Test Windows Vista - part 2

After the in depth descriptions of the new functions of offer, lets now take a more serious look and talk about security!

Microsoft seems to have listened to the internet public.

First of all, we note that the integration of an anti-phishing tool directly into the web browser. To remind people, phishing is a technique used more and more by people illegally trying to take you confidential information. This means that if a web site is trying to pass itself off for something that its not, for example, a banking site that is actually a fake trying to steal your details.

With IE7 you are able to protect your details to against this technique. The anti-phishing filter puts a block on the site as soon as it detects that it is a fraudulent site, with the address bar changing to a red colour. If it thinks that a site is potentially suspect then the bar will change to a yellow colour and you are warned of possible danger. To decide which sites are or are not dangerous, the software uses a database that contains the details of all fraudulent or suspect sites. This database is regularly updated by Microsoft and its partners.

Anti-phishing filter configuration page

To finish with Internet Explorer 7 security, you should know that the functionality has been totally changed. Microsoft has decided to take a big look at security and execute their web browser in a protected zone. Internet Explorer will have no access to Windows, its rules or the hard disk drives of your computer, drastically limiting possible actions available to hackers. Thus in the event that you system security is faulty, a hacker will no longer be able to compromise your system through your web browser. You will have to obviously wait for the final version and tests to be carried out to have a better idea of its efficiency, but on paper in any case, this seems to be extremely promising allowing users to regain their confidence in Microsoft.

General Note: The version that we tested is the equivalent to the beta version 1 of IE7, with the beta version 2 recently presented at the CES in Las Vegas a few days ago. We are going to test the beta version 2 soon to see what has changed. Beta version 1 seems to be functional, already full of new ideas that will be included in the final version, but we still encountered quite a few lock ups….Fortunately without any great dramas thanks to Vista’s new system that isn’t such a problem when a system locks up (we will come back to this). We certainly hope that these problems are resolved before the final version is released.

Before finishing the chapter on the Internet, we want to mention the Outlook Express email program, which has had a name change to Windows Mail.

Windows Mail (previously known as Outlook Express)

The software has had some improvements integrated into it since the last version. An anti-spam filter is now included and it doesn’t seem to be too bad at all. This has already been seen in Outlook 2003, included with Office 2003, using classic Bayesien algorithms to filter the spam. There are three available security levels available:

• Low: this mode is the most "Lax" meaning that spam will be able to pass, but you are sure that no legitimate mail will be considered as spam.

 

•  High: This mode is more restrictive, with a more efficient filtering system capturing a larger number of spam emails in place. The only problem is that it could possibly consider some legitimate emails as spam.

 

• Paranoid: This mode is reserved to the users that wish to receive no spam at all. This function is simple, all received emails are considered as spam with the exception of those people listed in your contacts list.
  
  

Microsoft in any case seems to have learnt their lesson with security, in all senses of the word, with their internet software. From now on, any general user should be able to surf on the Internet by using a browser with the mentioned functions and be totally protected from external menaces. Not just this, but also the ability to have their computers operating system totally protected as well. Even if this is just a bell on the side of their email program, something efficient is needed to effectively protect your system from the mail problem of the century, spam. Below are some examples of the Windows Mail security settings:

        

Blocked mail defined by used encoded mail language