Why you should dump IE.
 

I realise this subject is swings and roundabouts, but I found this article quite interesting..

Linky

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Yup, Firefox is without question the way to go......its so much nicer and just doest seem as clunky as IE :)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Installed Firefox, used it for an hour or so, it kept timing out on several site's, especially hyperlinks in emails/MSN etc, removed it and reset IE as my default browser and the problem went away. It also seemed to render pages a lot more slowly that IE even after some tweaks than were listed in another thread.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Must admit in some ways its a nice piece of software but it does seem to render a few sites slowly as Bifta has said, I use myie2 since it has tabbed browsing which comes in handy for opening multiple sites at once.
Im using firefox at the moment to post this but I don't think I will be setting it as my default broswer just yet ;) Especially since I've only just talked my significant other into using MYIE2 instead of Internet Explorer.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

i gave it a go and soon realised the error of my ways , if they keep working on it then fine , i will use it , until then i am afraid i am going to stick with i.e. , i hope they do get it sorted though as i reckon bg has had enough money out of ppl :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I gave up Microsoft Internet Explorer (With bonus crash pack) ages ago.
Mozilla all the way for me.
Tabbed browsing is much easier and the built in pop up blocking works really well too.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Mozilla Firefox here. When at work, when the only thing is IE, I miss the tabbed browsing.

Though when I first tried it, I do admit I hated, but over time I grew to like it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I tried Firefox because of all the fuss and I didn't rate it. Has potential though. I found that many sites didn't display properly and it generally made my system behave oddly. The Net is largely designed for IE - that's a huge legacy that Firefox has to address and currently it's ignoring it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

No, that's something that Micro$oft has to address.
Read the article.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I have. The attitude at the moment when a site doesn't display in Firefox is "It's the site's fault - it was designed for IE". With that attitude I don't see how Firefox can challenge IE. Bit of a vicious circle though - web designers design for the popular browsers which in turn makes those browsers more popular, or rather cements their popularity. I can't see anyone going out of their way to design a site that works in IE and Firefox if few people use Firefox. Anyways - the issue for me was what it did to my system. Suppose you're going to tell me I should upgrade to XP :p: :rolleyes:

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I design in Mozilla first, I get everything looking perfect then I view it in IE to find myself having to put in nasty hacks to make it look acceptable.
There are parts of nthellworld.co.uk that aren't even visible in IE simply because it's standards support is so bad.

And yes, upgrade to XP, use FF 0.9 or Mozilla 1.7 and only use IE for Windows Updates. ;)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

My requirements are .. speed, features and security .. in that order.
I use Avantbrowser for the simple reason that it's tabbed, has genuinely useful features (popup blocker, multiple default page tabs on load, integrated search bar...etc) and is stable.
I use Firefox as my secondary browser, but it's so much slower that I'm not going to make it my default any time soon.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

But Avant browser is just an addon for IE so you are inheriting all IEs security problems........if you take a broken down car and give it a nice new paint job you still have a broken down car ;)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm aware of that... thats why I said security is third in my list of priorities, not first.
And if it really was "broken" there wouldn't be any contest.. I'm not saying Avantbrowser is the better browser in general, just that for my requirements it definately is.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Why is security third ?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

No, as Richard says the differences between IE and standards based browsers (such as Opera and Firebird) is something Microsoft should address, or possibly the designers who use IE only features. The problem with people designing for IE is simply that to view a site designed for IE, you need to use IE. In itself, this is sort of acceptable IF you want Microsoft to control what browser (and therefore what OS or Platform) you are using.

Increasingly, people are using the WWW on PDAs, phones or other devices that may use Symbian OS, Linux, Palm OS etc. By designing a site specifically for IE, the designers may be preventing those people from accessing their sites. If the designers stick the standards, then there will be no problem viewing sites on all devices. If IE were brought into line, it would not have problems either.

