The last few months have revealed flaws in all the main web browsers including IE, Netscape, Opera and Firefox. Here to add to that list is the latest Internet Explorer “Highly critical” security flaw which apparently affects 5.01, 5.5 and 6.x.

For the more technical among us, this is the flaw summary from Secunia:

The vulnerability is caused due to the javaprxy.dll COM object being instantiated incorrectly in Internet Explorer via the object tag. This can be exploited via a malicious web site to cause a memory corruption.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

That last sentence is geek speak which roughly translates to: “successfully exploiting the flaw can result in a external, remote (and probably malicious) party from taking control of your computer”.

There are compelling reasons for Windows users to switch to (or at least evaluate) Linux, but when you know no other world than Windows or don’t want to even think about partitioning your precious hard drive, it can be one heck of a leap of faith! As a Windows user wanting to try Linux but scared of losing the world as I knew it, I found a risk-free method of trying Linux without threatening the installation of Windows safely installed on my PC.

Mandriva Move and Knoppix are two different flavours of Linux that reside entirely on a bootable LiveCD. Mandriva Move or Knoppix are not installed on your hard drive, they actually run from the CD without touching or threatening your Windows operating system in any way. This allows scaredy cats like me to experiment with Linux until my heart is content, then eject the CD and return to my Windows safety blanket just as I left it.

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