Although the problem re. IE6 not being able to render the entire thread has been fixed for a while now, the load time issue has not only not improved, but has actually gotten noticeably worse.

Particularly noticeable is the amount of time required to download images & videos; and, data acquired from 600z.com.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

I don't remember now the threads where I couldn't get past part of the 1st page, so I don't know if that's been fixed for me. But yes, the site's load time is horrendous.

That's a spyware/adware place anyway, just block them in your hosts file or IE's Restricted Sites zones. It's possible by blocking all that it may make the rest of the page (the content that you want to see) load faster.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

True; and, already done on my own machines.

However, I'm away from those a good bit, using clients' machines; I have neither the time nor the desire to be mucking around with other people's Hosts files and/or Browser Settings.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

Here we go again. There are threads now, to which I am subscribed and previously posted in, where the page is logging me out! Every time I go to this page Images become pixelated when changing to transparent background I'm logged out and can no longer post at it!

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Very odd.

I just now subscribed to the cited thread, and made 2 posts to it, all with no problem.

I've had random occurrences of being spuriously logged out in the past, with no discernible pattern or cause. Corrupted cookies?

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

No, whatever it was, it was the exact same thing that happened last month or so that I mentioned either above, or on that dedicated "can't subscribe to threads" thread.

Last time, and this time, I was able to post at some threads, but not others! When I would go to a "working" thread I stayed logged in. But when I moved to another screwed up thread, I was logged out! Then if I'd go back to the working thread, I'm logged back in!

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

I'm still leaning toward a cookie related issue.

Until recently, TR's persistent cookies consisted of :

• bblastvisit
• bblastactivity
• bbuserlgv (IE only?)
• bbuserid

Beginning at 23:05 GMT, 25 MAY, a new persistent cookie, bbpasswordvbseo_loggedin, with a time-to-live of 1 hr. was added, with a new one being automatically created at 1 hr. intervals so long as one remains logged in.

Additionally, I have lately noted similar problems with more than a few other sites. Of those for which the cause has been determined, all owed to cookies being purged by various anti-spyware applications and/or "junk" removers.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

What is "TR"?

If it was a Cookie problem, it would be site-wide here. But it only affects one thread at a time.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

My mistake; TR should have been WPW (this site.)

And, as strange as it may seem, I've witnessed more than one occasion where a cookie problem was page specific, particularly with regards to whether or not the user is logged in.

In fact, at this very moment, I'm dealing with just such a problem on an ASP's site, where the problem is both page & function dependent!

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

Ahhh.


How do you know it's a Cookie problem, and how can something like that be page-specific? I'm curious to know. And what would make the page ok moments later, after not doing anything.

I can understand how other Cookie "problems" may be page-specific, such as one page may have a bad malware/adware Cookie and other same site pages may not (which is not really a problem there because you want them to be blocked), but those are not going to affect login. Like at this site WPW, those "ajz600" (or something like that) Cookies are blocked by SpyBot or Spyware Blaster, but that doesn't affect login.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

On the site in question, a session cookie is updated whenever a server request is made, thus acting as a "keep alive."

Under certain circumstances, when using the local Search function from the home page, rather than from an interior page, the user is thrown back to a log-in screen, indicative of either the keep-alive cookie not having been properly updated or interrogated. Why this is happening I've no idea.

I've also seen cases where the local time/date being set to a time zone different than that of the user's ISP has caused problems for a particular distributed system, dependent on which particular server is handling the the request, causing it to think that cookies are being blocked!

Awhile back the financial firm ING had a similar problem with its serial log-in screens, which was caused by a scripting bug that caused cookies to be mis-handled under certain circumstances; not only was the problem data dependent, but browser dependent as well.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

Ok thanks. LOL. Here at WPW, what happens at the problem pages is I'm simply not logged in, otherwise the page appears the same as being logged in. When I try and login, it goes through the normal process of showing my username on that redirect page and that I'm being redirected back to the page, but when it goes back to the page I'm logged out again. I can click to go to other pages from the problem page, and I'm logged in on those.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Yup; I see that more often than I'd like.

In addition to the ASP site mentioned, it happens frequently with Bank of America's site as well, particularly if I've more than one of their pages open at one time. In fact, BoA's standard boilerplate 1st response to reports of problems with their site is too close your browser, clear the cache, and delete all BoA cookies. Of course, the average user has no idea how to find all of them, and BoA provides no guidance in this regard.

