"Ahem A Rivet's Shot"  wrote

| > It's what allowed
| > them to beat Netscape. For years it was a brilliant
| > design. It still is. It's just not safe.
|
| It's a stupid design because it cannot be safe.

  Yes. They eventually had to accept that. And they
eventually had to swallow their pride and move toward
web standards. But what's happening now is also not
safe. Javascript is being used in the MBs per page.
Now there's quasi-compiled javascript. Everyone wants
razzmatazz webpages with a lot of functionality. Every
visitor wants to buy stuff, post photos, and generally
enjoy web services. Neither side cares about security.
None of it is safe. Anyone who shops or banks online,
who allows script, hasn't learned from ActiveX. Anyone
using social media hasn't learned the lessons on privacy.
If you try to tell them they just flippantly respond, "Hey,
that's Master Card's problem. My credit card is covered.
I don't pay." They don't want to know that they're using
a broken system. That would be too much hassle.

  Anyone using Google properties, Apple properties, or
running their social life on Facebook or Instagram hasn't
learned the lesson of AOL. It's all far less safe now than it
ever was. Partly because of the extreme functionality
with executable code, and partly because the ubiquity
has made the system an attractive target for professional
hackers.

  Twenty years ago there was no ransomware and no
theft of credit card numbers. There were teenagers running
botnets for fun or renting them to spammers, and spying
on people having sex through their webcams.

  The security was lower, but the risks were also far lower.
Similarly with email. It was perfectly safe for quite awhile
before people started getting the idea to start sending
attack files named something.doc.exe. What do we have
now? The majority of people are on gmail, where Google
claims the right to rifle through their email and makes it
very difficult not to give them a phone number. Allegedly
for security. It's AOL meets totalitarianism. Is that better?
You're less likely to receive a rigged DOC file, but that's
cold comfort in exchange for the hassle and humiliation
of not even owning your own correspondence. And it's
becoming increasingly difficult to use email via POP3, IMAP,
SMTP. Most people are going to a webpage, where script
allows spyware companies like Constant Contact to track
the details of every time the email is read and report it back
to the sender. They can even make self-destructing email.
Because you don't own or control your own correspondence.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05