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Integration Of Internet Explorer And WindowsSince Windows 98, Microsoft has attempted to make the integration of Windows and Internet Explorer a core part of their software development process. They argued before the courts that this was an important part of the way they develop their software and they should be allowed to do this because it is good for consumers. Others, however, such as Netscape, did not hold this line and accused them of attempting to stifle competion through their integration policy. Others, like the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) have asserted that IE's design makes it difficult to secure. They state that "There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, local file system (Local Machine Zone) trust, the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) document object model (in particular, proprietary DHTML features), the HTML Help system, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. IE is integrated into Windows to such an extent that vulnerabilities in IE frequently provide an attacker significant access to the operating system." http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878 Removing Internet Explorer The idea of removing Internet Explorer from a Windows system was first proposed during the Microsoft antitrust case. Later, some security advocates took up the idea as a way to protect Windows systems from attack via IE vulnerabilities. Whether the net benefit of removing IE exceeds the cost, and indeed what it means to "remove IE", are disputed. Simply installing and using another browser does not prevent third party programs and core operating system components from using IE libraries. Thus, a user who does not use IE to browse the Web can still be targeted by attacks against vulnerabilities in these libraries -- for instance, via Outlook Express or the Windows Help subsystem. However, removing the IE libraries will cause these programs, and other software which depends upon them, to cease functioning or even to crash the system. It is unclear what it means to "remove IE" because such a removal depends on being able to determine which files or functions on an installed Windows system are part of IE — that is, to draw a line between IE and the rest of Windows. Microsoft has held that this is not meaningful; that "IE" is no longer (as it was prior to Windows 98) a separate piece of software, but simply a brand name for the Web-browsing and HTML-displaying capacities of the Windows operating system. In this view, the result of removing IE is simply a damaged Windows system; to have a working system without IE one must replace Windows entirely. In contrast, some programmers and security writers have held that it is possible to have a useful and working Windows system with IE excised. Consultant Fred Vorck, who advocates that consumers should have the choice to remove "integrated" features of Microsoft Windows http://www.vorck.com/remove-ie.html; Dino Nuhagic, who is the creator of nLite — a product that allows users to remove Windows components like Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, amongst others http://nuhi.msfn.org/index.html; and Shane Brooks, who created LitePC to remove and manage Windows components http://www.litepc.com/, have all suggested removing Internet Explorer from computers in order to decrease exposure to security risks on the Internet http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsID=439. It is possible to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 95, 98 and ME (see instructions on the Netscape website http://wp.netscape.com/browsers/using/ieusers/start/removing.html and on Microsoft's website http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q192852), as well as from Windows 2000 and Windows XP at installation time. Microsoft claims that attempting to remove Internet Explorer from Windows may result in system instability. Microsoft's position is in contrast with other operating systems and browsers. Other operating systems typically include at least one browser -- for instance Safari and Internet Explorer for Mac in Mac OS X. However, in these systems the web browser can be removed or replaced like any other application.
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