Given that TCP/IP is stateless, and we're thus stuck with kludges in an attempt to preserve statefulness throughout a session, I just thankful that it works as well as it does; though, I'm none too happy when it prevents me from doing something that's time critical.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

This site is also still taking f...o...r...e...v...e...r to load. I have to click the link in the email, then go do something else for 2-3 minutes while the page loads. If I'm browsing the threads, I have to right click and open every link in a new window.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Hm-mm; sounds like a problem in the cloud. I'ts quite snappy here.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

Must be some kind of a "permanent network problem". It's like that all the time on my end since they made all these site changes.

The one fix I finally see is they finally fixed the page layout problem.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

This is infuriating and apparently none of the mods care. Once again, this is the ONLY thread to which I am subscribed, to which I can post! I just clicked the thread links in 4 WPW emails I received and I can't post at ANY of them because the pages are logging me out! I go to the homepage and I'm logged in! I click on any of the threads and I'm logged out!

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

It's posts like this that that tend to "infuriate" me.

First off... mods do not have access to try and correct these kind of issues. We can only pass info on to the appropriate people if by chance they've not seen the post(s) among the hundreds and hundreds that get made. This has been being done.

Since it's not a widespread issue, it's even more difficult to isolate and correct.

Have you changed your email address? If so, it's waiting for you to confirm in order to reset your permissions.

Dave

__________________
Religious-Jewelry Blog - Deep Link Directory - Religious Jewelry

His profile is exactly like every other user here. Nothing is specially marked or flagged.

That doesn't surprise me, anything I do "infuriates" you. You simply don't like me. (I guess it's because you're a big G supporter, and I hate them; calling them out on their various atrocities against totally innocent site owners. Personal feelings should not get in the way and sway one's feelings towards another for speaking facts).

This whole thread should infuriate you. Perhaps if the problems were fixed, there would be no cause for members to get infuriated.


Ok, I was not aware the mods could not fix the problem, I apologize. So then, why don't you or someone keep "passing the info along to the appropriate people" so then they will fix the problems? Maybe WPW needs to find some other "appropriate people" to fix it. Everyone has been more than patient. This has been going on for months and there is no excuse for it.


I understand. And since it is a widespread issue, that's all the more reason to expedite a fix.


No, like I've been saying on this thread, it only happens on certain threads. If my email address were or were not changed, that would not explain why it happens only on certain threads. The pages will simply not allow any login. I'm supposedly logged out according to the pages, the user name login box is blank. I enter my info, login, I'm sent to the redirecting page saying "thank you for logging in" or something like that, then it goes back to the page and I'm logged out!

This will go on for several hours, then sometime hours later I can finally get to the threads and post without me doing anything! So that doesn't make any sense.

I think you would be infuriated too, if every time you tried to post a contribution to a thread to try and help someone by answering their post, or needed to post an important question related to a thread, you could not because you were logged out of the page. That would aggravate anyone.

Thanks.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Total nonsense.

I just got done posting that was exactly what was being done. Reading is fundamental.

Rah just got done posting that your profile is no different than any other member here. Where are the throngs of members whining about this problem?

I can count them on one hand. That's not widespread.

Tell you what, give me the list of every single thread that you have this problem with, and your password.

Let's see I can make a post in everyone of them without problem from one of my computers.

If not me, ask Rah. Then he'll see first hand what the problem is... if it's not on your end.

Dave

__________________
Religious-Jewelry Blog - Deep Link Directory - Religious Jewelry

From what I have seen, this is not a widespread issue. I have only seen it reported by 2-3 users so far. That does not mean that the issue is taken any less seriously, but it does mean that we have less information to work with to find the source of the problem and correct it.

The first step is to find out what is different, from account settings to network conditions, to browser settings between people that are experiencing the problem and those that aren't. From the account side, there are no differences between your user account and anyone else's.

The next step is to try to replicate the problem and try to find the source. Unfortunately, so far we have not been able to replicate the symptoms that you describe. Based on the low number of users reporting the same system, and the inability of anyone to reproduce the issue, it is possible an unusual setting or configuration on your end is the cause of the issue.

The next step to troubleshoot the problem is to collect additional information about the steps leading up to the problem. If possible, please send me a PM with the following information:

• As you have stated that you only experience this issue when attempting to post in threads that you have subscribed to, what is the method you are using to subscribe to these threads?
• What is the method you are using to reply to the thread? (Quick reply/advanced)
• At what point do you notice you are logged out? (When viewing the thread, when started to type in the quick reply box, when going to advanced reply, when submitting the reply)
• What browser are you using? Please note the version and build from the Help > About menu, and what operating system you are using.
• Is your computer connected directly to the Internet through a dial up modem? If not, what hardware (please include model numbers) is between your computer and the Internet? Please include the model number of the modem, as some modems include embedded routers.
• What antivirus, antispam, antimalware and software firewalls are installed on your computer?

