Within the next month Microsoft will release Internet Explorer version 7.0, and Mozilla will release Firefox 2.0. It is very remeniscent of the days when IE and Netscape battled it out for browser dominance. IE eventually won, but cost Microsoft an anti-trust suit.

Firefox is quickly challenging IE these days, as IE has been susceptible to multiple security flaws. IE 6.0 constantly has to be updated for the latest security issue.

While the “official” releases are still days away, I downloaded the latest beta versions for review of both browsers and I don’t like what I see.

The good news is that both browsers offer more secure features including phishing blockers and other enhancements, they also “claim” to be more compatible with HTML and CSS standards for web design. Both of these are good things, except that many web pages may not look normal under the new browsers as they use non-standard code. Thats the good news.

Now for the bad: Both browsers are not very compatible with their earlier incarnations, so until people actually convert, we will have four browsers clogging up the works.

IE 6 is still going to be used heavily as there are a lot of people still using 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP SP1, as well as a lot of people just saying “no” to the optional upgrade.

Meanwhile, as word spreads that old themes and extensions used in firefox 1.5 won’t work right in 2.0, there may be some firefox users staying away from upgrading there too.

What I have seen in IE 7, I do not like. The biggest negative is that its “sleek” looking interface is a radical departure from IE 6. Since most of IE 6 users are web novices, I forsee a lot of people having difficulty understanding the interface, and not being able to find the buttons they knew how to use before. The top bar contains in order: back, forward, address, refresh, stop, search, search options. This cannot be changed or adjusted in any way (at least in the RC1 release). Also what used to be at the top — File Edit View Favorites Tools Help — is by default not turned on. You can right click the top and enable “Menu Bar”, but it will still sit below the top bar.

IE 7 seems to be designed for naive web users. Every window, including popups with the address bar disabled will still have an address bar for no reason. Second, try and copy and paste anything into a web forum (like a blog) and you get a warning message “Do you want to allow this website access to your clipboard?” like this is a security concern. There are currently no options to turn off these annoying “features”.

Meanwhile, the currently extensionless Firefox 2.0 has problems of its own. It’s implementation of Javascript is bugged. Trying to play my Dating Simulator in Firefox is an exercise in frustration, while it works fine in IE. ( I tried to debug it for firefox use, and found it basically hopeless). It does not work very good in 1.5 ether, but you would think they would have fixed it by now, especially since they upgraded to javascript 1.7.

Javascript and extension issues aside, I thing Firefox 2.0 is the better of the two. I’d prefer IE 6 with tabs, rather than IE 7, but rumor is IE 7 will be an automatic update download, making 6.0 an unsupported orphan.

Metaverse News browsers, Dating Simulator, firefox, IE

http://www.nyclivewindow.com/

Intel is sponsoring a cross link between SL and RL as master builder kess quinn (aka versu richelieu) builds the world around a New York street corner in a span of 72 hours.

Check out the report on RocketBoom

Here is the real life address of the project

Here is the second life address of the project

Virtual Society Media, mirror worlds, secondlife

For the last week, Second Life has been repeatedly griefed by hackers using scripts that rez thousands, even millions of objects, overwhelming the grid. SL has been shut down almost daily for the last week because of it.

If they catch who is doing it, it is criminal. Stopping legitimate business from taking place is a federal offense.

What should be done about it is regulating the use of llRezObject the scripting command that starts the ball rolling. The problem is that llRezObject is often used for hundreds of legitimate purposes. I use it all the time in my "holodeck" house.

If I were in charge, this would be my fix:

1. Any object containing a script that gets rezzed using llRezObject would not run the script for at least 20 seconds. This would likely be troublesome for many objects, like the popular splashing water the rezzes a prim and starts a particle splash as soon as a collision is detected.
2. If one server executes more than 100 llRezObject commands in a minute, it will not execute the command again for at least 10 minutes.
3. If one server executes more than 1000 llRezObject commands in a minute, the llRezObject command will be disabled on that server till someone at Linden Labs turns it back on.

These are actually quite drastic measures that would affect everybody, but if that is what it takes to permanently stop griefers then that is what it takes.

Metaverse News secondlife