As to alternate browsers, yes, I do use IE mainly (our admin software at work requires it), but in my own time I tend to use Opera. I did use Firebird, but have found it renders things too slowly.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

A few reasons... as an I.T professional I'm usually aware of potential hazards and obviously steer clear of dodgy sites, I never install software that has questionable content (spyware/adware).. I don't pretend that I can deal with every eventuality.. I'm just compromising (debatable) a bit with security because the benifits outway the pitfalls in my opinion...
Yes, IE has problems.. but they're secondary to my enjoyment/ease-of-use.
No browser is flawless after all.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I take your point but it makes no sense to me to design for minority browsers that hardly anyone uses and then "tweak" your site so it works in the popular browsers everyone uses. That said, web designers have always been a funny lot - more art than technological. Probably why I don't touch ?TML if I can help it - my artistic efforts have largely been pictures made from bits of wool and the odd clay thing resembling road kill. My sense of colour is shocking too.

I'm not worried about Microsoft - it's a patriarchal organisation and Gates can't last forever :)


If a website is intended to be cross-platform you would create different sites for different platforms and use some intervening technology to identify and serve the correct site - I believe this is where XML, XLST and something like Xalan come in.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

It is possible to do this (even using Javascript) as my own personal site did (I designed two sites: One for Web and one for Wap and the default page simply redirected the browser to the appropriate page).

If IE followed standards, then the only change ANY web designer would need to make for ANY platform would be for screen size, and possibly include suport for Screen readers for the blind. You wouldn't have to tweak the site to work in different browsers.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I see no reason to switch. IE provides everything I need. The only standard that I see is the IE standard. If it can't be displayed in IE, it isn't worth viewing or visiting. If a page doesn't display correctly in IE, I skip over it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

The day Firefox matches IE for speed is the day I'll swap. I tried the current version and it's about 4 or 5 seconds slower than IE.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I would try Mozilla 1.7, it's still the fastest browser in the world (despite what Opera says ;)).

Quit trolling.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Except that MS are members of the W3C and supposedly should have a good idea of what the standard is.

I do the same, but the other way around :D

One day I'm going to have to sit down and compile firefox with performance metrics enabled and compare the two, but from what I've seen on my newly compiled 0.9 it's at least as fast as I remember IE being (especially IE on XP).

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

You're not the only one. ;)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Fine if you are not planning to use the Internet on any device apart from a PC, Mac, Pocket Windows PDA or MS Smartphone.

It could leave you a bit stuffed if you do though.

So why support a standard that may have a limited future? Development of IE as a standalone product has already stopped (they stopped development on the Mac and wil only distribute future versions of IE in Windows Service Packs).

If IE were bought into line with the W3C standards, then it would not be a problem if development on it ceased as the sites would still be accessable from other browsers.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

The number of people using anything other than IE is so minutely small that Microsoft don't need to conform to anything, like a lot of other people, if a page doesn't render correctly in IE, I'm not going to install another browser just to get round it.

Here's an indication from one of my busier site's showing how many people use a browser other than IE, less than .84%

Top 15 of 1035 Total User Agents

# Hits User Agent

1 238858 20.66% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
2 157182 13.59% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1
3 105478 9.12% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)
4 48786 4.22% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98)
5 43825 3.79% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)
6 27099 2.34% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1
7 26142 2.26% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; FunWebProd
8 24963 2.16% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
9 15599 1.35% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)
10 14076 1.22% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)
11 12805 1.11% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; CDSource=v
12 11227 0.97% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 9.0; Windows NT 5.1)
13 10563 0.91% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BT Openwor
14 9904 0.86% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0)
15 9672 0.84% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)

I don't know if Webalizer picks up proper mozilla browsers so here's some other stats:

#: #reqs: #pages: browser
--: -------: ------: -------
1: 1552822: 71395: MSIE
: 1332391: 60777: MSIE/6
: 217190: 10600: MSIE/5
: 3241: 18: MSIE/4
2: 16496: 732: Mozilla
: 15217: 647: Mozilla/1
3: 1707: 210: Opera
: 1707: 210: Opera/7
4: 612: 111: Konqueror
: 612: 111: Konqueror/3
5: 8941: 66: Netscape (compatible)
6: 24: 24: ia_archiver
7: 426: 9: Galeon
: 426: 9: Galeon/1
8: 4: 3: HenryTheMiragoRobot (http:
: 4: 3: HenryTheMiragoRobot (http://www
: 3657: 0: [not listed: 9 browsers]

