Comments on: Why I dumped Internet Explorer

CNET News.com's Charles Cooper confesses that he's a Firefox convert and not at all nostalgic for the old days.

[GeekNJ]

Dumped? Not really!

You can't dump IE. First, you will need IE as there some sites that absolutely require it. Sure, you can try and avoid them, but that's like avoiding highways because you don't like the number of the road. You'll need IE for Windows Update, any site that requires ActiveX, etc.

There are sites that don't render properly (or crash) in Firefox, so you'll launch IE.

To be "better" then IE, they need to provide what IE does in a better way. Until you can visit every site you can with IE, using another browser, a different choice is not a better browser. And you can't tell me it's the web site developers that I need to hound - I can't fix the site... I can only select my client.

[alskiontheweb]

If the site cares....

...so much for democracy. Don't bother letting the site know that you use firefox and their site doesn't work. IE is so functionally imature to Firefox, its not funny. More so, since MS is no longer offering new features on IE for any other platform except for XP, there are a lot of people, myself included, that are stuck with a dead end browser. Make your voice heard and any smart web developer can support firefox.

[kevingamin]

Speaking of Sites Requiring IE...

My company, OEConnection (http://www.oeconnection.com), requires it's automobile dealer customers to use Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher to access their online parts locator.

[rdean]

No apologies for broken sites...

If it breaks Mozilla and is conformant to W3C standards, then it's a bug in Mozilla. If it breaks Mozilla and is IE specific, then it's a website bug. Mozilla has been proactive with sites whose content doesn't render properly on Mozilla, and many have them have been good about updating to standards.

maybe for yourself.

I am an avid browser of all things web and never have the troubles you speak of with firefox. To knock it and avoid it is to further bury your head in the sands of naievety.

You are incorrect, sir

I have dumped IE, and many others as well.
As for ActiveX, why would I want a browser
capable of such insecurity? If I want that, I
will just turn off my firewall.
But as I said, don't switch to reliable software
on my account. If everybody ran Linux, Mozilla
based browers, OpenOffice, etc., I would be out
of a job, as all I do is fix the problems
associated with it.
You Micro$oft junkies pay my bills, and the
customer is always right....

You are incorrect, sir

I have dumped IE, and many others have as well.
As for ActiveX, why would I want a browser
capable of such insecurity? If I want that, I
will just turn off my firewall.
But as I said, don't switch to reliable software
on my account. If everybody ran Linux, Mozilla
based browers, OpenOffice, etc., I would be out
of a job, as all I do is fix the problems
associated with it.
You Micro$oft junkies pay my bills, and the
customer is always right....

I did...

I haven't used IE for........? I don't remember the last time I used it. Windows update is automated, so you don't even need the browser anymore, and I'm hearing that a lot of sites have actually STOPPED working in IE. I generally get 2 or 3 IM's a week from friends saying 'check out this site for me' because it loads with messages like 'done, but with errors' in IE but works perfectly fine in Mozilla and firefox. Maybe the writers have stopped using those broken microsoft toys to script with? And yes, it should be the webmasters you complain to, don't just bend to it and use what works.

[Not Bugged]

You don't need to dump IE

"You can't dump IE. First, you will need IE as there some sites that absolutely require it. Sure, you can try and avoid them, but that's like avoiding highways because you don't like the number of the road. You'll need IE for Windows Update, any site that requires ActiveX, etc."

You don't need to dump IE, but that is besides the point. What percentage of sites are you talking about 1%, 5%, surely not more than 10%. So let's assume I can't live without IE for 10% of the sites, not true in my case, but anyway I can use FF 90% of the time and surf in relative safety 90% in relation to IE. Companies always talk about risk reduction but don't seem to have a clue on how actually reduce their risk. Btw among, the many extensions there is a FF extension that lets you view any site in IE with a right mouse click.

[ajbright]

You have good points but..

You are correct when you point out that without IE you have no access to the windows update site, and that other badly written webpages do not work correctly with other browsers (MS Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc being guilty of producing non-standard html code).

It is possible to get by without windows update, although not nearly as efficiently, as most updates are actually available for download before they are released via the update site.

But the main issue here is that because IE is really the foundation that windows is built on, and because MS managed to worm it's way out of any meaningful court decisions that would have forced real compatibility with rival browsers, they are not forced to allow windows update to work with other browsers. Should they be? It's fair to argue that there's no reason why one business should be forced to open itself up to others, and it's also fair to argue that users made the choices that made MS the monopoly it is today. After all there were a great deal of rival operating systems back in the early 90s (more than the two real, and practical, alternatives we have today), but people decided to go with the slick marketing and put windows on 99% of their PC's.

