Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Just how bad is IE?

(1/3) > >>

m_s:
Okay, I know this will be controversial...  I never run IE if I can avoid it (and with Opera's emulation that means I hardly ever need to), but I notice so many projects still rely on it (was shocked to see that Adobe Reader seems to use it as Browser by default - and didn't on a very short effort find a way to change that, and have just been testing KeePass and that also seems IE bound).  I saw a button on somebody's posting on another forum (can't remember which), which said 'Kill Firefox' - it was promoting a campaign against what it referred to as misinformation about IE.  I don't like being mind-controlled by good people any more than by bad people!  So, how bad is IE?

mouser:
one must distinguish between IE itself, and IE as an engine in other programs/browsers.

for me, IE 6 itself is unusable. completely.
that's because i depend on tabs and microsoft has ignored them so far (v7 supposedly has tabs).

however, i use Netcaptor, which uses the IE engine, and like it a lot.

and yes, many programs use the IE activex engine to render stuff internally.  its quite a bit easier to embed in other programs than the firefox engine, and if firefox wants to compete on that ground they are going to have to do some work to make it easier to embed firefox engine in other programs.

Carol Haynes:
Acrobat Reader works fine in FireFox.

By the way if you want tabs in IEplorer now just use the MSN toolbar - that offers tabbed browsing within standard IE

m_s:
That's interesting, Carol.  Like Mouser, I completely rely on tabs, and without them, IE is unusable for me.  But neither of you are jumping up and down and saying anyone would be made to use IE!

Carol Haynes:
There is a lot of hysteria about IE but I think that so long as you take sensible precautions (AntiVirus/Firewall and set IE to at least default security settings) you shouldn't have any problem with IE.

The problems arise when users allow websites to install unwanted rubbish. If a website asks me to install something I simply close the window and move on - unless it is for a specific reason and from a well known/predicatble source.

OK there are secuity issues with IE, but there are with all browser and all software that access the internet. The only truly secure way to be online is to unplug your modem!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page