security Issues, Site Meter, Statistics, Tools Menu, Update Windows, Upgrade Browser, Web Content, Windows Computers, Windows Os, Windows Upgrade

I came off with the previous post as sounding like I thought that Apple including Safari in the "update" was a good thing. I do feel that they made a mistake in defaulting the item as checked and would be downloaded if the user just clicks the update button.

Yes, it's pretty sneaky marketing. Do you folks really think Apple is so pure and nice that they would never do such a thing? They are a business and to listen to some folks, a monopoly. At least as far as MP3 players goes, and this is the real problem here. People are saying that Apple is using it's "monopoly" in MP3 players and music as a means of gaining a market share in the browser world. Will they? Guess what. Probably not at all.

As some of my commenters have stated, people don't really have a clue that there are other browsers out there other than Internet Explorer. They wouldn't even notice that there was another browser to choose from when using their computer after running the update. For crying out loud, they don't even know that they have spyware and trojans running on their computer in the first place!

I'm just surprised that it's causing all this attention in the blogosphere. Everyone I read/hear is going on like this is the end of the world as we know it. The biggest complaint is: Now that Apple has done this, people are not going to want to run the Apple Software Update program and because of this, they are not going to run update software at all. So this will cause the internet to become less secure.

Oh please, give me a break! People have already been/being trained to make the internet less secure by Microsoft with Vista and User Access Control (UAC) not to mention Windows Update. People are turning off UAC all over the place because it's about the most annoying thing ever. Plus, just like crying "Wolf" over and over again, sooner or later, you are just going to assume that the next UAC prompt that shoes up is just another "cry wolf" prompt and tell it to go ahead when it really is a bad thing.

Windows Update is really bad to allow to run at all, much less tell it to let you know that there is an update to download. Windows Update has actually installed updates even when you tell it to not actually do anything other than warn you that updates are out. This hasn't happened very often, but it has happened a couple of times and Microsoft has been called out for them.

So I have to say, that maybe these computer journalists need to be making sure that Microsoft takes care of their issues before going after Apple.

Actually, this looks a lot like Greenpeace going after Apple for not being "Green" when compared to Dell and HP, Apple's messing up the environment is way less. After all, older Macintosh computers tend to get sold to new owners where older Windows boxes tend to just get thrown out. I really didn't understand that, but now Apple is even "greener" and the rest of the computer world is still as messy as before. Ah well.

Now, all that said, if you are a Windows user reading this far down the post, why not actually try Safari and see if you don't think that Safari is not faster than any browser that you are currently using minus Firefox 3 Beta. Firefox 3 being beta is still pretty unstable or I would have to say that they are pretty close to the same speed. Once Mozilla gets Firefox 3 out of beta, they are going to be a really good competitor.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Annoying Thing, Apple 2, Apple Software, Browser World, Clue, Commenters, Cry Wolf, Crying Wolf, Hub Bub, Internet Explorer, Market Share, Mistake, Monopoly, Mp3 Players, Safari, Shoes, Software Update, User Access Control, Windows Update, Wolf

No, I'm not talking about updates to OS X Tiger or Leopard. I'm talking about installing Windows XP Pro SP2! Yes that's right. After SP2 there are 86 updates that need to be downloaded and installed after installing Windows XP Pro SP 2. Not counting the update to the updater.

I really get the feeling that Windows XP needs an SP3 and soon!

Anyone who complains about Apple and the updates that they have to go through after installing Tiger, just point them to a Windows box and have them install XP Pro SP2.

I also know there will be more to go, since I haven't updated Internet Explorer and there are also other updates that are usually not critical but are still desired.

Man, I am soooo glad I switched to Macintosh!

Why am I installing Windows XP? Oh, yea, I forgot to mention that I am installing it to my Mac Pro in Boot Camp. I lost my secondary HD which had the previous Windows installation on it. Not sure why the drive bit the bullet, but when you hear clicking and spinning down and back up, you have to assume the drive is toast. I went out and purchased a 750GB SATA drive today and used Time Machine to restore the OS X side of the disk. (That process was so damn easy a cave man could do it.) Now, I'm reinstalling Windows and a few other programs so that I can use Parallels to access it. I rarely reboot into Windows on my Mac Pro. If I am going to play a game, I switch to my Windows box behind my monitor and play there. I just like the convienence of having a Windows partition on the Mac for doing non-game things.

Well, I'm about half way through installing the 86 updates, so I guess I'll wrap up this post and get ready for the hundreds of reboots I am going to have to do to finish getting windows ready to use again.

Update: I only had to install about 20 more updates after the 86 to start with. Also, only had 4 reboots during that process. So, it's really not that bad... really... (sarcasm sign being held up and waved furiously)

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Boot Camp, Cave Man, Convienence, Hd, Installing Windows, Internet Explorer, Os X, Os X Tiger, Parallels, Partition, Reinstalling Windows, Sarcasm, Sp 2, Sp3, Time Machine, Toast, Windows Box, Windows Installation, Windows Xp, Windows Xp Pro Sp2