Miscellaneous > Applications
Netscape 7.0 Shrivels Under Mozilla's Shadow
voidmain:
Actually I originally mentioned the "runonce" registry key which is used by any application that wants to use it. There is one for HKLM and HKCU. When you install an application it can use that key to run a program once after a reboot or login, then it removes the program from the key. Many Windows viruses use this key. However, I was thinking of the runonce.asp page.
And there was an article about why MSN was getting such a large number of hits because IE defaulted to it. Are you saying that MS doesn't own MSN? I would not consider this a serious case of phone home, but it's surely phone home when they use the collected information (such as IE hit count on MSN). My prefered browser (Konqueror) opens up to a page on the local hard drive on a default installation. I much prefer that.
Zombie9920:
MSN.com (Microsoft Network) is definatley owned by MS obviously. Them having a hit counter is nothing. I know tons of sites that have a hit counter. If the browser was phoning home with info about the name of the registered user for the particular installation of Windows, about your system, etc. it would connect to a server that has microsoft.com on it. Like when WMP connects/phones home to get info about a CD that you are playing in it, or if it is checking a digital signature on protected content it connects to windowsmedia.microsoft.com . Of course WMP phoning home on those occasions is no big deal if you ask me. Before anyone comments on WMP phoning home occasionaly I'll just take my time to remind you all that most modern media players do phone home to get album info(like Winamp, Creative PlayCenter, MusicMatch JukeBox, RealPlayer, etc.) so it isn't something that you can criticize MS for. It sure beats the hell out of having to manually enter album and track info(like you had to do with the CD Player in Windows 95).
voidmain:
Well there is a fair amount of information that can come from an IE browser "hit". You can tell the version of IE, the version of OS, the IP address that the hit is from, etc, etc. Now it may be far fetched but that information could be used to trigger an audit of a company based on this information (who knows what criteria goes into the M$ audit triggers).
Calum:
maybe that's one of the usual ways they decide to audit somebody?
quote:If the browser was phoning home with info about the name of the registered user for the particular installation of Windows, about your system, etc. it would connect to a server that has microsoft.com on it.
--- End quote ---
what? why?
what's to stop Microsoft registering other domain names just for this purpose to try and throw you off the scent?
also, i have winamp, i also have CDexOS. both can access the internet if i allow it, but to download track listings and so on, they only connect to the FreeCDDB server. they do not 'phone home'. Do you only trust Microsoft certified track listings now?
might i add that the several procedures you have mentioned already in this thread zombie are not widely known about or used. they are fiddly and will not be found in any docs or help files by the casual user.
also, how can you trust a browser that is integrated into your operating system?
one last point, mozilla and opera run on about eight types of operating system, how many does IE run on?
Zombie9920:
quote:Originally posted by Calum:
maybe that's one of the usual ways they decide to audit somebody? what? why?
what's to stop Microsoft registering other domain names just for this purpose to try and throw you off the scent?
also, i have winamp, i also have CDexOS. both can access the internet if i allow it, but to download track listings and so on, they only connect to the FreeCDDB server. they do not 'phone home'. Do you only trust Microsoft certified track listings now?
might i add that the several procedures you have mentioned already in this thread zombie are not widely known about or used. they are fiddly and will not be found in any docs or help files by the casual user.
also, how can you trust a browser that is integrated into your operating system?
one last point, mozilla and opera run on about eight types of operating system, how many does IE run on?
--- End quote ---
Creative Playcenter also connects to CDDB. The point is, other media players phone to a home too(CDDB being the home being phoned to for a couple of the players..who is to say CDDB doesn't collect data about a user though?). MS doesn't have to rely on a retrieval service like CDDB because they are large enough to have thier own retrieval databse. Collecting media info is nothing anyone should be worried about.
The idea of MS registring another domain to throw people off is a clever thought. However, I still don't think that IE phones home because the only addresses that show up on my firewall log are addresses that I have visited(nothing suspicious has ever come up) and the IP's of lamers who try to port sniff me and/or try to hack me(nobody has ever successfully broke through though ). IE runs on 2 different OSes...Windows and MacOS.
Do I only trust MS certified track listings? Nope, not at all. I don't even bother with propriarity formats that can be protected(like wma and wmv). If I get something that is propriarity I use the appropriate program to convert it to non-propriarity(I've taken a serious liking to TMPGEnc Plus for all of my propriarity video to mpeg video conversion needs). The only formats I will use on my system are MP3 for audio and MPEG/MPG for video. I refuse to use Quicktime, Real Media or Windows Media propriarity formats. ;P
[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]
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