A Sad Sad Day...

[Jammrock]

After seeing what computer illiteracy and IE negligence can do to a computer - in case you were curious, over 1147 items and 25 different infestations that were so bad the system had to formatted and re-installed to get rid of them all - today I installed a vrius scanner and spyware monitor on my home PC for the first time. Mainly because my wife refuses to use any other web broswer but IE

AVG Free v. 7 and MS Antispyware beta with active monitoring are now installed and running. I'm so sad. I need a computer all to myself so it can be free of computer negligence

Jammrock ...the sad...

[Sasq]

just link the IE icon to FF or < shudder > opera, maybe she won't notice, just tell her its a new IE upgrade or something?

[Wombat]

There is a skin that makes Firefox look like IE.

Install Spybod S&D on there man. If nothing else, its "Immunize" will be a handy way to reduce the number of attackers.

If it were my computer, I'd turn the security settings on IE up to safe (read: unusable) levels.

[az]

http://my.opera.com/Rijk/journal/43

Just install these skins and setups etc. for her, configure Opera for SDI mode, and if she still notices, I can dig up some posts about replacing Opera's Icon and app name.

Opera 8 Beta 2 is stable enough for her, I think, and you can install that and have your Opera installed somewhere else without problems. If you already have different windows user accounts it's even easier, because you can have different setups for each account in Opera.

I am recommending Opera 8 Beta 2 because it is already very stable and features inline error messages like IE and pop-up blocking notifications. The setups in the post I linked to most probably won't work well for Opera 7.54, but if you want, I can dig up compatible setups for that.

AZ

[Nowhere]

You know, even whole SYSTEMS can be made to look like different ones

[UtwigMU]

Give wife User or Poweruser status, set IE security to high.

Install Avast antivirus (it acts as a proxy now and scans for virus installs from browser) - free for home use with registration.

Or build a dedicated cheapo websurfer (case, nF2 or SiS 756 board, Sempron, Matrox G-series. When it's ****ed just reimage it.

[The PIT]

The bad news is that there's spyware coming that will infect via Firefox and other Browsers. Also this one is an interesting and annoying method of attack.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/11/alternative_slimeware/

Alternatively install Linux and Skin it like XP or give her a Mac.

[az]

This does not work automatically, and please note that while theoretically this would also work on Opera, the variant that is now in the wild apparently doesn't.

AZ

[Jammrock]

All good suggestion I'll think about them, but it will require testing.

My wife does mystery shopping and online test scoring for high schol graduation essay (if you have a kid in a CA High School, pray their paper doesn't come across my wife ), which use some of the funkiest plug-ins and log-in methods. I would have ot make sure they all work with FireFox before I could pull it off. One even require JVM

Jammrock

[az]

There is also a neat button for Opera "Open in IE" or "Open in FF" etc. - but that would require her cooperation

Why don't you just tell her how it is? Using IE is like living in a bad neighbourhood (the intarweb) and keeping your door and windows open when going on vacation.

AZ

[az]

Uh Jamm, I don't want to come across as an Opera evangelist (I know I do, anyway ), but I think you've been a fan of Opera before, and now you wrote FF. May I know why? Was it the gmail stuff?

AZ

[Helevitia]

Install Spybod S&D on there man. If nothing else, its "Immunize" will be a handy way to reduce the number of attackers.

Microsoft anti-spyware "immunizes" as well and the interface is way easier to use and it gives you much more information. Even though it is a beta, it is very stable. I'd recommend it.

[DirtFarmer]

AVG Free v. 7 and MS Antispyware beta with active monitoring are now installed and running. I'm so sad. I need a computer all to myself so it can be free of computer negligence

Jammrock ...the sad...

Don't be too sad, at least you found 2 very good free programs to help protect your system. MS Antispyware is very good and so is AVG. No product is perfect but as long as you can keep your AVG signatures up to date it will help keep things from getting where they were before. Now hurry up and make an image of the system drive once things are all installed.

[DirtFarmer]

Microsoft anti-spyware "immunizes" as well and the interface is way easier to use and it gives you much more information. Even though it is a beta, it is very stable. I'd recommend it.

Even though it is beta, it was based on a very good antispyware product from Giant Company Software. Check it's performance out in this review from last October.

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-3.htm

As you can see, just like with antivirus, you need to use multiple tools to get them all.

[Jammrock]

I still use Opera exclusively ... unless I hit a site that either refuses to let me use it in Opera *coughHeavy.comcough* or the rare occasion it doesn't work. I use the nocheckbrowser tag for Gmail now, and that works great.

I mention FF because my wife hates Opera. She b*tches every time she clicks a link and Opera opens it. I figure if I got the right plugins for FF I might get her to switch to it.

...and I have Open in IE added into my right-click menu. Opera rules!