Bits from Bill
SiteAdvisor Goes Overboard with Firefox 2
Thanks to one of our reader comments for pointing out that Bits from Bill may not look properly formatted when viewed by Firefox 2. While I have limited control over the Blogger format I downloaded Firefox 2 today. Hopefully I can tweak my template and make it look better.
Installing Firefox was easy enough but I was very confused when I first launched the program. Instead of a Firefox start page, Internet Explorer launched and displayed the following.
Why were you redirected to this page? SiteAdvisor's "Protected Mode" is enabled, which shields your PC from interaction with red and yellow sites. Currently this mode is only supported with the Internet Explorer browser. Other browsers have been blocked from opening so that they can't be used to circumvent Protected Mode's enforcement.
I’ve always been a fan of SiteAdvisor but this is insane!
What if every IE utility popped up a warning message like this when I tried to run an alternate browser?
Suppose I want to use both browsers? I will have to turn Protected Mode back on every time I need to use Internet Explorer?
So far, Bits from Bill looks OK to me. If anyone has had a bad experience feel free to send a screen shot to the WinPatrol.com Email address of “Support”.
I’ll continue to play with Firefox 2 but this has made me reconsider using SiteAdvisor when(if) I go back to Internet Explorer.
posted by Unknown | 10:09 PM
7 Comments:
Hi Bill,
I have no problems with Fx 2.0 and SiteAdvisor. Are you using the Fx plugin from here ..
http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/
ff_preinstall.html ?
(from UK, so it's not the middle of the night for me)
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the comment. Were you using Site Advisor before running Firefox? Apparently, it also will only affect folks who have the premium Site Advisor with "Protected Mode" turned on.
Bill
Hi Bill,
Shane Keats from McAfee here. When we launched SiteAdvisor Plus w/Protected Mode on November 6, we only supported IE. We promised to add FF support soon and did so on December 19.
BTW, we block unsupported browsers to prevent some users - kids for example - from getting around protected mode. Sorry for the annoyances!
Let me know if you're still experiencing that message.
Hi Shane,
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I'll admit this one took me by surprise. I do now understand why protected mode includes this functionality.
For some reason I wasn't able to permanently disable Protected Mode so I kept getting the warning but now I do have it disabled so I can use Firefox and IE both.
Thanks again,
Bill Pytlovany
While McAfee SiteAdvisor works for Firefox, as they promised, it does NOT work for Opera.
Here's what McAfee needs to do:
Provide a PERMANENT way to disable "Protected Mode" in SiteAdvisor.
They do currently provide a way to disable protected mode ... but it goes back to enabled after logging off (or perhaps after a reboot).
Thanks for considering it.
Muff Diver
Goin' in deep
The Muff Diver is back from another dive and has a solution!
Like most apps, the setting for Protected Mode's status can be found in the registry at the following key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\SiteAdvisor\
And the current mode is a String value for:
RestrictedMode
With settings "Unrestricted" or "Restricted".
Now, the tricky part will be writing a script that will change this setting to "Unrestricted" and having that script run AFTER SiteAdvisor is already loaded (for example, under START, ALL PROGRAMS, STARTUP folder or in the RUN key in your registry)
I realize it's a temporary fix to McAfee's approach of force-feeding their ideas on unsuspecting patrons ... but this is better than nothing.
Always going down...
Muff Diver
Sounds like a good use for WinPatro'ls Relayed Startfeature
Post a Comment
<< Home