Why IE?

29 May 2006

The night before a squirrel killed my internet connection, I had spent some time on making my site a little more tolerable when viewed in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Over of a fifth of my readers commute here via Internet Explorer. As many people already know, Internet Explorer does not fully support up and coming web technologies and does not completely embrace web standards as set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium. The point of this post is for me to find out why people still use Internet Explorer. As readers of this tech-related blog, you must know the joys of using a browser such as Firefox or Safari. I have come up with some possible reasons why people use Internet Explorer.

They do not possess admin privileges on their computer at work and can't install an alternative browser.
It is just easier to use what is already installed on their current computer.
They have become accustomed to using IE and don't want to learn how to use a completely different web browser.
IE is adequate for them and they don't see a valid reason to use another browser.
Firefox isn't made by Microsoft, so they don't trust it.

For those of you reading this in Internet Explorer, please leave a comment and let me know why you prefer using Internet Explorer. Here are a few reasons why I use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer on all of my computers.

Firefox is resistant to spyware.
It supports a massive number of extensions to allow for unique features and comes with tabs right out of the proverbial box.
Firefox fully embraces web standards, renders sites properly and is offered for many operating systems at no cost.
Firefox is more secure than IE and with an active development community any security issues that arise are quickly fixed.

Pretty much the same thing can be said about Safari with that addition that it passes the Acid 2 web browser test. Internet Explorer, even when considering IE7 or IE7+ (the Vista version with extra features), is far inferior to the current offerings of such alternative browsers (in my opinion).

Come back soon!

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