Asura.Folant said:
I'm about as PC literate as your Grandma Dorothy and I actually find Ubuntu easier than Windows. Still keep my Vista partition but I haven't loaded it since before 9.10.
Was helping my Mum with her Vista laptop the other day, was foreign to me. :(
As I've found ppl with no computer experience seem to take to Ubuntu pretty well.. Some time ago.. Sun Microsystems spent a great deal of money conducting research studies on the interface in Ubuntu (Gnome) to make sure it did what people expected it to do. They gave the results of that research away to the Gnome community. In using that they have a very nice and simplified use experience now. You can tell because they do smart things one such is the placement of the panels on the top and bottom of the screen, the reason for that is not to be "mac like" but because the top and bottom are the most easily accessed areas of the screen. If you just nudge your mouse, most likely it's going to end up in one of the top corners. You can get there by using large general mouse movements. So if you MASH the mouse up and left on Ubuntu and click you'll open the program menu. Mash it up and right and your get the system menu in the top right corner.. Compare that to Vista. It doesn't even use the top and Vista replaced the Start button with a rounded one. If you mash the mouse down and left on Vista you have to the use more difficult and fine mouse movements to come back a little bit to open the start menu.. they don't take advantage of the most important screen real estate.. and I couldn't tell you why..
However... this thread is about security so I'm going to take it back there as much as I like Wine and Ubuntu.
Chrome is pretty good. It has a simplified security model and plugin sandbox so it has a better design from security standpoint than other browsers, it also takes advantage of public review of it's source code, so it's got potential. The problem with Chrome is privacy.
Someone said before that privacy of Chrome isn't important, I disagree.
You have an individual human right to your privacy, and you should care a great deal about others being able to view your information. The practice of data mining is truly awesome and dangerous and it can be used to paint a disturbing legal picture. For instance. You may become the suspect of a crime, where in government can force Google to reveal to them your internet search information. That information, although circumstantial, can then be used to convict you even if you are absolutely innocent of the crime. It's not necessarily Googles fault, but when the government has the power to lock you in a cage for the rest of your life based upon what you type into a web browser, I would be somewhat concerned and take steps to avoid that scenario. That's just an example to explain why it's important, there are other things that can happen. Your privacy is important and you should protect it.
Chrome Tracks your movements online in the following ways.
* Client-ID: Chrome creates a unique ID through which a user can be theoretically identified.
* Timestamp: Chrome remembers up to the second exactly when the software was installed.
* Suggestion: Depending on the configuration, each time you put something in the address line,this information is sent to Google to provide suggestions. (It's sent to Google even if you don't press enter)
* Alternate Error Pages: Depending on the configuration, if you have typed a false address in the address bar, this is sent to Google and you get an error message from Google's servers.
* Error Reporting: Depending on the configuration, details about crashes or failures are sent Google's servers.
* RLZ-Tracking: This Chrome-function transmits information in encoded form to Google, for example, when and where Chrome has been downloaded. This unique identifying number can be sent to Google as often as every 24 hours, when a search is conducted or upon "significant events".
* URL-Tracker: Calls depending on the configuration five seconds after launch the Google homepage opens in background
If Chrome didn't do that stuff it would be great, and.... your in luck because the Open Source version of Chrome, Called Chromium does not. you can get daily snapshots here.
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/
(The snapshots do not contain an updater so you need to remember to update it.)
You can also use Adblock and Flash Block on Chrome. The reason you want to block Flash is because it can also be used to track you movements online like cookies. Flash retains it's own kind of "Super Cookie".. so I find it's best to turn it off for all sites and use it on an allow basis for the sites you want flash on. (gives better web performance too and makes some sites a lot faster.)