Have you experienced the reported issues when accessing this site from a different computer that is on a seperate network, and thus using an outside Internet connection? What about when attempting to use the site from a seperate computer on the same network?

__________________
The best way to learn anything, is to question everything.

I could have sworn your post said it was a widespread issue, that's why I said that. I see now you said it was not.

Using your term "whining" is totally uncalled for, and unprofessional of you. Every time anyone "complains" or "reports" something that you don't agree with, or you want to belittle, you call it "whining". No one is "whining". So you see it's not "total nonsense" that you hate me. If it would be anyone else, you would not call it whining. It is a problem, along with the other problems reported in this thread, a problem that is being reported, not whining about. I've never done anything negative towards you, so your attitude and treatment towards me is most puzzling.


Ok I can do that. But the problem has not happened today, clicking on the links I received in WPW emails today, it's not happening today. It's been an ongoing intermittent problem. So I'll have to wait till it happens again, then post the threads.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Let's back the truck up for just minute. You post...

How's that not negative?

and...

<my bolding>

You hate me? How's that not negative?

FTR... I'm not a "big G supporter".

Now, when you say I don't care as a mod about a problem you're experiencing (which is not the case), accuse me of "not liking you" (not the case), post that you hate me because I'm a "big G supporter" (not the case), suggest that the problem keeps getting passed on to the appropriate people (which I had already posted was being done), and directly tell me that it is a widespread issue when I had already clearly posted that it is not, then yes, AFAIC that's whining. Sorry you don't like that word but I used it based upon what was posted not who posted it.

Wige (another mod who you say doesn't care), has offered some solid suggestions to potentially help isolate what the problem may be AND to help determine if the problem is on your end and not something that need be "fixed" here. You might consider those as well.

Dave

__________________
Religious-Jewelry Blog - Deep Link Directory - Religious Jewelry

Where the hell does it say I hate you?? No where. I said I hated GOOGLE. Are you google? No. And it's nice to hear you're not a G supporter.


Did I not already address that? Yes: "I could have sworn your post said it was a widespread issue, that's why I said that. I see now you said it was not."


And I PM'd him answering his questions as he asked.

Perhaps I should also put them here so all can see them:

Wige, most of this I mentioned before, but I put it below again:

Both methods; "subscribe to this thread", and automatically being subscribed when I post.


Both ways, but of course neither way can be used if the thread won't allow me to login. I of course do not try to even reply, if it won't let me login. I can see that I'm not logged in when the user and password box is there, and the Quick Reply area is gone.


When I immediately go to the thread. I mentioned before: The pages will simply not allow any login. I'm supposedly logged out according to the pages, the user name login box is blank. I enter my info, login, I'm sent to the redirecting page saying "thank you for logging in" or something like that, then it goes back to the page and I'm logged out! I should mention again, the problem is intermittent.


IE6 XP Pro SP3. It also happens on FF 2.0.0.20 so it's not IE.


No, 6mb DSL from BellSouth. Integrated Intel PRO 1000 Gigabit NIC/LAN, Westell 6100 DSL Ethernet modem, Motorola BR700 router.


That's NA because I can disable ALL of them and it still happens.


I don't have access to a different network. The next time it happens, I'll try it on another PC, but it of course is on the same network.
Thanks,
-Clint

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Off topic:
Is there some reason why you refuse to upgrade your browsers? IE 6? FF 2? As testing browsers, I can see a reason to hang on to them on an extra, unused machine; but on a day-to-day machine? Why not go with the latest versions?

For the record, it must be noted that it is the general rule that the overwhelming majority of people never report problems of any kind. Therefore, that there has here been no great outcry here is wholly unsurprising.

I too have observed similar intermittent problems here, but have made no mention of such owing to my being unable to discern any pattern, without which determining the cause is exceedingly difficult.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

Because latest doesn't mean best, in any sense of the word.

__________________
The Penn State Ticket Man http://www.pennstateticketman.com
http://www.happyvalleytickets.com http://www.hounddogtours.com

While that may be true, a 3 year old browser (ie6) is heading toward obsolescence real fast and the lack of support should not be surprising.. Our biggest most non tech website sees about 18% of its users using ie6.. Still a fair number.. But it is dropping steadily every month.. ie7 is about double that and ie8 is about half of that.. Roughly..

