Ie 8

tombruton87

Infections there is no infections known here. Just ie8 cant handle modern websites using html5, CSS3 and is lacking a decent JavaScript engine.

Uninstalling sp3 is a bad idea will open up some vulnerabilities. However your linux home router will help you. (your router does run on linux! maybe bsd)

firefox is my fave chrome is slightly faster one of those 2 u cant go wrong. opera is alright so is safari.

all in all anything is better than ie, every version of ie is a nightmare for web devs including 10

Laz123

tombruton87 wrote: »

Infections there is no infections known here. Just ie8 cant handle modern websites using html5, CSS3 and is lacking a decent JavaScript engine.

Uninstalling sp3 is a bad idea will open up some vulnerabilities. However your linux home router will help you. (your router does run on linux! maybe bsd)

firefox is my fave chrome is slightly faster one of those 2 u cant go wrong. opera is alright so is safari.

all in all anything is better than ie, every version of ie is a nightmare for web devs including 10

Uninstalling sp3 is no risk because you're going to reinstall it straight away. As I said I've done it dozens of times and never picked up any nasties during the process.

victor2

Laz123 wrote: »

Uninstalling sp3 is no risk because you're going to reinstall it straight away. As I said I've done it dozens of times and never picked up any nasties during the process.

Guess you've never had a machine refuse to boot after installing SP3 then? Had two out of plenty I've seen go OK. Neither would get past the POST screen and just hung on a totally blank screen. Did a full factory re-install on one and SP3 subsequently applied OK. Fixed the other with an XP repair disk, only the other week funnily enough.

pendragon_arther

victor2 wrote: »

Guess you've never had a machine refuse to boot after installing SP3 then? Had two out of plenty I've seen go OK. Neither would get past the POST screen and just hung on a totally blank screen. Did a full factory re-install on one and SP3 subsequently applied OK. Fixed the other with an XP repair disk, only the other week funnily enough.

Strange. I've never heard of any folk having probs like that. Maybe there were infections you hadn't cleared first or some system files had corrupted. BTW it's best to install in safe mode if you can.

Hasbeen

Can the op not change to the £25 version of windows 8?
Updated version ie9?
Have heard XP will be unsupported in near future?

victor2

pendragon_arther wrote: »

Strange. I've never heard of any folk having probs like that. Maybe there were infections you hadn't cleared first or some system files had corrupted. BTW it's best to install in safe mode if you can.

It was a known problem when it was released, still goes on I suppose, just google for the problem.

Hasbeen wrote: »

Can the op not change to the £25 version of windows 8?
Updated version ie9?
Have heard XP will be unsupported in near future?

Support for XP is ceasing in 2014 I believe, but doubtless it will be around for years. Besides, try running Windows 8 on a machine happily running XP.
And Windows 8 comes with the delights of IE10, should you be determined to stick with MS products.

Lum

Support for XP is indeed ending in 2014. This means that if any vulnerabilities are discovered in XP after this date (and it is almost certain that this will happen) Microsoft will not be issuing any fixes and your computer will be increasingly vulnerable to malware and scams (even moreso than it is already)

XP really does need to die but I have no doubt people will continue to use it, same as there are still some people using Windows bloody 98, dial-up AOL and driving around in clapped out old bangers with faulty brakes and leaking oil all over the road.

Run the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant it will tell you how well your system will run Windows 8 before you hand over any money for the new version (It's £25 until the end of the year).

If you can't run Windows 8, or don't want to, then you're going to have to use an alternative browser, Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera are the most popular options. But you still ought to consider getting rid of XP in the next year or so.

closed

I havent seen many advances since XP with SP2, just more bloat, the vulnerability angle of unpatched systems is overblown, virus scanners still work, there's still one for 98 too. There's a ton of bloat running under vista/W7, of no benefit to most users.

Lum

Virus scanners don't get anything. No security measure gets anything and a lot of modern malware targets multiple vulnerabilities, some of it even needs a combination of vulnerabilities in order to get in at all.

For example an infected banner ad may make use of an exploit in IE8 to log in to the control panel of your router and forward a port to the Windows file sharing service where another vulnerability will be used to disable certain common virus scanners and install some malware that runs on the next reboot.

The more things you can keep up to date and patched the better. Relying on AV on an otherwise unpatched system would be like relying on a heavy front door lock but leaving your windows unlocked.

closed

may and may not