Ways to fight spam- Change ya browser!

I was reading on slashdot today (16 July 2003) about the weaknesses of Internet browsers, particularly Internet Explorer. What struck me as particularly funny was the comment by one user: Using Internet Explorer (IE for short) is like walking into a battlefield with a large bull’s eye on your head (user: viceice).

I use IE a lot, and I perfectly agree. I don’t like it, but in college it is the only browser that we can use. I’m currently trying to find out how to bypass the firewalls and switch to Mozilla. I like Mozilla for one reason and for one reason alone. That reason makes it far more superior to IE and puts Mozilla in a class of its own. Mozilla allows only pop-ups that you want.

We are all familiar with pop-ups. When we click on a website, we not only have the page loading, but also those annoying pop-ups as well. Having taken marketing during my foundation last year, I understand the need for a company and its product to stand out of a crowd. Let me point out, for no particular reason, that I don’t mind banners. I don’t mind them at all, except when they get into the way of me reading something.

The only person who does that is Geocities. Excuse me while I go and see whether my Tripod account is still about.

* Ahem! *

Sorry about that. I really like wandering off now and then.

What I meant to say was that if you take a concept or idea that in the beginning was creative, it would tend to wear out after a while. Now, we know that most things on the net have a short lifespan. Add to the vast amount of copycats, and well, if the product last more than six months you have good reason to be impressed. For some reason the Sims come to mind.

Well, pop-up are overused and over-annoying. Mozilla does what may seem to some as a tiny feature, but to the rest of us it’s a godsend. (Please bless the guy who came up with the idea, and then bless the guy who programmed it and the guy who allowed it to be used in the browser Lord).

Now, let’s say that a game page is loading. And then an ad pop-up appears. Mozilla blocks that ad pop-up. No big deal. IE and Opera (I think) can do that. What they can’t do is to choose which pop-up to block and which not to. Mozilla can. Let’s say on that website I click a link that will automatically open a new page (not an ad). While Mozilla allows me to do that and block the ads, none of the other browsers do. Is there any wonder why I love Mozilla, despite never having used it?