Surprisingly exactly 1 person out of 2.2million visits in the last month used ie4.01.. Probably one of the 78 people still running Win95..

__________________
Steve : Animal Charms Animal Jewelry | Fishing Blog
I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off of this plan.

The improved level of compliance and the tighter security are two good reasons to stay with the latest versions, that come to mind. I'll wager that more and more older sites are starting to show their flaws as the antiquated coding and hacks are laid bare in new browsers.

Numerous. I got so tired of answering those type questions on email lists and various forums that one of the last times I did, I saved the text. LOL.............

----------------
Like I said on the list, "I got so used to IE3, 4, 5 & 6, and Win95, 98, and XP by using the same layouts and themes that I can click away at anything at extreme speed without even having to look. That's some heck of a neuromuscular facilitation (muscle memory). Having to change a layout of an OS and browser is a big step backward in efficiency and productivity. Something of which is obviously no concern to M$."

Check this out, this will explain a lot and explain my situation. I kind of had a rant of my own to John from ********. They did something to the archives where they don't look right in IE, and he asked (again) why I use IE. So you'll know where those like me are coming from.....

------------------------------
Awww C'mon John! It's a user preference. We're all free to use whatever browsers we choose.

I started on IE over 12 years ago I guess, and I became very proficient with it. It "worked", so I continued to use it. When FF came out I gave it a try. The plugins are great, but, I don't like the idea of every new version breaking most of the plugins. It's ridiculous and inexcusable to LOSE productivity
due to so many plugins breaking and not working with the next new version! For me, FF is also much slower than IE, on every reformat. It takes about 20 secs for it to load, and it's very slow at websites taking much much longer for pages to load. IE is the fastest browser I've used, and I've tried Safari and
Opera (but that was a few years ago). So until the people at Mozilla learn that plugins are USEFUL, and we need them, and realize they need to be compatible with newer versions without having to hack every .xpi file, I'm stuck with IE.

I frequently have problems at websites with FF with certain website features not working. I've never had that problem inIE. (I guess few use transparent png's).

Since my business is "on the internet", I am online 12-14 hrs each day. That much use daily over more than 12 years, I got to the point long ago that I could use IE "with my eyes closed". I don't even have to look at the toolbar in order to move my mouse cursor to ANYWHERE I want to click. That equates to incredible efficiency. Since IE3, 4, 5, 6, all can have the same layout, I have lost nothing but only gained productivity through the various IE incarnations. I'm quite good with "muscle memory" and memorize the layout of something very quickly. (Same with my remotes; after using a new one about a week, I never have to look at them again to operate them). In keeping with that analogy, I recently had to get a new remote that had commercial skip because my new HDTV doesn't have it (none do anymore). Let me tell you, I'm going through hell trying to get used to that "replacement" remote, because, the remote I had been using I used for over 15 years! That's a very long and indelible muscle memory imprint to have to retrain!

The same thing happens when changing browsers. Any change would be a big step backward in efficiency and productivity for me.

If you're even close to being in my situation, you wouldn't be too keen on changing browsers either.

Since my PC has to be totally stable, I always reformat before changing IE versions. The last time I reformatted, IE7 was new, and as you know, one should NEVER use anything from M$ that is new! I belong to a few webmaster and internet forums, and the issues with IE7 were quite big. That has changed little to this day. IE7 is still tagging totally legit websites as Phishing websites! That crap by M$ has slandered countless millions of site owners (like G loves to do) and probably put a lot out of business! IE8, is even worse with its issues. I've also yet to be told by anyone that IE7/8 can be made to have the same look and layout of IE6.

So until M$ (or anyone else) comes out with a browser version that is as stable and as fast as IE6, and can be made to have the same layout as IE6, I need to stay with IE6. I also have numerous context menu IE tools that I use constantly, that only work with IE6. I would lose all of those tools. M$ refuses to make these tools available for IE7/8.

I don't play favorites company-wise. Like most people, I don't like M$. I think it sucks the way they totally integrate IE into the OS's. (Which is probably why IE is so fast, but it's bad for other browsers, and they KNOW that). I don't like their monopolizing control and posturing to make the net into their own image (like google is trying to do). But because of the reasons mentioned above, I am rather "stuck with" their browser. (And in case you're wondering about their OS's), it's the same with their OS. "Why don't you use Linux??" Like IE, I can use Windows with my eyes closed. I use a PC so fast, that I have to force myself to work at a literal snail's pace when I'm trying to show my customers something! They say their eyes can't keep up with my hand movements! Even if it can be made to have the same layout as Windows, until Linux comes out with drivers for ALL of my hardware, and support for ALL of my software, I am also rather "stuck with" Windows.

