Read recently that using an IE shell overcame IE security problems. I
thought that a shell would incur the same problems as IE. Who's right?
Both are. It's a question of semantics, and which security issues you are
talking about.
IE shells inherit all of IE's inherent weaknesses. However, they can add
features and wrappers to insulate the user from them.
Netcaptor, for example, has a security tab that allows users to view and
delete cookies, to quickly enable/disable scripts, etc. far more simply than
basic IE does.
Avant allows users to disable flash animation, ActiveX, Java, and scripts
from a pulldown, and clear cookies/passwords easily.
MyIE2 has a "Clean System" ability that wipes out all cookies, passwords,
form data, etc. from the system. Like Avant, it can also disable flash,
java, ActiveX, scripts, etc. from a pulldown.
So while these shells all have the same fundamental problems as IE, they've
put bandaids over them. I'm not dissing them; these all make the best of
what they have to work with.
My recommendation to people is that if they feel they must use IE, to run
one of the above shells (there are undoubtedly more that I don't know
about), because they at least provide a semblance more protection than pure
IE.
I personally run Opera almost exclusively on both my Windows and Linux
machines, and Mozilla if Opera doesn't do the job (with is almost never).
The only reason I've even started looking at these shells is because I
started playing with .Net development again, and it automatically reasserted
IE as the basic browser again.
If you absolutely have to use IE (and talking with MSDN, MS seems to require
it for some things), then the above shells are better than having nothing.
Of course, always run with a firewall (I use Outpost), and if you run a
proxy (I use proxomitron), it doesn't hurt either.