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Interesting...that is, it's interesting that the User Agent string for IE reads as Mozilla compatible.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Probably has something to do with webalizer running on *nix and IE not being a browser available for it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Stats from CF, which is probably a pretty good indication of the net in general:

* Indicates Mozilla based browser

BTW - IE has always had that Mozilla string because they wanted to show it was compatible with early Netscape browsers (<4) when Netscape was the dominant app.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

So if the majority use IE, then what are we arguing about?? You can't ignore the post popular browser when developing, and like I said, it seems daft to design for browsers that hardly anyone uses. The market dominance of a company sets the standards, regardless of any standards body.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I think that the point we are trying to get across is that HTML (and the standards that have grown out of that, CSS etc) was designed as a platform-independant markup language, the aim being that information could be shared across all platforms. The point of having standards is that it shouldn't matter what software, browser in this case, is used the end result is the same, pages should display the same whether used in firefox or in IE. The idea of platform independance is fundamental to the way in which the internet operates, imagine if all of those other standards, jpg, tcp/ip, smtp/pop/imap, http and so on, were modified to be incompatible across platforms. Where would be then? MS are part of the group that defines the standard, so why do they have so much trouble adhering to it? It's not even as though they have a strict published alternative standard, it's just that their browser cannot actually meet the standards required but because they hold a massive dominance and peoples 'I'm alright' attitude they don't have the impetus they need to fix their product. The fact that they state w3c compatibility but don't actually have it does show that IE is in fact broken.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

But the minority is still millions of internet connected people.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

This is to all those in the "IE is the most used browser, so IE is the standard" camp. What happens when IE stops being the most popular browser?

Now, this may or may not happen, but remember that a few years ago, Netscape Navigator/Communicator was in the same position IE is now. It's entirely possible a new browser will come along and knock IE off the top.

IF that should happen, a lot of web sites will need to be altered to work with alternate browsers. If IE were based on standards, that would not be a problem.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Does anyone know exactly what bit of the W3C standards IE is unable to deal with?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Unfortunately for us if MS ever started to comply fully with the W3C standard and consequently web designers had also to follow the standard, we could all install whatever W3C compliant browser we wished and it would work 100%.

MS would then surely lose thier browser monopoly with IE.

No, MS will continue to keep IE non compliant forcing web designers to write specifically for it (being the most used out there) and making other browsers appear broken.

IE is inexorably packaged with Windows, few Windows users will even know about or look for let alone install an alternative browser. Web designers won't design sites that won't work with the browser the majority use.

Catch 22 for us. Monopoly for MS :mad:

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

MS don't write IE to be non W3C compliant, it is W3C compliant.
This is why IE works with all W3C compliant web sites.

It can also handle things beyond the W3C standards. If a web site requires those extra functions which are not part of the W3C standards, then it's not Microsofts fault is it?

Remember, Netscape went further than the W3C standards, but because it wasn't MS people didn't bitch about it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

OK maybe I should say, as you rightly point out IE is compliant, but there is code around that works only with IE, but yes it is MS's fault since they actively promote such (Active X & Active scripting) so that many sites will only work with IE based browsers. Such code is outside the standards and as only MS know the code only they can engineer their browser to use it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Is it microsofts fault that developers use this code when there are alternatives? No.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

It screws up CSS, so a designer has to resort to stupid hacks.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Which bits of CSS? I've never had a problem with them

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Load both Mozilla and IE then try these:
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Interesting.


I've just tried the Complex Spiral Demo in IE6 & Firefox 0.9 - works perfectly in Firefox, & not in IE.


And, the other way round....Just tried a friend's site which uses CSS - perfect in IE6, but looks completely wrong in Firefox. I guess it's IE specific in some way.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Yup. Also entirely possible we'll be hit with a big rock and wiped out (won't that be a tragedy) :p: This is where Firefox missed a trick - if they could get all web pages to display correctly and offer speed and security improvements over IE et al, then their browser would be in a strong position to upsurp IE - providing users make the switch (that's down to marketing). If that happened, designers could then start developing compliant sites rather than IE sites, and over time IE would go the same way as Netscape (truly awful browser).


