Internet Explorer

[officerripley]

Did last Tuesday's (10/8) big Windows patch finally fix IE so it's safe to use?  (Our county library's website only works best with IE but I've been afraid to use it, heard that "fix" MS put out before last Tues. was pretty useless.)

[Willy]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-080

Maybe this will help answer your concern.

[Shadowman]

I have been using IE all along and noticed that my computer ate up about 25 updates totalling about 96MB a few day's back. Seems to work okay but I am using Vista and have computers over 6 years old now and look forward to buying something new for a laptop in coming months. Have never had any security problems that I know of. Wish I could turn up some of the goofy little notices that ask if you want to do this or that.

[Shadowman]

I meant turn "off" those notices.   I also use Chrome for a few applications.

[officerripley]

Thanks, Willy & Shadowman; I tried reading that MS link that Willy provided but still couldn't figure out if it's finally safe or not (I'm stupid about such matters).  I did see on another (non-MS) site that IE is *probably* still not very safe.  So guess I'll hold off, for a while anyway.  A side note about other browsers:  I've been using Chrome a lot becuz it seems to be faster than Firefox and espec. IE; but my bank's website doesn't work properly on Chrome, so FF it is for that site.

[Willy]

Most say that it is always safer using Google Chrome or Firefox but I think as long as you have good and current antivirus and firewall protection in place and don't open suspicious mail or visit dangerous sites, you will be OK with IE 10. Should use those precautions with any browser anyway.

[officerripley]

Yes, that's always good advice in any event.

[ProblemAgain]

Windows Update: Everything You Need To Know

Chris Hoffman

On 11^th October, 2013

Windows

Is Windows Update enabled on your PC? If you don’t know the answer to that, you should — Windows Update keeps Windows, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Office up-to-date with the latest security patches and bug fixes, ensuring your computer is as secure as possible. However, Windows Update can also cause problems — particularly by nagging you to reboot when you’re trying to use your computer and automatically restarting your computer overnight.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-update-everything-you-need-to-...

[ProblemAgain]

since i don't use explorer, i don't know that it even updates thru the windows updates. i would have my doubts that it does because windows is an os and explorer is a browser. you could just go get a new version of explorer from microsoft or from downloads.com

[officerripley]

Thanks for all the info, all.  I thought that I had heard that Win updates were automatically done thru IE, it being an Microsoft product too and all; but maybe not.