Dec 15 2004
If you're even a tiny bit familiar with trends on the Internet, you may have have heard that a new browser war has started and is creating quite a stir. Back in the 90s the big contenders were Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape. The clear winner ended up being IE. In fact, IE still has a market share of just over 90%. But over the past few years, that number has been slipping (albeit slowly) as people have been ditching IE. The common computer user isn't aware of the reasons so many people are switching. So if you use IE (especially if you're a PC user), here's why.
Security
Microsoft has built its company on being the first on the market for anything, except for the web browser market. Even so, Microsoft has stayed true to its habit of compromising on important features; in particular, security. And because of its desire to dominate market share (as it's been able to do), Microsoft is lax about programming well in the first place (hence the need for all those security patches - there have been over 25 in 2004 alone). IE is full of holes that are easy for hackers to get into. This is one of the reasons why online identity theft is on the rise. In June 2004, there were incidents in which hackers used IE to steal shoppers' banking information and credit card numbers. Because of security issues alone, the US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) recommended to government agencies they not use IE.
Privacy
As if security issues weren't reason enough, IE violates your privacy. Most web browsers keep a log of all the sites you've visited. But that information can be deleted by clearing the browser's history, cache and temporary Internet files. In IE, an archive of all the sites you've ever visited is kept and cannot be deleted by normal means. Disturbing, if nothing else.
Pop-Up Ads
There may not be a single user that enjoys those ever-annoying pop-up ads in the middle of a browser session. In fact, because of them, there's a whole new market for pop-up blocker software when there really doesn't need to be. Ever other browser on the market has a pop-up blocker feature built in. Not IE.
Web Standards
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the organization that sets standards for browsers and website development. These standards are meant to make the Internet easy to use and build for from anywhere in the world. Microsoft has ignored them. Various things in the IE browser fail to meet web standards, which makes it a pseudo-browser. This makes it more difficult for web designers and developers to create sites that are viewable by as many browsers as possible. For web development customers, this means more money shelled out for their web developers to test and troubleshoot on multiple browsers.