I know with my homepage (not brilliant I know) I had to remove some bits of CSS before Firefox displayed it correctly - the site had passed the CSS validator, though I know that means little. I had a width=100% somewhere in the CSS and Firefox sized the screen all wrong whereas IE displayed it fine. I think the fault was with Firefox but I'm not a web designer.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

My point was that it happened before (IE knocked Nutscrape off the top), at some point it will happen again. A lot of IE specific websites will fall over if this happens.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

And my point was it won't happen because of this very reason - people are going to take one look at how Firefox displays pages and dump it. Don't forget that most users don't have a clue what CSS is and probably have never heard of W3C. Like I said, if a browser wants to topple IE it needs to be better than IE but still display sites, regardless of what browser they were designed for, correctly.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

You appear to be assuming people will always view web pages on PCs or Macs. I am saying this will not necessarily be the case (and, for the record, web pages that require Active X don't work on the Mac even in IE).

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Has anyone else tried using Outlook as a browser?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Outlook uses IE to do it's browsing (within the Outlook interface). As a matter of fact, a lot of Microsoft software (including Outlook) uses IE to render the interface.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

That is like asking "What if you are immortal?" It isn't going to happen and at best it is a fantasy you can dream about.

And that is GOOD for them and it is GOOD for us because they make their product BETTER. If a competitor can't do that, screw them. I want the easiest and fastest browser with USABLE features.


Sorry, but unless Firefox and other browsers make a serious attempt to be better than IE I simply won't use them or develop for them. By virtue of being the biggest Microsoft sets the standard and no one can do squat about it. Continue to bitch and complain and continue to make your product adhere to the "standard;" if it doesn't work and accept Microsoft standards you're not going to get very far ever.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Just look at Nutscrape for example, version 2.02 was fantastic, it showed just how naff IE3 was.
People wouldn't dream of using anything other than Nutscrape, it was the canine's testicles.
To not download Nutscrape was crazy.
Then they went mad and started trying to make it look all pretty and forgot that functionality and speed were the important factors.
IE powered ahead, and not because of Active X or anything else that IE can cope with that other browsers can't, it's because the benifits gleaned from downloading and installing any other browser just are not worth it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I suspect that's exactly the sort of attitude Netscape had before IE became top.

It also shows the complete lack of being prepared for any future events that has hurt many companies (one example Digital Research's refusal to port CP/M to the PC because the "PC has no future", hence IBM having to go to their second choice, Microsoft, to develop an OS).

Anyway, just to make it clear, I think that although PC's and Macs are the main way of accessing the Internet now, I don't think that will be necessarily the case in the future (especially with Internet access being built into an increasing number of consumer electronic devices). It is entirely possible that Microsoft will not convert IE to whatever device is used most to connect to the Internet.

Regarding use of IE, I think, as Xaccers says, that regardless of whether IE is standards compliant or not, people will use it because it is built into their operating systems. Although any one of us probably knows enough to download, install and use another browser, the chances are that Joe Soap (a miscellaneous member of the public) would probably not know these browsers exist. If he/she did, they would probably not know where to download them, and also are not likely to bother to switch unless the browser offers a significant improvement.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

No, Netscape was arrogant to think they can charge $44.95 for a browser and that a free one bundled with an operating system won't hurt them.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Part of the rise in popularity of other browsers is due to the fact that many people have broadband (infact i would guess 90% of people who care which browser they use have broadband) so a new browser is easily downloadable. Saying that, on this pc at the moment i have IE6, firefox 0.9, mozilla 1.7, netscape 7.1 and HotJava 3.0.

I use firefox for most things, ie for the sites that i need too and the others just for testing/ playing with.

The main reason MSIE is so popular is that when you install windows on a pc, it is there and ready to use straight away. Most people do not have the time/ inclination/ knowledge to install anything else so they stick with IE6.

However, programs such as MSN explorer on winXP opened people's eyes to the fact that there is actually more than one browser out there. ok so msn explorer is built on IE but is just looks a bit different, but it is still a different product.

The rise in popularity of Linux means that fewer 'standard' (for want of a better word) uses will not be on windows. Three years ago the only people who i knew that used linux would have to be called "ubergeeks", but this situation has changed dramatically now.