You asked. LOL.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

My grandmother is like that..

At some point you will have to upgrade.. You won't have a choice.. My personal threshold for support ends at around 10% to 15% userbase.. As shown by the stats I posted, that time is coming very quickly for ie6.. I figure that in Jan 2010 I will be able to delete ie6 from my testing list and forget it ever existed..

Will it suck for those of you that remain tied to older tech, you bet.. But there is a cost issue on the developer end to continue to support old equipment and software.. And quite frankly, most people who don't upgrade don't buy much either.. So its not really a big loss..

__________________
Steve : Animal Charms Animal Jewelry | Fishing Blog
I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off of this plan.

Not really, there's always a choice. I'm not concerned with "support" since M$ doesn't "support" anything anyway. For both M$ and FF, the "support" amounts to being relegated to user forums relying on the kindness of others. As for any M$ patches and updates for older products; I'm not concerned with that when that stops. 95% of their patches are NA for any of: Desktop PC's only, PC's with a hardware firewall, PC's with unnecessary Services disabled, security settings max'd out, local networks, and several other factors. With my PC not being on a "local network", the only user, Desktop only, using 3 firewalls, file and printer sharing disabled, dozens of Services disabled, max'd out security settings, etc., etc., and numerous anti-malware programs, along with "safe and intelligent computing" practices, that only ends up being about 5% patches that I might need. And of those roughly 5% that I install now, they almost always have "workarounds" listed (in the details of the patch at the IT links for them) which I could probably transpose to IE6/XP in the event they are no longer provided or available for IE6/XP. So I'm not concerned. No one is going to force me, nor will I be extorted into using something I don't want to use.


Perhaps, but it sucks more for those that are forced to upgrade for the reasons I outlined in my previous post.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

No one is extorting you at all.. But at some point people will stop developing web sites that take older web browsers in to consideration.. And as you find less and less functionality because of the browser you have chosen, you will need to decide whether or not to upgrade..

Its even worse in a closed environment like a closed industry specific website where highly customized apps are built for the users.. 90%+ of the complaints about "issues" were from people using old browsers.. Their option was to upgrade or stop using the system.. They upgraded and like magic their issues vanished..

__________________
Steve : Animal Charms Animal Jewelry | Fishing Blog
I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off of this plan.

There is a cloud hanging over our heads that's just waiting for the day when we can least afford it to rain down some demon on our computer and knock it for a loop. In the past year I've had to change my working environment numerous times because of machine failures.

In this maelstrom of havoc, I've pretty much reverted to what was on hand that would work right away, HTML-Kit just so I could keep up with my projects. I don't have a dependency on any plug-ins, use browsers like they are interchangeable and don't miss anything when it all goes south. In a sense I've given up on 'tools' that are here today, gone tomorrow. For me, it just makes life easier to keep everything up to date, get used to any changes as fast as possible and move on.

I consider it extortion when a company says.... "we know the older version has more features, is more stable, has less bugs, and can work with numerous tools, but we will force you to use the newer flawed version or you will no longer get updates".


Yes, that's a definite possibility.


That's not always the case. That's only the case when a website or tool must have a newer version, and could be avoided if browsers and coding were backward compatible. You're forgetting about the countless thousands of posts across the web in countless forums complaining about bugs in new versions. Bugs which continue on for years. Bugs that were not present in prior versions. There's no such thing as a bug-free new version of anything. Generally, the newer a product, the more the bugs. This is due to inadequate testing and could be prevented if the vendors were not so overzealous is trying to shove their products out the door as fast as they could with disregard for stability.

I think people should be able to use whatever they want without penalty, this is not communism, but that's what it amounts to. I know people that are still using Win98. If it works for them and they like it, they should not be flogged and belittled for using it.

Many years ago I used to LOVE to get the newest version of anything. They were always better; more stable, more features, etc. In recent years, not only is that no longer the case but actually contrary. IE3 > IE4, Yay! IE4>IE5, yay! IE5>IE6, yay! IE6>IE7....uhhh...WTF??? Win31>Win95, yay! Win95>Win98, yay! Win98>XP...sort of yay. XP>Vista....uhhh, WTF? What the hell was that?? And M$ is not the only company with that kind of record, it's common.

