geekroom

I helped a student yesterday whose Windows ME computer was utterly infested with some horrible spyware. She got these things installed, as usual, through careless use of Internet Explorer. She said, “I just click OK when I see things!”

I installed Mozilla Firebird for her, which is a little less trigger-happy about auto-installing software than IE is, and spent five minutes showing her the popup blocking and a few other tricks for minimizing ads in one’s life. She loved it!

Most people I show Firebird to like it, and some are totally effusive. It’s a good program. The only drawbacks I can think of are that it’s still not at version 1, and changes might confuse people (though in practice they seem not to be a problem), and that (in Windows) you have to install it from a zip file, which confuses people these days. But if you’re up for that extremely simple but slightly unusual installation method, or can con someone else into doing it for you, my experience suggests you may find it very likable.