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Browse Happy

When Mac OS X first came on the scene Mac web browsing was in a sad state. I had used Mozilla and iCab back on Mac OS 9 and when OS X was taking its baby steps I tried Opera, Omniweb, Mozilla, and Internet Explorer, and eventually settled on Camino. Camino was the best OS X browsing choice for me until Safari and Firefox arrived. It blocked pop-up windows and had tabbed browsing in single-window mode (meaning applications would open new links in a new tab in the same window). But now Firefox from the Mozilla project has taken the lead on all platforms and is running away from the field (and it a nice twist of fate Firefox for OS X and Linux has a single-window mode but the Windows version does not).

Firefox is fast and has been stable enough (I grew up with Netscape Communicator 4.x on Mac OS 8 so any web browser that doesn't crash a few times a day is an example of brilliant programing to me).

It is open source and at this point in time much more secure than Internet Explorer (IE). In fact, Penn State recently advised all 80,000 students to use anything but Internet Explorer. This was in response to another serious spoofing vulnerability in IE.

Over the past several months there have been several other serious security problems with Internet Explorer. The most serious was a flaw that allowed sites to steal passwords and install malicious code when browsed with IE, this led to the Department of Homeland Security recommending users switch away from Internet Explorer.

There's a web site called Browse Happy that has tales from IE switchers a la Apple's Switcher ads and a list of articles about why IE is unsafe.

Although there are concerns regarding Firefox - they come from a Microsoft guy. All of his concerns and issues are addressed in the comments section of his blog post and he has responded to those comments.

Sure, fast and secure web browsing without pop-up windows is nice but what is real exciting about Firefox is its extensability. Wired.com has an article on some of the popular extensions. The ones I use every day are:

Sage: a minimal RSS reader for the sidebar.

BugMeNot: right-click on login screens to bypass site registration.

AdBlock: Goes beyond Firefox's basic image blocking. Can also block Flash ads.

Google Bar: Like IE's Google toolbar. Right-click on a page to use Google's "find similar pages" and "backwards links" tools.

Switchproxy: I've just started using this extension. If you use different proxies (for ssh tunneling your web connection for example)like I do then this will be a useful extension.


And you can add many different search engines to the search bar. And it is easy to create your own search bar plug-in.

What it comes down to is Firefox is overall a better and safer web browser. But one thing to note is that to be on the safe side when visiting secure sites do NOT do so when mulitple tabs are open.

This is why I use Firefox.

For other's opinion check the Firefox page, FlexBeta.net, and Jeremy Gillick's page to get started.

Flaw Found and Fixed in Google Desktop Search

The good news is Google fixed the flaw before anyone began exploiting it.Google is pushing out the new version via auto-updating but I uninstalled and then reinstalled the tool to get the fixed version.

Desktop Search

I've been using Google Desktop Search at work. What I like most about it is that it can search through Outlook mail and even your offline .pst files. Another feature that I initially did not think I would like but now adore is that when searching Google.com results from the Desktop search show up also. This comes in handy when searching for a Cisco configuration command for example. In my Google results I'll get to see results from the web plus any E-mail messages that may contain the command I'm looking for. Very nice. If you have to use Windows you might as well add Google Desktop Search.

For a nice introduction see Google Your Desktop at oreillynet.com. If you are worried about privacy be sure to opt out of sending information back to Google.

Us Mac user's will have to wait for Spotlight in the upcoming Tiger release of OS X because the rumours of Google Desktop Search (GDS) coming to OS X were greatly exaggerated.

From what I have seen Spotlight will not quite be what GDS is and I'm worried that Apple may have it only work with Mail and Safari.

GDS seems to have the search once, find anywhere concept down whereas Spotlight will only search your computer. There is a Java program called x-friend. I have not tried it yet but the concept goes even beyond what GDS can do. From the description:

x-friend's search functionality includes full text search and meta data search. Search results will be displayed within seconds and can be categorized by file type, date, size etc.

Additionally, x-friend searches the internet, product catalogues, internet news (RSS-feeds), emails and other search services.

x-friend offers a P2P-like search in external shared folders of other x-friend users.

Yahoo Video Search

Yahoo has added Video search. It is supposed to be an improvement over what Yahoo! owned Altavista used to provide.

By using the Advanced Preferences you can seach by file type (e.g.QuickTime).

Tear It Down

Live image from Front St. with a direct view of the Bay Side Power Plant demolition.

New Channels on Charter's Digital Tier

The Outdoor Channel is now on channel 166 and Fox Movie Channel on channel 144. Also watch for more content next year on TCAPS channel 63.