If users would stop patronizing all of the flawed, alleged "upgrades", with removed useful features and more bugs, vendors would be forced to INSURE they are stable, and paths to real "upgrades" would be a joy.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

There is nothing like upgrading your open source project management system to discover someone (yourself) has completely revamped the interface, broken it entirely, and corrupted your data all in one fell swoop...

YAY progress!

__________________
James Weisbrod - programmer

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

You do realize the loss of support for Win98 is due in part to the massive lawsuits Microsoft encountered, and not just an arbitrary decision, correct?

Really the bug issue to me is one of the reasons I like open source software. There is no possible way programmers can anticipate every stupid thing a user will do with their software - and in the case of browsers, no way to anticipate all the interesting, creative, and in some cases, yes, stupid hacks webmasters will use in creating their sites. At least with open source products bugs appear to be fixed faster, since the users are also the developers.

As far as using Windows 98 without penalty, how long should a developer continue to support an outdated product that was released 12 years ago and discontinued nearly a decade ago? A home operating system that no longer generates income (and that under court order can no longer be supported anyway)?

In addition, while I can understand not being an early adopter and waiting for the bugs in a new released product to be fixed, Windows 98 is widely considered one of the worst operating systems ever created. Windows XP is considered one of the most stable MS operating systems. Internet Explorer 6 is considered much less secure than IE7, and while 7 will continue receiving patches and upgrades to improve it's security, IE6 won't. And what functionality is missing from one to the next?

__________________
The best way to learn anything, is to question everything.

Naa, don't really care. I've used XP for many years, I don't use '98.

How is a bug in the coding and/or programming, the fault of a "stupid user"?? I can find hundreds of bugs right now in XP for example, that have absolutely nothing to do with the user! C'mon Wige. SP3 has even more bugs in it than SP2 had, which have nothing to do with the users doing anything stupid. I worked on SP3 with M$ and maybe you'd be surprised at what little they know, and how willingly they release SP's, patches, OS's, with so little testing and with obvious blatant bugs. Again, having absolutely nothing to do with user idiocy! In fact, I was the one that had to find the problem with one of its major bugs on my own!


Yeah I've noticed that.


That's not what I said, I said "I know people that are still using Win98. If it works for them and they like it, they should not be flogged and belittled for using it."


I agree, I never said anything to the contrary.


IE6 won't need anymore patches because so few will be using it. LOL. IE7 & IE8 will be the new "targets" for cyber-terrorists. Soon, IE7 & IE8 will be less secure than IE6. Once one's IE6 is fully up-to-date, and patches for it stop, I doubt it will be of any concern for further exploits. And as I said before: I'm not concerned with "support" since M$ doesn't "support" anything anyway. For both M$ and FF, the "support" amounts to being relegated to user forums relying on the kindness of others. As for any M$ patches and updates for older products; I'm not concerned with that when that stops. 95% of their patches are NA for any of: Desktop PC's only, PC's with a hardware firewall, PC's with unnecessary Services disabled, security settings max'd out, local networks, and several other factors. With my PC not being on a "local network", the only user, Desktop only, using 3 firewalls, file and printer sharing disabled, dozens of Services disabled, max'd out security settings, etc., etc., and numerous anti-malware programs, along with "safe and intelligent computing" practices, that only ends up being about 5% patches that I might need. And of those roughly 5% that I install now, they almost always have "workarounds" listed (in the details of the patch at the IT links for them) which I could probably transpose to IE6/XP in the event they are no longer provided or available for IE6/XP.

Cont'd......

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

Cont'd....

If you mean IE6, 7 and 8, once I experienced crashes and instability, I quit. Then I mentioned numerous right click contextual tools that no longer work. Like I also previously mentioned, the layout is totally different, please see post #131 for details. If you mean 'ware other than M$, that's a looooong story there.

The way I see things, logically the goals for a new piece of 'ware or OS, should be simple, in no particular order:

1. Make the product faster. If it cannot be made faster, then certainly do not make it slower.

2. Make the product consume less RAM and resources. If that is not possible, then certainly do not make it suck more of them.*

3. If exploits are serious and widespread, then make the product more secure, unless it interferes too much with #1 (and maybe #2 but not likely). Or, if the security has become so compromised and pathetic, there may have to be a trade-off there.

4. If the product is popular and people love it, then DON'T F' WITH IT! LOL. This is the worse transgression there. Vendors love to put new flashy names on products to sell more of them. Sure, they have to make money, everyone does. But that does not mean to jack around with it and screw it up, like removing features and options!!

