SpywareBlaster - Questions & Suggestions

[juno]

I just checked out SpywareBlaster v3.2. Very nice. I have a question and a few suggestions for it. Let me get the question out of the way first.

* How come the blocking of cookies in IE requires 6.0+?

Here are my suggestions to make the program even better.

* The ability to use the hosts file to block as well. I use the hosts to block a medium size list of sites by redirecting them to my computer and then using edexter (http://www.pyrenean.com/edexter.php) to return a transparent image to the application that tried to access that domain. Although I have no problem editing hosts in my text editor, I think it would be great to add hosts as a form of protection to your program (especially since novice users have no idea about hosts anyway). The ability to add sites to the hosts file can be built into the "custom blocking" feature.

* The "custom blocking" page should have it's own listing/page item on the left side menu.

* There should be an option to back-up and restore the list of blocked items, both "built-in" and custom ones.

* The "browser pages" page should be designed a little differently so that the description of what the browsers pages are is displayed on the screen at the same time as the setting (the interface doesn't seem very intuitive for novices).

Hopefully, some of my suggestions will be used in the next version :-)
--
Yours Truly,
Paul R.

[javacool]

{QUOTE-> I just checked out SpywareBlaster v3.2. Very nice. I have a question and a few suggestions for it. Let me get the question out of the way first. <-QUOTE}

Certainly. :)

{QUOTE-> * How come the blocking of cookies in IE requires 6.0+? <-QUOTE}

Unfortunately only Internet Explorer 6.0 (or above) support the necessary options to allow SpywareBlaster to enable its cookie blocking feature.

{QUOTE-> Here are my suggestions to make the program even better.

* The ability to use the hosts file to block as well. I use the hosts to block a medium size list of sites by redirecting them to my computer and then using edexter (http://www.pyrenean.com/edexter.php) to return a transparent image to the application that tried to access that domain. Although I have no problem editing hosts in my text editor, I think it would be great to add hosts as a form of protection to your program (especially since novice users have no idea about hosts anyway). The ability to add sites to the hosts file can be built into the "custom blocking" feature.

* The "custom blocking" page should have it's own listing/page item on the left side menu.

* There should be an option to back-up and restore the list of blocked items, both "built-in" and custom ones.

* The "browser pages" page should be designed a little differently so that the description of what the browsers pages are is displayed on the screen at the same time as the setting (the interface doesn't seem very intuitive for novices).

Hopefully, some of my suggestions will be used in the next version :-)
--
Yours Truly,
Paul R. <-QUOTE}

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll see what I can do for the next version. :)

Best regards,

-Javacool

[juno]

{QUOTE-> Unfortunately only Internet Explorer 6.0 (or above) support the necessary options to allow SpywareBlaster to enable its cookie blocking feature. <-QUOTE}

I was kinda hoping you could give me a little bit of a technical answer, like what does IE6 have that IE5 doesn't.

To be honest with you, I only upgraded to IE6 because of SpywareBlaster and Microsoft AntiSpyware. Otherwise I would have kept the IE5 that came with my OS because I don't use IE as my main browser. I only use it for
pages that are so poorly constructed that Mozilla can't display them (IE will display anything) and for pages that use Java applets (because I don't want to download the large Java files and install it in Mozilla since I very rarely use Java anyway).

{QUOTE-> Thanks for the suggestions - I'll see what I can do for the next version. :) <-QUOTE}

Ok, I appreciate it.

[LowWaterMark]

Well actually, IE6 has the whole P3P (privacy tab for the management of cookies, in detail - by site). IE5 has a much more basic cookie management capability. As cookie management goes, IE6 is quite good.