On-line banking: How safe is it?

[mikeb]

Sony's Support website for requesting repairs of out-of-warranty products works great in Firefox, up until the point where you enter your credit card to pay the service fee for the repair...

Ok you tempted me again....sony and microsoft work closely together....funny how tiny little one man band companies can get their checkouts working on all browsers but a multi billion blah company cannot....write and complain that their service is deficiant and demand a reason for using non standard code on their site.
Their build quality is awful now, and their software stinks....now you have several reasons to avoid thier products ...and that is being serious....been stung too many times by that company.

...looking forward to the next subject whilst being stalked...

mike

[KittyCat]

Their build quality is awful now, and their software stinks....now you have several reasons to avoid thier products ...and that is being serious....been stung too many times by that company.

DirectX and the closest we can come to a standard platform makes PC gaming both possible and easier, and to me, the primary use for a Windows PC is to play games, all else is secondary. So for making life easier for the PC game developers, my thanks to Microsoft. (Don't ask me about the 360 though.)

As for Sony... the PS2 and the PS3 are still by far my favorite two consoles and the earphones I had to send in for repair remain outstanding. Not to mention what you can do with a properly modded PSP.

I have lots of reasons to dislike the two companies but I still enjoy far too many of their products to pretend I have something solidly serious against them. Yes, they annoy me. Enough to boycott them? Hardly.

[mikeb]

Well principles can be tricky. I didn't mention drm.

Have you tried windows games on wine with opengl enabled...they play rather well ...not all but a good selection.

Also there are emulators for the playstation that are pretty good too ..no more tv, console and discs.

I think the topic should be changed to 'Whatever'

mike

[cthisbear]

If you were dumb enough to use IE, you might try one of these.


"""""""""
Is there a linux version for Firefox?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

or

Coral IE Tab

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10909

///////////
Personally I would use Returnil in Windows...free version.
There are plenty of add ons that take away explorer.

This was the first IE remover...for Win98...and now XP.
Note he was an Aussie too.
So smart his first IE remover could fit onto a floppy
4 times. He made MS a laughing stock,
Wasn't even a programmer.

http://www.litepc.com/

Returnil:

http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/products

Free version....bottom of page.

Chris.

[mikeb]

Personally I would use Returnil in Windows...free version.
There are plenty of add ons that take away explorer.

This was the first IE remover...for Win98...and now XP.
Note he was an Aussie too.
So smart his first IE remover could fit onto a floppy
4 times. He made MS a laughing stock,
Wasn't even a programmer.

http://www.litepc.com/

the man...yay

his xp/2000 stuff is pretty good. I prefer altering the install to not install in the first place...I have a great fileset for 2000. Nlite can do it for XP but never used it

mike

[KittyCat]

Have you tried windows games on wine with opengl enabled...they play rather well ...not all but a good selection.

"Rather well", yes, but not good enough. Not always soon enough after release either.

Also there are emulators for the playstation that are pretty good too ..no more tv, console and discs.

Yeah, why on earth would I want to watch BluRay movies or play inFamous or Bioshock on a 61-inch TV in full 1080p?

[mikeb]

Yeah, why on earth would I want to watch BluRay movies or play inFamous or Bioshock on a 61-inch TV in full 1080p?

was only a suggestion...the peasant shall remain quiet

mike

[RandSec]

I plan on using a LiveCD from now on when I am doing any kind on-line banking or retail transaction.

Hi Flash; Or another possibility would be to have Puppy boot without the Save file.

I do not agree.

Booting from a hard drive is the reason Windows malware does not go away on the next boot. Malware modifies boot files on the drive. Linux can help avoid malware, but is no guarantee. If malware takes over, it can do everything the user could do and more, and the hard drive is indeed at risk.

Currently, the way to avoid risking the hard drive is to physically remove the hard drive itself. Drives are easy enough to pull out, but if you want to move them in and out repeatedly, a front-panel dock can be fitted, at least for modern SATA drives. Or the hard drive could move to an external USB box which can be plugged-in or not. Writable flash drives are also at risk and are insecure for booting just like a hard drive.

Frankly, secure browsing would seem to be the ideal use for Puppy Linux. The other distributions will always have more applications and functionality. Hard drive installs can afford to be larger. Optical installs really need a small system just to load in a reasonable time. I for one would be more than happy to trade some added size for reduced startup decompression delays.

Browsing in Puppy without a hard drive is surprisingly convenient. Firefox is necessary for security, but users coming from Windows want every bit of familiarity they can get anyway. Firefox also supports a surprising range of cross-platform add-ons, including many security options and LastPass for passwords. Here is my current Firefox add-on list:

• Adblock Plus
  BetterPrivacy
  Cert Viewer Plus
  DownThemAll!
  Facebook Secure Login
  FireFTP
  Force-TLS
  JSView
  LastPass
  Long URL Please
  MD5 Reborned Hasher
  NoScript
  NoSquint
  Permit Cookies
  Save Complete
  SearchMenu
  Shooter
  SSLPasswd Warning
  Tab Mix Plus
  Uppity
  Weave
  WOT
  Xmarks

The problem for every other Linux distribution is that browser and add-on updates are a way of life, which means either using vulnerable disk storage or making a new DVD every week or even more often. Only Puppy Linux allows updates to be written back to the DVD, so only Puppy offers a practical live DVD environment for browsing.

The current implementation of multi-session updates needs work, probably not so much in burn code as in error handling. Every optical write has a chance of error and so needs verification, and there is a reasonable chance it will not verify. The system needs to support going back for a re-try (if possible), or to start a new disc, or to save in a flash drive, or as an email attachment and so on, anything so the user does not lose data. I have lost data. I have never been able to move from a full DVD to a new one while retaining the current updates and files.

Another issue is that Puppy seems to semi-customize itself for a particular video card, which is fine if we only have one computer, but not so fine if we move from location to location. Oddly, Puppy asks about saving the web connection for next time, but I think the user could easily change that provided the video works.

From what I see, the biggest advantage of Puppy is being ignored, exactly at the time Windows users need it. Windows users are just now waking up to the malware problem being both much more common and more dangerous than previously thought. Moving their browsing into a Puppy DVD could be one of the solutions, but Windows users are not going to stay unless the system is rock-solid when they get here.

[PaulBx1]

e.g. I prefer to carry plastic than cash in my pockets. If I loose the wallet I can put a stop payment on the cards but not on the cash.

I prefer to use cash, because then my transactions can't be tracked. To protect the cash, I carry a gun.

As for on-line transactions I have my PayPal account associated with a credit card with a very low credit limit and with a bank account that always has a 0 balance. When I buy something I make the transfer for the exact amount and then submit the payment.

Good idea, thanks for the tip.

Of course, when Obama finds he's inflated the dollar into oblivion, first thing he will do is raid everybody's safe deposit boxes for gold, just like Franklin Roosevelt did. So even if you are not online and use a good (sic) bank, you can lose it all.

Time to stuff your money in a mattress?

[edoc]

Is there any reason that BetterPrivacy would not be OK to add to Seamonkey in Puppy?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/6623/

Since it "seeks and destroys" I didn't know if anything unique to the file and folder structure of Puppy might create a problem ...