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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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Options to using IE? Should be "Alternatives To..."
And besides, IE is not even an option for anyone serious about, well, serious about anything.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Redmond used to be called MCP Magazine, as in Microsoft Certified Professionals. I got a free subscription when I got my MCSE, and the magazine has certainly had a focus on Microsoft certification. Much of the advertising is related to training boot camps and testing aids, and there are monthly statistics on certification. The name change is very recent, as I guess the magazine is trying to broaden it's appeal.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Internet Explorer is the Swiss Cheese of software--it's full of holes.
I'd think it was more like the Limburger of software - it stinks.
Every time some guy I've never heard of working for some online e-zine I've never heard of writes an article bashing a Microsoft product, is it really worthy of attention?
What does Roland Pikapuile think of all this? Please include a link to his blog in the submission.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The Mozilla guys should patent "tabbed browsing", allowing royalty free use in any browser who requests it. With one exception, of course (IE)...
It's nice to see an article about this. All we're witnessing here is the natural evolution of the internet browser system... A monoculture gets decimated by pathogens, and that opens up niches for newer species. This is what any monopoly leads to when it's not protected by some level of government.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
The article points out that Microsoft may add popup blocking to IE... is it just me, or did that already happen with WinXP SP2?
What better way to evangelize IE than to encourage its own rabid userbase to try out competing browsers? They will try it out, get turned off by the minor differences (such as tabs), and then switch back to IE and be able to say "I've tried the alternate browers, and they are CRAP".
I'm not trying to stereotype microsoft users, I am merely presenting a "devils advocate" viewpoint.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
... I discovered the voice mode of Opera (win2k/XP only, sadly) last night. The thing accepts voice commands: hold down scroll lock and tell it things like "reload", "back", "close window", "zoom in", etc.
You can even select a bunch of text and tell it to "speak", and it will read it to you.
Incidentaly, I had just discovered WinXP's onboard voice synth. A group of people were at a Krystal's and wanted to contact a friend.
We realized that:
--Nobody had a cell phone
--Krystal's has wifi! (I boot up my laptop)
--Our friend wasn't on AIM or similar
--I have a VoIP client... we can call him!
--We have no microphone
--WinXP has a voice synth!
So, with a little mixer tweaking, I routed the voice synth output into Skype's input, called the poor schmuck, and had Microsoft Sam read him a message. (which was, if I recall, "We will be playing Starcraft at ten o'clock and such-and-such a place. Interested?")
With a required OS upgrade to get the latest features and security, can one consider IE "free" ?
-Randy
One thing the author claims is:
My Web site uses Google AdSense to display context-sensitive ads to my users. The AdSense administration site works only with IE
This seems dubious. The google site claims that you just need javascript. Can anyone who uses AdSense verify this? I'm guessing the popup blocker in firefox thwarted this guy's limited computer savvy.
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 darned thing still does not have tabbed browsing for god's sake. How long does it take MSFT to copy that one.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
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.
I don't think they know the same corporate people that I know.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
MS just give up on the browser, and add some "ie like features/extesions" or some other specific windows features/native gui like Camino for OS X to mozilla and/or geko that are optional to make some broken websites work until the websites get standards compliant and be done with it?
To my knowledge, MS only makes money off of IE by licensing it to people like AOL (and that is a wierd thing, and another discussion), but they make nothing off of having it bundled with the OS, and would loose nothing by bundling some other browser.
It seems evident that there are issues with having a webbrowser tied so closely to the OS. Most of people's issues with switching from IE is that 1) ie is just there, so what else is there to use, and what else is better? 2) There are a few too many broken websites that end users blame the browser for if the website does not work properly.
And if someone feels like adding a completely off topic tangent here. What is up with the IIS websites and those damn "go to # on this page" links or whatever? They are annoying because I don't know what they are doing, and they sometimes break (even in ie) if I open them up in a new window or tab. Grrrrr....
got this from the bottomAlternative browsers may not offer perfection, but they offer plenty of features, though with less manageability. Last I checked mozilla allows much greater manageability of cookies, images, popups, downloads...hell i can't think of anything EI does that is easier to manage.
