Well, my Internet Explorer has been become so corrupted by adware and spyware that it became pretty useless. Rather than uninstall it and reinstall the same super-insecure browser, I've finally decided to give up on IE and go with Mozilla 1.6.
So far, everything works great except for photographs. The pictures in the sidebars of caughtintheXfire and Everyday Stranger look kinda like they were turned into rough watercolors in PhotoShop or something.
So, tell me, Mozilla users... wus up wit dat? And..er..what can I do about it? :)
Posted by Tuning Spork at April 26, 2004 10:12 PMJust kidding... actually, the images look OK for me on my laptop... I have had problems with color rendering within Mozilla when I used my desktop and old monitor with no resolution... maybe if you increased the color quality in your display properties settings if would help.
Posted by Madfish Willie at April 26, 2004 11:52 PMY'mean the color quality adjustments in the browser or in my computer? Photos always looked fine in IE, but in Mozilla they're -- I'm not exaggerating -- like the roughest watercolor setting of PhotoShop. I had to view an image that I already KNEW was a photo before I realized that the previous photos I seen in M 1.6 actually photos rather than PhotoShop watercolors. Hmmmm...
Posted by Tuning Spork at April 27, 2004 12:11 AMThe color quality adjustments on your computer... one of the reasons I didn't switch over to Mozilla earlier than I did was the funky image rendering. I was getting funky pink backgrounds on all my transparent gif images. And it seemed really slooooow. I uninstalled it and went on my way. I reinstalled to test site design and started liking it better the more I used it. After the re-install, all the images were fine... don't ask me, I don't know why.
Posted by Madfish Willie at April 27, 2004 01:02 AMWeeeeird! I've been using Mozilla since 0.9, and it's never done that to me!
You're not running 8-bit colour, are you?
Posted by Pixy Misa at April 27, 2004 02:20 AMWhats up with the spyware epidemic. i've been battling "WhenUSearch" for about four weeks. i thought i had eliminated it, but it keeps trying to get back in. It's like it's alive. i hate it.
Posted by annika at April 27, 2004 05:01 PMI have been fighting WhenUSearch, Rads Quadragram, and a handful of others as well. AdAware seems to help, there is a firum there you can check, but the dang thing keeps re-appearing. Any chance it is on the mu.nu site? It seems to pop up after I come here.
Posted by Dave at April 27, 2004 06:00 PMDo yourself a favor and download a FREE copy of Mozilla 1.6 and you WILL NOT have those adware problems!
Posted by Madfish Willie at April 27, 2004 11:40 PMOtherwise, you have to go into your registry and edit that crap out, delete files in your program files folders, windows folders and everywhere else they can think of to hide them. Good Luck!!
Posted by Madfish Willie at April 27, 2004 11:42 PMI had a major spyware outbreak with IE that I just couldn't get rid of so I got Mozilla Firefox and haven't looked back. I love it and have no image viewing problems.
Posted by DeAnna at April 27, 2004 11:42 PMUPDATE: Turns out Pixy was right: my color setting somehow got screwed up when I installed Mozilla. So I reset it to Full Color and everything looks normal again. Woo Hoo! pix-Y! pix-Y! pix-Y!!
Posted by Tuning Spork at April 28, 2004 12:09 AMAnnika: Unfortunately, you need to patch the vulnerability in IE that allows the hijacks in the first place. In most cases, it's being caused by Microsoft's 'problematic' Java Virtual Machine. Best bet is to simply uninstall it and replace it with Sun's version. It's also possible one file has managed to escape deletion. The hijackers spread themselves all across your hard drive and if even 1 file remains, it will likely be able to reinstall itself.
Anybody that's having IE infection problems and would like a hand, I'd be happy to help, by email or YIM. I've had pretty good results with about a half dozen people on the web, plus the dozen or so clients I've cleared up in person. There are some automated tools that are much more effective than trying to nail everything by hand.
And yes, the most effective solution is switching to Mozilla or FireFox. It's a vastly more useful browser (especially for bloggers) in my opinion, and unquestionably more secure.
Paul
Posted by Light & Dark at April 28, 2004 05:50 AMOOOPS! Madfish Willie mentioned the color settings first. Sorry for the slight, Bartender! mad-FISH! mad-FISH! mad-FISH!! 
Well... I wasn't going to say anything... but since you brought it up... don't mention it.
Posted by Madfish Willie at April 28, 2004 05:36 PM