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by the way, Firefox doesn't not effectively block pop ups. Just go to drudgereport.com. you will get popups.

Nope. Firefox not only blocks pop-ups in 99.9% of the instances that a pop-up is attempted (I have actually had TWO pop-ups since I switched to Firefox), it saves you from dozens ofinstances of spyware per internet surfing session. A friend and I did an experement about 3 mos ago where we took two systems, installed a fresh version of Windows XP (Scv Pk 1) and installed no programs on either, except for Firefox. We then launched IE on one system, and Firefox on the other, and started surfing. We went to exactly the same sites, and spent as close to the same amount of time on each site as we could. Our next move was to install Lavasoft AdAware, and Spybot. After running both programs, AdAware found 8 tracking cookies on the Firefox system (easily removed), but the IE machine was laden with over 38 instances of Spyware, as well as TWICE the number of tracking cookies that Firefox picked up. IE sucks, and won't be launched on any system I own ever again, except for the occasional ActiveX app that I MUST run. I removed all references of IE on all the workstations on my work network, as well as my three systems at home.

A friend and I did an experement about 3 mos ago where we took two systems, installed a fresh version of Windows XP (Scv Pk 1) and installed no programs on either, except for Firefox.

Your experiment is BOGUS. SP1 came out, what, beginning of September 2002 I think? I'll wager that you weren't using a two year old copy of firefox?

I can't image anyone in their right mind would use Windows sans all security updates in the past two years. Two year old Linux installs have security issues as well (to name one? The SSH Remote Buffer Overflow Vulnerability announced ~ Sept 2003). A lot of these are very well known now, with example code published in security journals, and exploring them is fairly trivial.

Besides a more realistic test would be IE with a tool like EMS Free Surfer MKII (to block pop-ups) installed, and heck I would also throw in SpywareBlaster (to prevent known spyware registry entries) or SpyBot's TeaTimer because they are free and easily installed just like Firefox. Why? Because this isn't about being "fair" it is real world browsing experiences with both browsers. If you intentionally ignore easy steps you can take to make things more secure your test no longer reflects real usage.

-paridel

I disagree with the poster you replied to as well, but in the interest of having all the facts out you can configure IE to be every bit as effective at blocking popups as Firfox (both of which I use, by the way).

For general popups, you can use the integrated popup blocker in XPSP-2. I prefer the blocker in the Google toolbar, available for free download. You can also NOT install Shockwave to eliminate those types of popups. IE can also be configured to block all cookies.