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
Laptop: $1500
Wireless Access Point: $80
Broadband Internet: $40
VOIP Service: $20
Calling your tinfoil wearing, goverment conspiracy theory lovin' friend with a computer generated voice to play a game of strategic conquest: Priceless.
Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser...It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.
What about Netscape 7.2? Technically, it is Mozilla 1.7, but it does have AOL-produced add-ons.
For example, Mozilla issued a patch that stops the browser from allowing an attacker to execute applications on a Windows system--something we're used to dealing with in IE.
For those of us that remember, the shell: vulnerability was because Mozilla passed it on to Windows to handle, and Windows failed at handling it. That's why Mozilla "patched" it.
Anything ActiveX-based won't work
There is an ActiveX addon for Mozilla.
Interesting too that he brings up the issue that non-IE browsers would be harder to manage using Microsoft products (ISA Server, etc.). I wonder why that is so.
My parents, after tons of proding from both my brother and I, finally gave alternative browsers a try (being the scientific sort, we had them try Mozilla, Firefox, AND Opera), and they like all three better than IE. They took to the tabs instantly, and I never hear any complaints about Pop-Up ads. Nor do they have any trouble with plugins for Flash, etc. And while my dad is relatively computer savvy, my mom repeatedly needs to be reminded of how to download/upload attachments. Really, I think all three browsers were well designed with a general population in mind.
Live free or die
I have been using AdSense for well over a year, starting a month or two after it was released. I have never seen any IE specific features. I first started using AdSense with Mozilla, more recently with FireFix. Seems like he may be having other problems, and jumped on the blame Mozilla scapegoat. Maybe he disabled JavaScript.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
"See? We don't have a monopoly! See! See! Now, go ahead and make your little browsers while we lockdown digital media. And seriously, Fuck Apple. No really, fuck'em."
This is what Microsoft must be afraid of: cross-platform user interfaces with pluggable scripting languages and super-easy application deployment. This is why they originally fought Netscape - they were afraid that Netscape would become a "platform" independent from the operating system layer. And now exactly that is happening, thanks to open source. The people who designed this stuff were some true visionaries.
The Spread Firefox initiative may seem like a trite marketing effort. But in reality, it is one of the best ways to enable people to switch to other platforms tomorrow. I really hope that the Firefox hackers will get SVG support ready soon, as this is one of the other key features that can have immediate amazing benefits.
My title above is a disclaimer. I am a Mac user, and only use a PC via VNC to view webpages in IE. That said, I found this article pretty straightforward about the pros and cons of IE and alternative browsers from a Windows point of view. The guy make valid points about centralised management of IE vs. the standalone path of Firefox et al that would be a question in mainly Windows environments.
That said, all of these problems can be overcome by a good admin who thinks creatively, and I seriously doubt that much active development is going into ActiveX using sites these days.
Management in this case being enterprise management of IE configuration, rather than the ability of the end user to manage their cookes, etc.
About a year ago I started using Mozilla. Now I use Firefox. I've never needed to use IE for anything. Where are these sites (not including those run by Microsoft of course) that force you to use IE?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Really, IE is just so out of date I can't imagine anyone using it unless they have to. I'm still showing off Firefox at my work, but only have 2 others using it. Now that it's about to go 1.0 it should be easier, I love the RSS feature, the Https 'yellow' highlighting and the find-as-you-type new features of 1.0.
All in all I think the only thing that IE is good for is to cause my Mom's Dell to download viruses and trojans so I get the Support call!
CB@#$%^&
free ipod and free gmail!
On a somewhat related note, is there a way to disable altering "connection settings" by regular users in Firefox? We run on a filtering proxy and that's how it's set up to restrict access.
Then it is not a good setup..
You are looking for the wrong solution. You should NEVER trust the settings of $application on a client machine for a security purpose. What you need to do is block all outgoing port 80 traffic for everything but your proxy server(s) (or setup a working transparent proxy solution which will eliminate any client config). Any and all web browsing clients trying to bypass the proxy will be stopped.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I've downloaded it several times already, but always something happens that makes me open Safari again and forget about FF.
