Actually, what that means is now I can slam both Microsoft AND Mozilla. I’m not going to stop getting on Microsoft’s back for invading my privacy just because someone else is doing it too. This is somewhat along the lines of pushing updates onto my system even if I have auto updates turned off. Which is what Microsoft likes to do. According to them this is only for high-security updates. But I also remember how they said WGA was a “high security” update even though it had nothing to do with security. Sneaky liars the lot of them.

I just went to the URL.

“Add-ons Blocklist

This page lists blocklisted add-ons that should no longer be used with Mozilla products.”

I’m not totally convinced yet. Seems like it might have something to do with an add-on/extension.

leftystrat, I just went there again, to see if possibly the redirection had changed - it has not.

As I was saying, I don’t have a problem with usage stats, as it doesn’t cause me any worry, or substantially waste bandwidth - but the point is…why not be up front about it?

How difficult is it to add the notice/option as the browser is being installed? It’s a matter of keeping the public’s trust.

BTW, I haven’t used a Mozilla product in over a year. I got tired of extensions I liked not being updated in a timely manner, or at all. With Thunderbird, I got tired of the hype about change, and the fact that things were being added that clearly did not come close to working - like when RSS reading was added - and the feed storage would not shrink. I hate programs that don’t do what they purport to do, and also waste my drive space.

I’m definitely against spyware and apps that `phone home’, especially without telling you. If this is the case, I’ll reluctantly have to drop them.

I like the latest Opera but it renders some sites strangely and doesn’t like the Lockergnome text editor. I love Thunderbird too… I guess we’ll see.

Opera 9.51 RC2 takes care of a couple of the last little things that were giving problems.

As for the Wordpress editor, I think it leaves a lot to be desired, and switched to Windows Live Writer a long time ago - it used to work without a hitch, but now is not nearly as compatible due to the changes made in the format - still, I find it much easier to do many things than the built in editor. I’m waitng for the Wicket Pixie screwups to get fixed, so that I can once again use pictures in my posts.

MS has some problems with certain things, but the Live Mail product is not one of them - it has most of the features of Outlook, without the bloat. It allows me to gather all my e-mails into one place to read and reply. It’s not often I get excited about MS products, but Live Mail and Live Writer are a couple of winners.

I’ve noticed that probably 1 out of every 3 apps I’ve tried in the past couple of years has some kind of built-in “call-home” feature. Many are for licence validation or various features. Most get much more personal than simply checking my IP and version number. Besides; any website that wants to set cookies is gathering AT LEAST that much information on you.

They are watching!

Oh no!

It checks for updates!

We better get rid of every version of every program on our computer before it’s too late!

This is one reason why Mozilla’s security holes are not as much of an issue, if you let it go unchecked, users will be using buggy insecure versions of your products for years, just look at all the people still using IE 6!