Having just upgraded to Firefox 2.0 RC3, I note with some amusement that the ‘bug’ affecting firefox’s default google homepage has resurfaced.
I’m not exactly sure when this new concept of using an ever so bright neon yellow sign that screams “help help, I’m being hijacked!” came into being, but I’m pretty sure it will be absolutely impossible to ignore.
False alarms like this simply serve to cause the cause of the neon lights to be disabled1, thus rendering any form of advanced warning that your credit card details, your car, or even your cat will be stolen at any moment, completely silenced.
I am 100% for any systems or features that help notify of potentially pain-inducing moments ahead. I am 100% against nasty big yellow boxes that immediately get in the way of normal activities that appear as though originally designed to feature in a Telly Tubbies episode.
- .. much like the irritant that is the new elevated privileges warning in Vista. (↩)
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of annoyances, browsers, firefox, hacks, internet.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Oct 21st, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I’m actually not against attention grabbing display for security alerts (as long as they’re non-modal) but if they’re going to do it, they have to make sure they’re 100% sure.
When it comes to security concerns, False positives are orders of magnitude worse than missed negatives.
Oct 22nd, 2006 at 6:14 am
Agreed.
If something annoys one enough and it can be disabled - it probably will be.
As mentioned, I am all for anything that will help mom and pop average avoid being redirected from pictures of little tommy to “sex vixens gone wild” and receiving a nasty surprise on their credit card, however warning that google, a search engine, is evil and nasty when it very obviously isn’t, will just cause Mr average to disable the damnable thing.
False positives are hardly avoidable - but this one has been around for a few months now, they could at least consider fixing it.