A good example of this is India- not a place renouned for IT, but statistics that i was reading (will find the link later) showed that 92% of home users in India have linux not windows, because it is cheaper. If this trend continues, then fewer people will use IE, and more people will install other browsers, which will in turn lead to development of web content that is cross browser compatible.

MB

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

How can you say they made Nutscrape look pretty? :D It's never been pretty...

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I said they were trying to make it look pretty, not that they ever succeeded :D

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Actually, I am not denying Netscape were stupid (and arrogant), just pointing it that anyone who assumes that they will stay at no.1 forever (as Netscape did) is arrogant. Eventually, at some point, something will come along that will replace IE as the most used browser. It's the way of the world we live in, and in particular, the way of the Internet. Admittedly, I don't see it happening anytime soon, and I don't think it will happen with any of the current browsers either.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

OK stop press:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive...16/157263.aspx
I really hope they do the sensible thing this time.

If they only come up with a shoddy attempt at making a new decent browser, ignoring all the feedback they have on the above link then it'll have the reverse effect of what they wanted and IE will be deserted even more than it will likely be in 2005/2006 or whatver, Mozilla will be the dominant browser by then anyway imo.
But, if they make a good standards compliant browser then it'll be great, because all these people who only know the IE stupid way of making websites will be out of a job and hence more work for those of us who care about compliancy. ;)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Sounds good, mind you I hate web development so they're welcome to the jobs, leave the programming ones for me*. It'll be great if all browsers are standards compliance because then it won't actually matter what browser people use and the web can work the way it was meant to.

In other news, Mozilla are working with Nokia to produce a browser for their phones, if that goes ahead just think of the impact that will have.

*Cheeky request, if anyone sees any graduate programming jobs going please let me know :)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm using Opera at the moment, although it's not a 100% change over from IE since sometimes pages don't load correctly, images appear in places they should not etc.

Other than that though, It's a great alternative.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

pff! I call it a liability than a feature, spyware, spware, spyware. Using firefox for years and I haven't had a single spyware infection. My sister and 5 mins with IE and toolbar this and clock sync that in my tasklist.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Talking of ActiveX, anyone know how to enable it for Opera?

I need it enabled to run GMail.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

from here

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Ok, cheers.

Looks like I'm gonna have to stick to IE for E-mail then.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Gmail needs plain old Javascript, which runs in Mozilla, Opera and IE.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Being a Web/Multimedia Designer, I have to say that any designer worth his/hers tupence will test a decent Website on a variety of browsers to make sure it works and displays correctly. If it doesnt work on all browsers in some form..even older ones (we are told to develop for Netscape 3 content still), It is a crap site with a crap designer. I think there is still a reasonable percentage of people that dont use the latest version of browsers still.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I would like to see those statistics. And knowing India, I want to know if they counted all the pirated Windows copies floating about.

What are you smoking?

I disagree. I would test it on systems the MAJORITY of the people use UNLESS my goal is to penetrate a minority market too.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I totally disagree with that, my newest site (a web development company no less) is perfectly usable in Netscape 4, Opera, Mozilla, IE, text browsers, mobile phones, TV internet and even Mosaic.
You know how?
Because I only use XHTML + CSS 2.1 coded to the strictest of standards.

I don't need to worry about any extra versions of the site for other browsers/devices.

And while we're at it, check out a site only tested in IE:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/s...o/DXTidemo.htm
It looks terrible in any other browser, which is a disgrace for a computer company.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I decided to switch to Mozilla earlier, and yeah, it's much faster than IE or Opera.

It also has tab browsing too (like Opera), which makes me a happy chappy.:)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Why is it a disgrace that they're offering a demo of the advanced features of Internet Explorer that other browsers can't manage?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm not talking about the actual features of the demo, but even the form controls don't display properly.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm not sure how that's relevant, you know you're visiting a page that offers IE only features, even if the form elements did display correctly you wouldn't be able to get any results from them.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Aah well it was probably a bad example to post, there are plenty others out there.
MSDN are usually very good, a large percentage of members use an alternative to IE so I'm surprised they didn't bother to check for compatibility and put a note at the top stating that it uses proprietary IE extensions.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Maybe if Microsoft is a member of the w3c, they should be working to get these features added to the standards for a browser, rather than just adding them to their own browser?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I hate to say "I told you so" but:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3840101.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3847277.stm
Even the BBC are providing links to alternatives...

