Just how bad is IE?

[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!

[jpfx]

I keep IE around because some sites only work correctly if you view them in plain IE.
IE on it's own seems a very dangerous thing but with anti-virus/spyware and an ad-blocker it becomes pretty safe as long as the user is switched on to the dangers (like malign web search engines).
I'm currently using maxthon which uses the IE engine. I've used netcaptor for many years but it's gone from the forefront of browsers to an 'also ran' and development is stagnant.
I've tried firefox and didn't like it. The same goes for opera too.
Opera would be ideal if everyone followed the standards instead of writing for IE. I'm sure a whole boatload of new non-standards will appear with the new version of IE (sigh).

[mouser]

i'm afraid you are right about netcaptor jpfx, development has been nonexistent for a long time... probably time to give it up.  maybe ill try maxthon again..

[Edvard]

Dunno about most of you guys, but I can't count how many times I was browsing with IE looking for clipart or stupid .wav files or e-cards,etc. and a popup window came to ask me if I want to install plugin foobar.exe in order to view the website correctly, I push "NO" and voila!... My brand new plugin is installed and ready to spy on my surfing, slow down my surfing, make my surfing very insecure, etc. etc. With the re-strategizing of many companies who made such things, it not so bad (remember Gator?  ) but still, I like staying behind my Firefox and it's apparent ignorance of Activex controls and things that install when I'm not looking. Of course, it could have been AOL the whole time...
$.02

[cowcrombie]

i personally don't have any problems with IE. i mean, i've been surfing for nearly 10 years and can't say anything has really happened to me. But then i'm not that hip about computer language and all the inside workings of a web browser, but i think as long as you don't click on stupid ads then you shoudl be fine.

[Carol Haynes]

Dunno about most of you guys, but I can't count how many times I was browsing with IE looking for clipart or stupid .wav files or e-cards,etc. and a popup window came to ask me if I want to install plugin foobar.exe in order to view the website correctly, I push "NO" and voila!... My brand new plugin is installed and ready to spy on my surfing, slow down my surfing, make my surfing very insecure, etc. etc. With the re-strategizing of many companies who made such things, it not so bad (remember Gator?  ) but still, I like staying behind my Firefox and it's apparent ignorance of Activex controls and things that install when I'm not looking. Of course, it could have been AOL the whole time...
$.02

-Edvard (October 28, 2005, 10:40 AM)

I don't usually come to MS's defence but IE does now have a pretty effective popup blocker and ActiveX blocker built in. Unless you manually 'trust' Microsoft sites it won't even install MS signed ActiveX content.

If you don't like ActiveX and never want to use it it is pretty easy to completely disable all scripting within Internet Explorer - it no longer even comes with Java - you only install it if you want it (and you have to download from Sun as a third party).

If yoy want to use Internet explorer compatible sites (and there a re lots of them out there) why not use Maxthon? It is based on Internet Explorer code but security tools and usabilty are much beefed up. You can even visit Microsoft update with Maxthon with no problems. The pop up and ad blocking built in to Maxthon are much stronger and more aggressive than the basic set of tools supplied by MS but they are also configurable.

I have to confess I have dithered between Firefox / Mozilla / Explorer / Opera / Maxthon and for sheer compatability issues I have started using Maxthon these days. The fact that most people who install Firefox also install the extension "View in IE" says it all really.

Firefox / Mozilla / Opera are great browsers and long may they live but I find the incompatibility issues really annoying, plus you can no longer say that any of them are inherantly safer than the others (perhaps with the exception of Opera which has a very small user base).

The other big advantage of Maxthon for me is that most IE toolbars are compatible with Maxthon - this is particularly useful as I have a couple of toolbars that I use a lot that don't work in Firefox/Mozilla. If you want toolbar support forget Opera as it really doesn't support third party addins - a major flaw in its design (IMHO).

[f0dder]

You can add AvantBrowser to the bunch, also using the IE html control.

Now, if Opera only had adblock + scrapbook and rendered a bit better (or well, "worse"/IE-compatible) I probably wouldn't have firefox installed. But with the recent 1.5 FF, it seems like some of my gripes with FF have been fixed, and I might start favoring it over Opera again.

But IE? Naw. I still view it as less secure than FF, although more and more FF exploits are showing up.