I don't know what security threats are troubling you, but I can't imagine more than a theoretical difference between IE and Firefox or Chrome. Anyway, if you only use IE to submit stuff via Gmail, what could the security threat be? You won't be browsing on IE or gathering cookies and trackers on IE, just using Gmail to make submissions. Actually, dividing your browsing time over multiple browsers tends to increase your security because your browsing trail is not centralized in one browser.

Jerome,

Move to windows 8, and stop worrying about security. For myself, I use chrome... it's far superior to IE. Technical considerations aside, it's lighter, faster, and developers write extensions for it first. Most of those never get to IE.

As far as process goes, I never compose locally. By that I mean I don't use stand alone software on my local machine. I have a remote site set up, on a private wordpress host, where I can configure my own text editor. The one I'm using right now is called TinyMCE Advanced, which lets me change my settings according to that day's requirements. More info here: http://wordpress.org/plugins/tinymce-advanced/

Experience has taught me to never trust a hard drive, especially not a local one. I'm set up so that when I click save, the text is stored in three different places. It's also saved in a format that can be cut and pasted reliably into any format an editor might require.

Best,

Bill

Thanks Roger and Bill. Roger, IE, or at least my version of it, is no longer supported by gmail, so not all features may work, they say. Even in IE, although it single spaces, unlike gmail accessed through Firefox, trouble can come when there are indentations. Not a problem with attachments,
but some editors specify 'body of email only' for fear of viruses.

Bill, you're far ahead of me in these matters. Thanks for the info, filed for the upcoming upheaval period of re-equipping and re-jigging when the XP I've used since 2002 stops being supported next April.

Stop dilly-dallying. Go get a new machine. I was helping out a granny last week with her old xp box. Finally gave up, drove over to microcenter, and got her a perfectly nice windows 8 box for under 300 bucks (which was less, by the way, than she'd already paid other people to try to fix the old one).

Running an old box like that is equivalent to deciding the 'best used by 2006' date stamp on that can of crabmeat in your pantry can be safely ignored. Yes, you may live, but you likely wont want to... ;)

OK. That's it. I can't shut up any longer.

I'm a Granny, living in fear of the Young Turks who would throw my current computing arrangements out of the window and insist on my having something which they think would suit me better. Who, with apparent deference, suggest that I should lean forward and suck the bubbles from the rim of the new vintage, while I can feel the relentless pressure they are exerting on the back of my neck.

Well, back off and listen.

This has nothing to do with relative poverty or fear of technology. I write in my head, on paper and on screen. I use Word 97 because that's the last word-processing programme that was designed for writers first and foremost. And I browse, most of the time, with Internet Explorer because it is the only one that allows me to use Good Google, a dreamy Narnia into which I creep via a special door in the back of my musty old wardrobe which smells of lavender and old ladies.

Good Google waits like a sweet servant, offering me a clean empty box into which I type my requirements. It waits till I've finished. It does not second-guess with predictive text, it does not "autocomplete". If it feels I have made a mistake it will ask gently "did you mean...?" but if I didn't, it will conduct my original search without fuss.

I have tried to establish this gateway on other computers, but I think it has been closed. Probably by Google, having decided that Narnia is not for grown-ups.

I have to be constantly alert. I use Adobe Flash Player, which I update regularly, despite the fact that there is a little hidden box, pre-ticked, that will automatically download Chrome if I'm not super-vigilant.

It is part of my individual human condition that I cannot be doing with onscreen busyness. It is as confusing to me as loud, extraneous noise. On eBay, for instance, I have to look sideways and scroll away from ads that pop out and jiggle at me.

That, I know, is my personal problem and nobody else's but the point I am making, I hope, is that, as a sentient, thinking Granny, I CHOOSE my "outdated" systems because they serve MY purpose better than anything newer that I have tried.

I give thanks constantly for the computer whizz-kid on my high street who respectfully keeps my old writing-and-researching system going, while helping me to equip myself with, and understand, the hard-and-software I'll need in my new role as Editor.

Thank you for the ranting-space. I'm now off to Narnia to find a scholarly crib for my bakeoff submission - if I can just move these old fur coats out of the way...

I use whatever box I can get cheap, probably second-hand. After two or three years it gets very slow or it gets totally fucked up and I get another. Simples, as the rodents say.

Security? What security? Why should I care about security? How do I get the bloody adverts off my email?

Ann,

Of course, you're right. In my defense, it was my third trip to her house. This time, I'd come prepared: I had a drive loaded with rkill, malwarebytes, and every anti-trojan program known to the civilized world. This sector of the galaxy has rarely seen a team so well equipped.

I counted EIGHT separate trojan horses running on that machine. Not viruses, not bits of malware. Trojans. And they were ugly ones. Clearly, it was a node on a botnet, and was busy sending spam to every corner of the known universe. So busy, no real program would run.

So I took it off the network. But trojans are smart these days. That just made them draw up their defenses. They knew I was out there, and they were having none of it. After yet another hour of just trying to kill processes and load rkill, I decided to raise the siege. Some castles simply aren't worth capturing.

Yes, there were other things I could have done. But there would always be another Ephialtes of Trachis out there. In this case, Ephialtes was her teenage grandson, who desired illicit material, and would click any link to get it. "This program isn't safe to run," the machine certainly said, "should I run it anyway?" "Yeah, sure," said Ephialtes, as visions of a scantily clad Emma Watson danced through his head.

So I got her something he couldn't mess up, no matter how many hormones addled his brain. A nice refurbished machine, clean and shiny. In a few weeks, I'll go back, boot the old one to linux, and save all her pictures. Even the pictures of Ephialtes. Meanwhile, the persians can shout and clamour and dance around Xerxes all they want. They aint gettin' through the hot gates.

Thanks,

Bill

Geez, John. Why aren't you running Adblock?

https://adblockplus.org/en/chrome

Thanks,

Bill

Why isn't everyone using an Apple? I have no problems (knock on wood) with viruses or anything else. Annie, I wish for you a brand-new iMac with a big, clear screen. It's easy, cheap, safe, and simple.

Bill, do you keep a blog of your daily adventures? I'd love to subscribe!

Nausheen :)