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Is it finally time to abandon IE?

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Josh:
Plus, what if I were to drop every product that had a security hole? I wouldn't even be allowed to use my computer with the exception of maybe reversi from Windows 3.0

app103:
Being a Windows user and giving up IE 100% is not as easy as you might think. It's not as simple as installing and using something else as your default browser.

There are a great number of applications that use IE's rendering engine in many ways. Many of them even depend on it for their primary functionality.

One example would be a desktop RSS reader that when you click a link in a feed, opens the page in a tab of the reader. Most of them that do this are using IE and very few give you an option to use an alternative rendering engine. And many do not give you the option to open links in your external default browser.

I also know of at least one application that has an alert bar that uses IE to display messages related to the availability of application updates/upgrades and status of the network it connects to.

And then there is applications like Weather Watcher, that use IE to display weather data from a server.

If you use any applications like these, you are still using IE, even if you are using an alternative like Firefox or Opera for your default browser.

Now, how do you get Windows developers to stop using IE in their applications, when it is so much easier to use it than using something else? (for some languages it's just a matter of double clicking)

And if they use it, and there is a security issue belonging to IE, it's not their responsibility to fix it...it's a big corporation that has plenty of developers and can afford to put a bunch on it that has to fix the issue...namely, Microsoft.

Do you think small developers are going to want to write and maintain their own browser engine? Do you think if they did that it would be safer to use their software? Do you think they are going to want to increase the size of a simple application to include a copy of a different engine in case the user doesn't have Firefox installed?

And what about when there is a security issue with Firefox? (yes, it does happen) Then they are right back at the same spot they were in when they were depending on IE.

So what would be the point in increasing the amount of work it takes to produce what should be a simple application if the end result is worse or no different than keeping it simple and using IE?

fenixproductions:
2app103
I agree with you in few parts. Internet Explorer is not used in development but some ActiveX control (called: Microsoft Web Browser) delivered within only.

We should also remember that there is no other good enough free web control. There is something called Mozilla AcitveX but its development stopped few years ago (2005). Opera sucks in this field too. I will not even mention about Safari or Chrome ;)

On the other hand: some developers overuse it because of many reasons (like tight deadlines or laziness). The best example of such behaviour is PSI from Secunia. They are using it for almost whole GUI (screens).

housetier:
Josh, I don't want to be an idiot. So what can I do when IE apparently is not secure?

Josh:
Where did I say you were an idiot? If I said that or implied that somewhere in my post, please point it out to me as I will correct it. What I did say was that telling a user to switch because a security hole exists is not the right answer. Most of these exploits require a bit of user interaction for them to function. A lot of them won't function in a normal user mode. My statement about idiocy, again, was not directed at a particular user, but the idea that we should switch products when it has a security hole. Software is programmed by man, man by nature is prone to error, thus, software is prone to error.

What can you do? Educate yourself. Many users are trained by themselves and out of habit to click yes automatically, or whatever makes the message box go away. Many people install programs and do not take the time to read the screens and then complain when they have hundreds of pieces of malware on their machine.

IE might have security holes, but please show me, how many have working exploits in the wild and what is the percentage of users affected by said holes? I don't mean what is the POTENTIAL number of affected users, I want to know what the ACTUAL affected user numbers are.

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