REO Speeding on the Net

Sorry for the REO take, but I'm interested in getting the most speed from my Internet connection, since I paid for it. So do you know what your speed is? Head over to http://speedtest.net/ and get all the info on your upload and download speeds. If you are not within 75% of what you're paying for, call your provider. It drives me crazy when the provider tells me it's because someone else upstream is using all the bandwidth. My reply is, "fix it or provide a credit to me."

OK, enough on speeding. Next we venture back in time to move forward in time,  because browser wars are back.

Back in my early Internet days we used command lines (No graphical interface or browser) to do our research. Just text, and it was fast—well, for 300 baud, whixh is about 200 times slower than today—and we loved it. Fast-forward to the early '90s, and a fine group of geeks at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana came out with a browser called Mosaic, and started the Internet moving into mainstream America.

Now we have a huge selection of browsers (Chrome , Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, Safari and others), and while they all are great, I tend to go with Firefox and Chrome over IE. Why? I'm less of a target for people trying to take control of my computer. With 75 percent of attacks coming at IE, why paste a big X on yourself?

IE has gotten better with IE9, but the jury is still out for me on safe Internet use. I'll stay in the Fox's den.

So what is coming down the pipeline? Well, tablets, and more hardware are in the offing, so keep that channel selector right here at Patch. Hey, if you like Patch, please tell your local Patch editor. They love email!