Microsoft's Most Basic Flaw

“Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) yesterday released its monthly updates, which on this "Patch Tuesday" included fixes for the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer (IE), MSN Messenger, Exchange Server and Word. The company designated five of the patches as critical and three as important.”

Patches from Microsoft are along the line of death and taxes: a sure thing.

Why? Because crackers love causing mayhem, and Microsoft is the biggest whale in the ocean. Ergo, it gets the most harpoons tossed its way. To their credit, they generally respond quickly to the discovery and exploitation of security holes.

However, you, as a consumer, can minimize the damage before it occurs.

The problem is that Microsoft makes all its applications integrate tightly. That means that Outlook, Internet Explorer, and even Office are able to dig deeply into the operating system’s kernel. This is by design.

The result is that anything that penetrates illicitly into the aforementioned apps can get into the heart of your computer and cause irreversible damage.

What can you do? Don’t use IE, Outlook, or Office.

There are open-source alternatives out there that are free of charge and operate as SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS, not tunnels into your system’s kernel.

For instance, look at Mozilla’s Thunderbird. It’s an email client capable of SSL, intelligent spam filters, saved search folders, RSS support, privacy protection, and more. If you use it instead of oft-attacked Outlook, you instantly benefit. And just in case it DOES get attacked, it’s just an application! An attacker can’t get to the guts of your system as easily as he/she could via Outlook.

Try Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. It’s tight (a tiny download), user-friendly, and will quickly and painlessly import all your stored IE info. It’s also just an application, same situation as above.

And as far as Office is concerned, give OpenOffice a try. It’s free, and secure.

True, if the aforementioned apps get more popular (and their downloads are steadily increasing), crackers will take notice. But they simply don’t contain the inherent security nightmares that MS’s kernel-connected apps have by design.

Besides, your friends will think you’re cool! ;-)