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Redmondmag on Dumping IE
nSignIfikaNt writes "Here is yet another article discussing options to using IE. This one is from redmondmag.com who claims to be the independent voice of the microsoft IT community."
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From the article:
Which brings me to the real question: Can you live without IE? I try to use Firefox as my main browser, but I find myself firing up IE from time to time out of sheer necessity. My Web site uses Google AdSense to display context-sensitive ads to my users. The AdSense administration site works only with IE...
Well, I've been using Adsense for about 2 months now, and I have yet to open it in IE. I've only used Firfox so far, both on Windows and Linux, and never had any problems.
The Mozilla guys should patent "tabbed browsing", allowing royalty free use in any browser who requests it. With one exception, of course (IE)...
ummm.. yeah.. nevermind that OPERA HAD IT FIRST
#!/
Time to Dump IE?
Internet Explorer is a hacker's dream. Can you (and should you) drop it right now?
October 2004 by Don Jones
Internet Explorer is the Swiss Cheese of software--it's full of holes. Holes in software are never good, but when the browser is so integrated with the OS as to be as one--you've got problems. Add to that the sheer ubiquity of the Microsoft browser, and it's no wonder IE has become the hackers' No. 1 playground.
Now we're beset by increasingly common--and dangerous--security vulnerabilities. We knew IE was integrated with Windows, but we didn't have any idea how integrated it was. Even Microsoft doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on IE's internals, judging from the weeks it took to deliver an actual fix for the recent Download.Ject Trojan.
Not to say an integrated browser is all bad. To a developer, an integrated browser is cool because it gives you a built-in HTML rendering engine. You can then write apps that use HTML, knowing that the OS can render that HTML for you. IE can begin to take over the regular Windows Explorer shell and, in fact, has become so tightly integrated with Windows Explorer that it's a bit difficult to see where the shell ends and the browser begins.
The downside is a real downer. With a regular Web browser, a security vulnerability might let someone crash the browser. With an integrated Web browser they can crash the whole operating system. The tight ties to Windows means that the slightest IE security issue becomes an OS-wide panic. It's not just IE, either: Windows Media Player, Outlook Express, and even DirectX, are all, in my opinion, overly integrated and give hackers too much access to core PC functions.
But corporate users don't spend a lot of time playing with DirectX-based games, listening to Windows Media Player, or checking e-mail with Outlook Express. They do spend a lot of time in IE, and the more they surf the more they're vulnerable to its eccentricities. That's why more than a few corporations, not to mention individual users, are looking at alternatives--any alternative--to the built-in browser.
Browsing the Alternatives
Despite dire predictions from Netscape (now a unit of America Online, which, weirdly, continues to bundle IE with its software), the market for non-Microsoft browsers didn't go away. It sure as heck got small, though, with Microsoft now commanding around 95 percent of the market, according to some sources. But the times, they are a-changin'. San Diego Web metrics company WebSideStory recently reported IE losing 1 percent of that market, the first time IE has stumbled. IE is now down to 94 percent. Who's gaining? Mozilla.
The open-source code base of the Netscape browser, Mozilla offers a couple of browsers. Mozilla 1.7 is its base product (1.8 is in beta as of this writing); Firefox (currently at 0.9) is the next-generation browser. Both are available from www.mozilla.org. Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser based on Mozilla code. It's available from www.netscape.com, but you'd better hurry: It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.
There's also the well-known Opera Web browser, currently at version 7.53, available from www.opera.com. All of the Mozilla products, including Netscape's browser, are completely free. Opera offers a free, advertising-supported browser as well as a $40 version sans ads. And those are just the Windows browsers (see online extras for more on browsers for other OSes). While these are the major contenders, others exist: Search Download.com for "Web browser" and you'll get 356 results, many of which are small-footprint, self-contained Web browsers. Be aware that some of these simply throw a new cosmetic face on Windows' built-in IE objects, meaning you're still using IE. Others are completely self-contained and count as true alternatives.
Pros and Cons of Straying From the Pack
Forgetting security for a moment, there are functional
Create Windows installation CDs that won't install IE (and/or many other things, like Outlook):
A howto + files for Windows 2000
Free (as in beer) software with no howto for Windows 2000, 2003, and XP
Actually, if you "hurry" to www.netscape.com, you will see right on the front page they advertise Netscape 7.2. The article claims to have been written in October, when, in fact, Netscape 7.2 was released in August, and AOL announced they would make that release back in March; also stating that:
Complete bullshit.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Funny. I use Firefox at all times. I have no problems with viewing 99.999% of all sites I visit. And I'm dead serious all the time.