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IE7 For XP Beta 2: Has Firefox Met Its Match?: Page 5 of 7



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    Is the Phishing Filter a security gimmick or a genuinely useful layer of protection? It's too early to say. In limited tests, I found the Phishing Filter reasonably accurate at identifying the current crop of phishing attempts. But will the criminal gangs that run phishing scams be able to fine-tune their mailings to work around this filter? In fact, that's the problem with most of the security changes in IE7. Although the new architecture looks good on paper, no one will be able to pronounce IE7 suitably secure until it has survived a year or more without an embarrassing security crisis.

    Advantage: Firefox (for now)

    Which browser will be more secure in Windows Vista?
    For Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server, IE7 is a free upgrade. By contrast, the new browser code is built into Windows Vista, which is due to be delivered to corporate customers at the end of this year and to the retail channel in January 2007. The Vista version of IE7 incorporates the same security improvements as its XP counterpart, but adds Protected Mode browsing, in which even trusted add-ons are quarantined and given write access only to a set of virtualized folders. This feature, combined with Windows Vista's strict User Account Control, should make it much tougher for malware to sneak onto a system.

    Advantage: Too early to tell

    Can I use either browser to manage RSS feeds?

    Firefox has offered the capability to turn RSS feeds into Live Bookmarks since version 1.0. Clicking a Live Bookmark icon from the Bookmarks menu displays a list of the headlines available from the selected feed. That's fine for a feed with punchy, descriptive headlines. It's a terribly inefficient way to read information-rich feeds, however, especially those that are packed with graphics and full text.



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    By contrast, IE7's implementation of RSS feeds is simple and elegant. When you click on a link that leads to an RSS feed, the feed's contents display in a specially formatted page within the browser. A box at the top of the page provides details about the feed and offers a link to subscribe to it. The box on the right side of the page lets you filter the list by entering search terms or clicking category names, which are automatically extracted from the feed.