Blogcritics: Comments on Mozilla Firefox Security Flaws Exposed

Comment by ScotsRob

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 04:26:26 EDT

It's all about a thing called 'value leverage'...The contributors to this blog are in psychographic terms 'innovators'...i.e. people interested in technology. Mainstream markets consist of people who are interested in the application of technology and only take a passing interest in its nuts and bolts. IBM got this wrong in the early 80's when it failed to understand 'a standard' has more value than manufacturing excellence (this is what it chose as its basis of competitive advantage with the launch of the 5150) Actual risk and perceived risk are different. The perceived risk is a systems architecture that has no support, migration path, or skills pool. The actual risk is loss of availability, loss of data and confidentiality. Mainstream markets perceive risk differently from technologists and therefore value 'security' differently. Microsoft wrote the standards book and is well aware of what is valued by mainstream markets.

Comment by Antfreeze

Wed, 11 May 2005 08:14:02 EDT

Dead on Greg. That this country decided to allow MS to become the only legal monopoly just amazes me. It has created exactly the situation described in Business 101. Lack of competition stifles innovation and creates companies unresponsive to customer complaints. If there's no alternative to MS then why should they bother fixing anything? Just throw some new un-needed features in to keep the marketing boys happy and sell, sell, sell.

Comment by Greg Jackson

Wed, 11 May 2005 03:29:30 EDT

The closing argument may be weak - but the alternative is weaker. Nature discovered strength through diversity many millions of years ago. Non-diverse populations are vulnerable because they are all prone to the same weaknesses - when one dies, they all die (or, at least, a lot do). We need similar diversity in technology to create strength through cross-fertilisation, and improvement through competitive innovation. I will contnue to back Firefox (which has shown no more vulnerability than IE) because diversity is important for the long term.

Comment by Aaman

Tue, 10 May 2005 23:03:57 EDT

Ah, the pleasure of unsubstantiated opinions.

Comment by Al

Tue, 10 May 2005 23:00:58 EDT

I didn't leave IE because of its security problems. I left because of Microsoft's arrogance. All software has vulnerabilities. MS software is loaded with gratuitous vulnerabilities that demonstrate MS's contempt for its user base.

Comment by Bill Wallo

Tue, 10 May 2005 10:45:06 EDT

You may be right about the weak closing argument - it's still early here. :) However, I think it depends on how you look at the "pitch." Is it one "or" the other, or one "and" the other? Security has been a big claim, as has stability and file size (Firefox is much smaller, cleaner code, etc - who knows, maybe that plays into the ability to identify flaws). But the open source nature of Firefox makes it more receptive to customization and innovation than IE has been. For many people, such as myself, those innovations were the reason to switch (if I were really concerned about security, I'd own an Apple, and I don't). So while you may feel that the pitch is shifting, I think it is a multiple-pronged issue rather than one single thing. Thanks for the input, though.

Comment by Aaman

Tue, 10 May 2005 10:35:29 EDT

Great opening line - weak closing argument though. Firefox isn't all about security; it's also about an improved browser experience - Firefox, and most of the non-Microsoft competition tends to shift their pitch when convenient, no offense meant personally.