I've installed it on my wife's Portable (XP) though, and feel a lot better. Her IT guy seems to be quite good, but it's always me trying to keep her PC up to date, so that's one less worry.
I've noticed that FF behaves a lot better on a PC than on the Mac - compared to the alternative. Doesn't crash, is faster and overall renders better.
If it weren't for Safari, I'd probably be using Firefox too. I'm curious how much marketshare FF has on the mac.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
If and when IE does go by the wayside, what are all the companies who develop web apps for IE only going to do? And there are a lot of them. Stupid companies who develop web apps for one browser and not others, and I have worked on several projects like this, are going to find themselves up the proverbial shit creek without a paddle! Then again, it could mean all kinds of new jobs when they realize that their customers are not using IE nearly as much anymore and they have to upgrade their apps to actually be cross browser. Might be a nice windfall!
"and even DirectX, are all, in my opinion, overly integrated and give hackers too much access to core PC functions."
Wasn't that the point of DirectX? To provide more direct access to hardware for purposes such as graphics? That's why you couldn't play games in windows 3.1 and had to use DOS; you couldn't get at the hardware. The trick is how to do it safely.
It sounds like this guy's taking one idea and applying it to everything here. There are some things that do need kernel integration for performance reasons. As for doing it with your browser, I don't really see the point. Integrate all the browser's IO by way of tcp/ip, win32, directx, etc and leave all the rendering engine out of kernel space. But microsoft is probably doing exactly that for the most part. It's hard to say what's part of the windows operating system (kernel) and what just ships with it. Sure there's a lot of stuff that you can't uninstall but that doesn't mean that stuff isn't bound by the same rules that an application like firefox is bound by. It's pretty hard to say how integrated IE really is or if most of these bugs are just there because MS ships when stuff is just "good enough.
And thatnks to firefoxie, you web developers never need to load IE again, just let firefox do the rendering... http://fishbulb.info/index.php?p=4
I use Opera but getting gmail to support it has been an uphill struggle.
Too bad as I find it an excellent browser.
Of course, you could use MSI repackaging tools for easier deployment through SMS, Group Policy or some other tool, but it's a shame that these vendors haven't realized the market potential and made their products more accessible to corporate IT departments.
Now, to be honest I have no idea what an "MSI repackaging tool" is. Like an RPM packager or something? Maybe someone can explain. Anyway, it sounds like it might be relatively easy for someone who has this tool to do, and (if they're feeling in the spirit) make the package available. Or heck, maybe even sell and support it! It sounds like this might have a major appeal to corporate IT departments, who usually have some money to toss around.
Sorry, there is no Fud and the article is no flamefest. The magazine as others pointed out was until a while ago a total Microsoft laptop. And all the points people have risen in the past about IE. (Swiss cheese of browsers, not standards compliant for newer standards after 1997, lack of security and numerous other things are valid.) The article in my opinion was pretty good from a Windows admin perspective. It raises valid points which can concern the average windows admin.
While this is impressive, Mozillas XUL also introduces some security hazards. Right now they are not really used, but see this example in the 0.9 Firefox Series shows the spoofing/phishing possibilities. IE got into trouble by integrating too much with the OS, XUL might integrate mozillas to far too...
The only time I ever use IE is when a site won't let you past a 'best viewed with IE' screen.
Once you go in with IE, you can find the real target URL, and 9 times out of 10 it works fine in Firefox. If I care about the site, I just bookmark the inside page.
I suppose there are tricks I could do to set Fox to pretend to be IE, but I'm too lazy for that. If I were on Linux fulltime, I suppose I'd have to, but I just periodically import my Firefox bookmarks from Windows into the Linux version.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Yup, do your worst. http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/0.10.1/
Three words for you, my friend:
User Agent Switcher.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
By switching to IE, then you are jumping through the hoop the website developers have set in front of you. I recommend you just ignore the site and move on. There's plenty of other content on the web that's not obfuscated from visitors with browser requirements. Maybe over time, the developers of said sites will realize they can increase their page hits if they open up their site to W3 standards.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
What are the companies that bought these products going to do? The companies that developed existing ones will make new ones, and probably resell them for more $$$.