*People's PC's are generally getting faster and with more RAM. So a slight bit more RAM and resource consumption is not that much of a consequence and I'm sure most would tolerate that IF it meant more features and options for example.

Users used your product for a reason. Most likely, performance, features and options! People love options. People love a choice. People do NOT like having useful, needed, and great features removed from their once-loved product! "Oh crap, what the hell happened to the.......". "Uhh ohhh, where the hell did my [whatever tool] go???" Etc.

If you want to make the product (for one example), "simpler", fine; just be sure and give the OPTION of having something like an "Advanced" interface or mode, in addition to a "simple" or "newbie" mode so no one will miss any advance tools or options! If for some unknown reason (like maybe "flashy eye-candy"), you want to change the complete layout of said product, fine; just be sure you have a something like a "skins" option or "classic" interface as to not piss-off and alienate your many-years-supporting-loyal-customers that got you were you are today! THAT way, keeping these logical user-base-sensitive things in mind, you please both groups! That equals happier people, that equals better word-of-mouth, that equals more sales!

FYI, Three products for example I've been dealing with recently:

SpyBot. Well, the newest versions SUCK. Why? LESS features. No longer do you have the OPTION in the "Immunize" area in the now-missing drop-down to "Block pages silently", "ask for prompt (or confirmation)" and "display notice when blocking". So now, users are totally in the dark as to why the hell a page won't load! DUH. Why else? No longer do you have the scan options of something like a deep scan, or quick scan. Only one option now. DUH. Why else? TeaTimer used to consume only about ~5-7mb (prior to v1.4). Now? As much as SEVENTY MEGABYTES, plus slowing the victimized PC way down due to....constant scanning....which is the purpose and job of anti-virus software!!!! Furthermore, clicking the Immunize area or "Undo", now takes about a month to load. Slower, fewer options, sucks up more RAM, wow that's a winner. (I use v1.3 of course mainly, but I will occasionally scan with v1.6). The only logical sensible thing I can say about it, is it still has, the OPTION (there's that needed wonderful word again), of an "Advanced mode", and a simple mode! And of course, more def's. So why not just give the more def's to a better earlier version.

AdAware. What a crime. WAS one of the best anti-malware programs out there. Clean, FAST, no Services, no BS, and it found A LOT. Now? Not only does it now require a resource hogging Service (something else vendors love to do, I guess they think it makes them feel more important to make a product use yet another XP Service), which does NOT need to be running all of the time as it tries, it only needs to run when you run the scan, but it's full of bugs and finds NOTHING. That POS can't even find bad Cookies! (See Lavasoft forums and dozens of other forums for complaints). (I of course use v1.6SE I think, the last version of its kind, and I CAN still update it manually with a URL I found! HA!)

Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) and or AV (KAV) : My biggest current software nightmare. Old v4.5 was a TOTAL JOY. No bugs, stable, found EVERYTHING. KAV/KIS6 was ok, did more, but that's when the bugs and stability problems started. Among many, the KIS anti-spam toolbar is MISSING in OE and Outlook (faulty klin.dat files). NUMEROUS BSOD's out the ying-yang plaguing huge percentages of users--caused by buggy faulty klif.sys files among others. Patches issued, and, they worked! All was pretty ok. But just about every time there was an update, new klif files were, get this, always corrupt and screwed up the program! Furthermore, every time users saw "restart needed" after def updates, we all knew what that meant: "Some protection components could not be started". No fix for that, you had to just wait until the next update!

KIS7....WTF?? Huh?? Same BS! (Do these people check these things??) They got the update problems finally fixed, but, still had BSOD's caused by....you guessed it--klif file, and you guessed it; missing anti-spam toolbar again! Fix was the same. (So why not BUILD a product that doesn't need this ongoing fix???) However, more so, a totally screwed up new interface, with, LESS features, fewer options, and worse usability! It also would totally, out of the blue, block ALL internet traffic without notice, warning, nor reason. The ONLY way you could get net access back, was to close KIS down, BUT, you could NOT unload/exit KIS with browser windows open! In fact, if you try to shut it down, it will hang indefinitely, in a causality loop of "shutting down....." and, "Protection paused"!! So you are wide-open, no protection, and you will remain that way until every one of your browser windows is closed! Then and only then will it shut down and net access restored! Nice job.