So as a consequence, we are left with the kludge we have today. Either use IE exclusively, or just use as required.

So if it is fair to force MS to give system compatibility to other browsers (so that they work with Windows Update), it is only fair that those that want the compatibility should be forced to pay for it via licensing.

The non-standard website thing is not forgivable though, and there is no reason why creative software doesn't self enforce these standards.

Missing the point

Of course you can dump IE. Windows Updates are available for normal download, without IE. And ActiveX is hardly a reason to use IE - it is, if anything, a reason to avoid it. You say a browser can't be better till you can visit every site with it - but you can't visit every site with IE.

Personally, I don't use IE, except to test sites I create. That's a given for me as a designer. Other than that, I've not had a single occasion when I have had to use it in the last six months.

[alskiontheweb]

I'm with you...

...After the long suffering trail of waiting for IE to become more modernly functional, I gave up. Especially when most of my machines run windows 2000 and MS says that IE on that platform is now unsupported. Can't even get patches for it? Fine, I'll move along. Firefox not only is faster but is so much more functional its not funny. It's the first time in a while that I can say "it will change the way you browse". Especially anyone that's RSS savy. I had a friend ask me why I switched. I told him I was essentially forced to switch since IE isn't supported any more. He goes on and says "IE now has a popup blocker". Little did he realize, that's only for XP. This is the first time in a while also where I can say there is something so much more functional than an MS product that you'd be missing something worthwhile if you didn't switch. Generally, I like MS products (except for the extremely bloated Word), but Firefox is hands down and absolute step up over IE. I have an old PII 300 with 128MB of RAM that there is nothing from MS that is remotely secure that can run on it. I installed RH9 and put Firefox on it. Man, it's a truly remarkable experience. What's funny is that I look at XP and say "why upgrade?" from 2k. I look at the feature list for longhorn and say the same thing. They are developing things that aren't new features for a general audience any more.

For all you developers out there, the door is ajar....very ajar...

[smfriedland]

Sticking with IE

Some of the readers responded with reasons why they stick with IE. Summarizing them they mostly are from Site owners or web page designers who favor IE because: 1.It allows them to write bad code and have everything work correctly 2.Using paid, e.g. Microsoft, products is easier, e.g. cheaper, then using open source products, 3. Use MS code generators. Hardly good reasons. Bad code is bad code, it will alwyas give problems at some time. I also rather doublt that in a comparison MS products are more difficult to use than paid products from other vendors. Lastly, there are much more standards compliant code generators out there which cost the same as the Microsoft
products.

From a business perspective I haven't seen a good reason for restricting browsers to IE only and a lot of bad ones.

For some reason people seem to forget or do not want to consider that there is something besides Microsoft software. The also don't seem to want to consider that the whole point of standards is to allow systems from different vendors to communicate/interact with each other.

While it is in vendors immediate benefit to make incompatiable systems it is not their longterm benefit. This includes both the Microsoft and the vendors which only will code for Microsoft.

Perhaps a story from over a century ago will better illistrate my point. At the time the big item was fasteners - otherwise known as nuts and bolts. It would seem that a number of differenct vendors made them and they weren't compatiable with each other. The situation was much like today where a vendor could force a mfr. to buy all their nuts and bolts from them for compatiability reasons. Eventually the mess got so bad with parts not fitting togeather or replacement bolts not being available that Congress stepped in. It created a committe called the "Screw thread committe" (I am not kidding) which mandated what the standards would be.

Right now were very much at incompatiable state. The question then occurs will the vendors get their act togeather or will congress do it for them. After all, its happened before.

[barmbro]

how do i get internet explorer OFF MY COMPUTER??? i just want it gone. it sux.

[szilagyic]

This article is right on. Internet Explorer sucks, and is losing share to Firefox rapidly especially in more recent statistics. The trends tell us the story. And let's consider this, that most users are on a Windows computer, right? And still they are choosing to ditch the built in browser (IE) and actually install Firefox and use that instead. That right there says a lot, and I'm glad people are finally waking up and seeing the light. Now, we just need others to discover or learn that Firefox is way ahead (and will always be because it is Open Source). Microsoft has a lot of problems with its software when you look at the big picture of its products compared to Open Source, and the browser wars is just one example of Open Source winning.

I've even written my own article detailing many other reasons (including why Firefox is winning the browser war): <a href="http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux">http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux</a>