We have one such system at work - for which the login page has some awful script which detects when you hit enter on a textbox and then submits the form (with no submit button at all on the page). I can rewrite the "SubmitMe()" function to be cross-compatible, or perhaps add a button to the page, but I could see how other companies without somebody who has done web-dev could be a little stuck here.
Your current MS IE alternative may become the focus of malicious hacker if enough people move to it. That is the only thing saving grace about the alternative browsers, not enough people use them to be of any interest to hackers.
I have been doing some guest teaching at a local high school and when the kids found at that I ran Firefox and Mozilla my credibility quadrupled. As long as Google, GMAIL, E*Trade, and EBAY work with Mozilla I'm good.
On the other side of the age spectrum, Firefox is the ultimate geriatric browser since old-folks who will click on nearly anything that moves can do the least amount of damage to their PC's.
However, I wouldn't count IE out just yet. People will be flocking back in droves when the new Palladium/DRM IE arrives. It will keep users safe from any copyright infringement while installing even more spyware.
Yeah, so you are counted as one more IE user. May work in the short term, but it will contribute to shift the statistics towards IE, what is we *definitly* don't want.
Just a WARNING to anyone trying to remove or seriously disable IE... ...I tried this a year or so ago. All I wanted was the Windows OS, no IE. I used the IE-Uninstaller of the time, (now I think its called LitePC or 98Lite). It worked great, and effectively removed IE...
BUT HERE's WHAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW...
You CAN'T use MS SQL Server, MS SQL Server Client, or any program needing ADO! Why? Because all three of those require MDAC, and guess what...
MDAC WON'T install without IE being on the computer!
No MS SQL Server, its client or ADO without MDAC... thus none of the same without IE!
I'm pretty sure this lovely symbiosis was completely missed by the Anti-Trust adventure.
So time for me to learn about other SQL Servers... MySQL being the first.
Hey, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned IEView (http://ieview.mozdev.org/). It's a cool little extension to Mozilla Suite / Firefox. Have you found a web site that hates Mozilla? Are you running Windows? No problem. Right-click on the link, click "Open in IE" and it will open in Internet Explorer.
Unfortunately the key to linux on everyone's desktop is too many factors.
.net off.
Graphics card -> ATI and Nvidia are clearly not ready
Databases -> mySQL is actually pretty damn good
UI -> KDE and GNOME is good but still flawed
Browsers -> Firefox hmmm....
Viruses -> good shape
Spyware -> good shape
Adware -> good shape
Office -> still no good email client
Games -> Argh!
Dev -> Still think it needs a good GUI dev tool like visual basic to knock
Using a phone booth, $0.35. When your brain works, things are easy. For everything else, there's a credit card waiting to suck the rest of your life.
XP users, they are so clever.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
MCP was the name of the OS on the Burroughs B-90 mini that I programmed in the early '80s in N.Z. (although I remember it as MCPX - the extended version), and the Wikipedia says that the Tron people borrowed the name from that. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs
But then the administrator of that page sees these articles about how alternative browsers are gaining momentum in the vacuum left by a lack of IE updates, checks his logs, sees that (amazingly) almost everyone who visits his page is using a version of IE, and decides that there's no reason to spend the time making it render properly in the other browsers or to even remove the browser ID check.
If the site isn't crucial (and personally I've never encountered a crucial site, corporate intranet or otherwise), then it's better to make your impression in the logs as a frustrated Mozilla/Opera user. Additionally, sending a polite email to the webmaster asking them to change their page wouldn't be a bad idea. If enough people do that, perhaps the site will be changed and the internet will be a little better for all of us.
Schlock Mercenary
For anyone who doesnt know how to switch from IE here is a tutorials for you:
Switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox
Enhancing Firefox with Browser Extensions
So those people running these sites will only see IE in their logs, assume that noone uses anything else and continue to make sites that require IE.. This is not what we want atall, we should complain to the website authors and not use the site until it works with standards compliant browsers.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!