Mailbag: Just Say 'No' to Yahoo

Should Ballmer buy Yahoo? Simple answer: NO!
-Anonymous

This makes no sense at all. You have an open source culture in one company and one of the most proprietary cultures in another. Also, the DOJ should can this deal as being bad for consumers -- one less chat system out there. For as bad as "Yahell" is claimed to be, it has features no one else has; it just doesn't leverage them via advertising very well. Then you also have overlap in the online ad industry.

This should not be allowed -- period.
-Bruce

When I bought my 100 shares of Yahoo five or six years ago and saw it split two for one a year or so later, I thought I had boarded the gravy train. I've seen nothing since. So what have I got to look forward to? Maybe it would be nice to exchange my Yahoo for MS. I'd be willing if they offered -- just to have something different now.
-Steve

And readers share their thoughts on what would make IE 8 more secure than its predecessors:

IE 8 would be several LARGE steps in the right direction if all support for iFrames, ActiveX controls and Java were withdrawn, and if JavaScripts were allowed only for browser-related actions rather than for system activity. Certainly, those are my default Internet settings in IE 6, which I override only for Internet banking and for editing my GooglePages.
-Fred

IE 8 intregration? No! I really think that anything that has the potential for compromising the system should not be tightly integrated into the OS, EVER. Browsers are the attack point of choice these days, so why would you want something you know is going to be a serious security problem to be tightly integrated with your OS?

The only reason -- and one of the reasons Microsoft has overpowered the competition -- is the features and ease of use to be gained by that integration. Microsoft's previous approach was to focus on features and ease of use even if it meant that security had to be compromised, and look where that got it. It is really exciting when a design flaw in IE allows another program, e.g., Safari, to compromise your system and open it up to attack...NOT!
-Anonymous

I gave up on Internet Explorer during the IE 6 era, when Firefox came along. To get me to go back to IE for anything other than Windows Update, it would have to be as easy to use as Firefox is. I really doubt that Microsoft can make anything that easy anymore. Vista was enough for me to realize that it has really lost sight of what the users are trying to do. Most of my home computing now is done through Linux and I am really now looking at a Mac.

Just for the record, I am one of the legion of "Mort" programmers who have worked with Microsoft products for years. Still, I find Office 7 a major pain to work with and Vista a disaster. Good luck, MS. You'll need it.
-Angus

We have applications that run fine in IE 6 but break under IE 7. I shudder to think what additional problems we might run into under IE 8.
-Thomas

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 09, 2008