Still Using Internet Explorer? How Many Attackers Should Hit You To Change?
First of all, you should know that Internet Explorer isn’t the only software available to surf the web. It is the most used, but not the only one and in our opinion, far from being the most secure.
Specific Reasons Why You Should Not Be Using It
We are not going to be like some “Microsoft haters” and recommend anything but Microsoft, but we are going to be as neutral as possible so you could decide by yourself if you should continue using Internet Explorer or switch to something else in order to protect not only yourself, but also the future development of the Internet.
The reason why I’m writing this post is because you should know if someone is trying to manipulate you or is involved in some questionable business practices that impact directly in the development of the product you use and maybe on the Internet itself, so don’t take this review slightly.
All the reasons in this post are taken from known sources on the Web and this was not intended to scare anybody or push you to adopt some negative posture, this is only probably the most informative article on what you should know about Internet Explorer.
Finally, this is not an attack on Microsoft, which has some excellent software, but an attack to their business practices around Internet Explorer.
Here we go:
1. Microsoft is a very opportunistic company, driven only by profits
This is not bad, since all businesses should look to increase their profits to survive, but when a company uses his position of power to control what software people should be using, that is questionable. Microsoft uses the enormous installed base of Windows to push Internet Explorer far beyond any other company could and take control of the market. That happened in 1,995 when Netscape had more than 90% market share and Microsoft made this move to disappear them.
The debacle of Netscape wasn’t overnight. In 1,996, Microsoft started one of the most prolific software updates in history improving Internet Explorer one version after another every year, till Internet Explorer 6.0, which was the last update of Internet Explorer since many years. Further updates weren’t needed beyond version 6.0 because by that time, Netscape was annihilated, with less than 10% market share.
This killed innovation for a very long time. Why Internet Explorer was updated to 7.0? Probably because Firefox is growing very fast and now is around 10% market share, which proves that Microsoft only moves when there is a serious threat.
2. Microsoft tries to control the Internet
Microsoft doesn’t want standards very much because if all products support the same standards, them it is impossible to differentiate a product by “features”, thus making it less marketable. So, what is the Microsoft solution to this? Create non-standard tags in the HTML language and entice developers to use them so pages that include those new tags look bad in other browsers, making users blame the other browsers, not Microsoft. This is very smart, but also pure evil.
Due to great criticism, Microsoft is leaving this practice, adopting the standards, but who knows how long it will last.
3. It Is A Disaster From The Security Stand Point
In an effort to build feature after feature, the design of Internet was severely flawed and now it is very difficult to make it secure. Even the CERT (Computer and Emergency Response Team) warned at some point that users should not be using Internet Explorer.
The biggest security flaw from Internet Explorer comes from a “feature” known as Active-X. Active-X is a system that allows programs to execute from inside the browser and this is the main source of major security problems.
4. If You Are A Webmaster, You Already Hate Internet Explorer.
We as webmasters are so sick about Internet Explorer flaws on CSS and other standard technologies, that we have to make two versions of our pages so they look good on varios browsers. One version for Internet Explorer and another version of the same page for other browsers.
The best indicator that Internet Explorer is NOT a good program is that most people that try Firefox, don’t regret and never look back to use Internet Explorer another time and this also speaks well for the Firefox Browser.