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

It's the beginning of the end for IE, now the US government are strongly advising people to switch to alternative browsers:
http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,64065,00.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...&tid=95&tid=99

Note that Avant and MyIE are still using the Trident(IE) rendering engine so still have the same vulnerabilities.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

The US Government? Isn't that reason not to switch? :p:

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

That's the last nail in the coffin, I'm advising everyone I know to use firefox.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Beginning of the end for IE? I doubt it somehow, Microsoft will patch this vulnerability just like they patch most others, and the recommendation to switch browser was LAST on CERT's list. If everyone were to switch to Firefox, give it a month or so and there'd be just as many vulnerabilities exposed, purely due to it's popularity, Currently who would want to hack a browser with a low user base? Seem's to be very little point in that, much more effective to go for the majority.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

1) Firefox is already miles better

cleaner
secure
no pop ups
google search built in
tabs
easy to clean all the cache crap

2)MS have never set a standard in their lives. They try to achieve a monopoly position in markets other than the OS where they already have a monopoly by creating non standard MS stuff like active x and wmv and hoping that thick users think they have to use MS for these things even tho their are better alternatives

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

People might be interested in this. It looks like Opera, Mozilla, Macromedia and Apple have got together to produce a new specification for plugins based on the old Netscape plug in system.. http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2004/06/30/

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Does it have something like ie spell and adshield avaliable for use with it?

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Adblock extension - very good ad blocker

It also has a spell checker extension but it's a bit rough around the edges ATM.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Do you mean in Firefox? As the adblock has been removed from the extension list.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

This is the thread developing the spell checker: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=34799

Adblock has been temporily removed because the upgrade to 0.9 broke a few features although it works ok on mine.
Here are the developers of adblock:
http://aasted.org/adblock/index.php

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

It was there for the release of v0.9, but disappeared later. I know it didn't work for me on 0.9.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Just found an interesting link for those who are curious about the Moz Firefox alternative:
http://texturizer.net/firefox/faq.html#q1.3

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I am tempted to use firefox but I have IE set up just as I like it and am loath to have to start fiddling about again :shrug:

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Same here. There's no Google Toolbar for Firefox et al and I found that Firefox made my system less stable - more errors and glitches. I'm still not convinced there's a future for minority browsers :)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Erm there's a built in google search bar :erm:

And firefox doesn't integrate into the system

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Well I never found it :erm:

Most programs integrate into the system. A program only needs to copy a dll to system or (over)write a registry entry for problems to occur.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Firefox has a built-in search, in which you can use various different search engines, including google.com/co.uk etc...

It has it's own pop-up stopper so you don't need the Google toolbar.

There is a Googlebar extension if you really need it.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm more interested in Google's autofill function for web forms - saves a lot of typing. Firefox didn't seem to have this capability.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Tools>Options>Privacy>"Remember form information"
The Mozilla browser has this in the Tools>Form Manager menu.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

That sounds like autocomplete, which isn't the same as clicking one button and having the form fields automatically filled in.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I believe the patch for this is now on windows update :)

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Now I'm not saying you should believe everything you read on the Register, they've let us down plenty of times too :grind: but take a look at this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/05/ie_vuln/

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

I'm still sure they'll release a patch that will block that particular hole though.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

The 'ditch IE' message seems to be gathering pace - yesterday's Independent ran a big feature on page 3 about the latest security hole and the advice from 'experts' to stop using IE and get an alternative browser instead.

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

while i am not a ms lover i do use IE and dont have a problem with it but:

The Secunia web site at http://secunia.com/advisories/11978/ lists the following as vulnerable....

Software: Internet Explorer 5.x for Mac
Konqueror 3.x
Mozilla 0.x
Mozilla 1.0
Mozilla 1.1
Mozilla 1.2
Mozilla 1.3
Mozilla 1.4
Mozilla 1.5
Mozilla 1.6
Mozilla Firefox 0.x
Netscape 6.x
Netscape 7.x
Opera 5.x
Opera 6.x
Opera 7.x
Safari 1.x

Re: Why you should dump IE.
 

Mozilla is now on 1.7 BTW.