KIS2009: Same bad layout, look, and fewer-featured fewer-options of KIS7, but even LESS. Oh, but there's more: they removed the PopUp blocker! Well done. So now I'm being attacked by freakin' PopUps! Their PU blocker worked FANTASTIC. In fact, I can't even remember EVER seeing a PU when using KIS7! v2009 is faster than v7 (well done, seriously this time), consume FAR less RAM and resources (again, well done), and it does not mysteriously block net access as described above like 7 did (again, well done)....but, BUT, BUT......yep you guessed it again; no anti-spam toolbar in OE and this time there is NO FIX for it! Their "fix" in their KB does not work on many PC's! And they have no idea why! N-i-c-e job (sarcastically said this time)! Brilliant. You should see the KL forums about all of these issues! Wow.

It gets worse: starting with KIS2009, they now, DEMAND you remove, all, ALL of your anti-malware programs! In fact, the installation will STOP until you remove ALL of them! More infuriatingly; the installation doesn't give you a list of what you must remove, it only tells you, one-by-one! So after it stops and demands you remove Spyware Blaster, and you do so, then try again, it then stops again and says you must remove SpyBot! Then all over again for AdAware, Windows Defender, SpyWare Terminator, hundreds and hundreds more! They are so self-righteous and delusional that they think their ONE product will do the job of HUNDREDS of others! (Sounds like some kind of a potential CA or antitrust lawsuit there against KL). (I found a way around this with a command line switch).

Then I'm told (like with AdAware SE not updating and lack of more def's in older SpyBots), that we won't be able to use KIS7 past early 2010, no more def's given! Their anti-spam feature in KIS worked GREAT, it could actually detect spam IMAGES, you know the blank emails with the pharmaceutical terrorism images in them of the "little blue pills", instead of text, so that our email filters won't apply?? It actually BLOCKED those types of emails! Amazing. KIS7 was worth it for that alone! Ohhh, but we can't use it anymore after 1st Q 2010 if we want updates. (Remember, KIS2009 is "broken" for many users, no anti-spam in OE!)

Another example of only 3 here, of "extorting" users into using newer FLAWED versions. You either used the newer FLAWED versions and continue to get updates, or, go to a totally different product, AND, of course end up putting up with the same crap from them!!

It is NOT just Lavasoft, it is NOT just Safer Networking, it is NOT just Kaspersky Labs, this microcephalic behavior is RAMPANT with hundreds and hundreds of software vendors out there! This sort of thing should frustrate anyone.

Wow, that was hilarious. Whatta tangent, sorry! (I haven't slept, excruciating eardrum problem and am getting a bit delirious from the unending pain, and also from pain pills for it). ROTFLMAO.

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)

It's called feeding your children.. If you don't continue to release updates, and force obsolescence, software companies will not survive more than a revision or two..

__________________
Steve : Animal Charms Animal Jewelry | Fishing Blog
I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off of this plan.

Well, my point in my post is that many bugs simply don't come to light until the users get to play with the software - there simply is no way for a developer to anticipate everything that users will do with the software, or have installed on their computer. I don't think this is Microsoft's issue - they have some stupid ideas about "proprietary code" which doesn't mean hide the code from everyone outside MS, it means hide the code from everyone not working on that specific feature. Supposedly that has changed somewhat but who knows.

Right now I am using Windows 7 and Kapersky Anti-Virus 8. Win7 blows Vista and XP out of the water to me - same basic resource usage as Vista, but more stable, and a huge improvement in the user interface.

Kapersky 8 has this cool new feature that lets you preview your incoming messages by sender and subject so you can delete suspicious messages before they reach your inbox. Its great, you get this popup prompt where you can check the messages you want to delete, then you go to your inbox, delete the messages again because the delete option does nothing and then delete the e-mail the Kapersky software sent you listing the e-mails it is convinced it deleted. Wait, what was my point?

As for your four points of upgrading software:


While I agree that this would be ideal if the new version is simply a bug fix or maintenance release, most new versions of products include new features to address market concerns or user requests. For browsers, this might mean supporting additional standards and technologies, for anti-malware software it might mean including additional scanners or self-defense measures. New functionality usually means more resource usage and increased start time.

Well, I think this is a matter of priorities - if you are Apple, you abide by this rule and provide security by labeling security vulnerabilities "product features" and maintain the loading speed of your application (like they did with Safari). If you are anybody else, security is a major selling point. Some minor increase in load time or resource consumption, if it actually prevents an exploit, should be allowed for.

Agreed.

__________________
The best way to learn anything, is to question everything.

Uhhhh, yeah, I know, I even mentioned that. From post #141 above:

__________________
Happy Thanksgiving to all & God Bless,
-Clint
(Join Date: 2003)