Stop Using Internet Explorer
I’m not usually very blunt and forceful about things in the computing world, but I have to be this once, because Microsoft is asleep at the wheel: Stop using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. That’s the big blue “E” you click on to view web sites, in case you didn’t know. MSN Explorer is just as bad. I’m dead serious about this and you should be concerned about what this software allows to happen on your system. Read this article on Slate (ironically owned by MSN) for more details.
Internet Explorer version 6 came out two years ago, and since then there have been no new major releases, but the online world has made leaps and bounds in web-browsing technology. Features such as tabbed browsing, automatic pop-up blocking, mouse gestures, extensible plugins and themes, and advanced privacy options are popping up in browsers such as Firefox, but Internet Explorer is lagging big time.
Not only that, but Internet Explorer doesn’t play by the rules. The standards for web design are set by a group called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), who define exactly how the code should be written to make a web page look the same on all browsers. Browsers such as Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera do their best to meet (or exceed) these standards, but Microsoft has decided to play by their own rules (as they do with everything, really). So it’s a headache for designers to
create pages that work with all browsers, and pages that are written “correctly” often look terrible in Internet Explorer.
But that’s not the main reason to switch. The real reason is the vast number of security holes. Just today four new security holes have been found in Internet Explorer allowing people to do malicious things to your computer. Right now, people with unpatched PC’s can go to major banking websites and be infected with malware that will steal your banking information. Think about
the number of spyware programs and viruses people get from using Internet Explorer. Just this weekend I went to my parent’s house and surfed the web. I noticed a search/shopping page that came up when I mis-typed the url to my website. So I ran a spyware removal program called Spybot: Search and Destroy. It found over 50 installed spyware programs! I guarantee that no one in my family knowingly installed that crap.
I strongly recommend using Firefox, the lightweight browser from the Mozilla project. It is fast, small, and contains an excellent system for extensions to add more features to your browser. Not only that, but it is way more secure. Do it. Now. Not to mention that you won’t see another unwanted popup window again, and that’s without installing any extra software such as the Google toolbar or similar programs.
Now that I’ve said my peace, I don’t want to hear ANY of my friends/family complaining to me asking for help removing a virus or spyware. If you use IE, it’s your own fault. You have a choice, so
why not make one that will help keep your system from being compromised?
July 13th, 2004 at 3:39 pm
Tim ,
I posted a blog entry with some information about IE and the problems it having. Its got an excerpt from an article by Paul Thurrott from http://www.winsupersite.com.
Hrubik