Old web browsers still being used

I don't have a specific need for any old browser so I just use the latest.

 

A Wilders' member (he doesn't post anymore) very savvy in cleaning malware, was using on purpose one of the first IE as it was easy to bypass by malware. When asked as to why he chose such a browser, he would reply there is more fun in dealing with malware, new browsers are too difficult to infect... Computer security is after all a hobby for most of us...

 

My feeling precisely. And they don't keep changing their GUI from one day to the next.

 

Pale Moon... if you hated all the changes Mozilla brought in with FF 29+ and the Australis interface, PM is old-fashioned by default and its Goanna engine is congruent with FF 26.

Talk about a fork of an old browser!

 

I doubt that anyone is actively developing exploits for presto. There isn't much financial incentive to exploit the systems of a small minority of rather eccentric internet users.

Close doesn't count, only real security breaches that cause real problems. If an attempted exploit fails, the security worked whether by design or by accident.

I started using Opera around 2002. At the time, one of the reasons was that it was much more secure than IE due to it not being tightly integrated into system processes and having a low privilege level. It has aways been a browser that functions quite well in userland without any need of administrative privilege unlike a lot of Windows software.

 

Baidu Spark 22...Still works good

 

Yes, but it's the constant switching between Opera 12 and FF that's driving me crazy. I just wish they had made the Opera Presto engine open source, modern browsers that are based on Chromium kinda suck. I also wonder if FF might see some drastic changes, but I'm not counting on it.

Also, it's a shame that a lot of developers are switching to modern website technologies, that why more and more sites don't render correctly anymore in Opera 12. The latest example is "Ars Technica", it used to work and look just fine, until they changed it.

Yes it might be full of holes, but no one is bothering to exploit them, because of the low user base. But with tools like sandboxes and AE you don't really have to worry about exploits anyway.

 

Sandboxie won't protect the privacy of data you're transmitting, there's no patch for that other than using the latest browser.

 

I'm not following you, what do you mean? Are you talking about phoning home of browsers, or being tracked on the web? There are other ways to block that, and I don't see how this is related to old browsers or to SBIE.

 

Elapsed, how is any which browser version going to protect the privacy of your data?
Mrk

 

1st Generation Kindle Fire is still operational. Despite the decline of app compatibility and lack of updates. The Silk browser is still a beast for in-flight browsing. Not entirely sure how accelerated browsing mode works, but it seems to work really well on crowded networks. Was sandwiched between a iPad and Macbook users last flight, both lost internet connectivity a lot, but my junk tablet did fine. Does the silk browser have a excellent browsing experience compared to other browsers? No, it's very rudimentary. But it works and it is the only out of date browser that I would consider still using. As a general policy, I don't allow it to connect to our home Wi-Fi network because the thing could be compromised and I probably wouldn't notice.

 

I'll repeat myself.

 

presto is vulnerable as any engine, more or less. it need to run javascript and other web technologie as far it was programmed.

cve for opera
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerab...961/product_id-15008/Opera-Opera-Browser.html

(5) is not clear as there was opera 14 (13 was skipped), heartbleed was fixed in 12.18.

 

If you change the sort order to "# of Exploits", the actual number of exploits for Opera Presto is 5 with the most recent one in 2011. Not much to worry about exploit wise. The most probable vector for an exploit of Presto is not the browser but an out of date flash plugin.

Privacy wise, it is still probably as safe as any newer browser. The only updates have been to fix heartbleed and certificate issues. Personally, that is not an issue for me because I mainly use it to receive data and the only information I transmit is forum posts on two forums. Wilders uses https which works normally on Opera 12.18 and the other one doesn't. Doesn't matter either way because it is not sensitive information and everything is already encrypted through a VPN tunnel on my router.

 

OK I see, but I'm not that worried about that.

 

As a user of opera 12x for my primary browser one thing I do lament is missing out on some of the good extensions that exist for the newer browsers, but not for opera 12x, such as https everywhere, ublock origin, disconnect etc.

I'm trying to develop adeptness with vivaldi but it's not on par with opera as regards customizability (yet)

There are some extensions for opera 12 that are roughly equivalent that'll do in the meantime