Exploring Other Alternatives

Published 20 years, 5 months past

A lot of people have been saying it for years.  Within the last day or so, Scott Andrew said it.  Then Meryl said it.  Now I hear that the Department of Homeland Security says it, or so it would seem (I couldn’t find corroborating information on the DHS site).

Security is becoming more and more important, especially given the rise in organized attacks that exploit holes in IE and Windows, not to mention Outlook Express (known around the Meyer house as Virus Express).  It’s definitely worth looking into switching to another browser, if you haven’t already done so, and to strongly recommend the same to people you know.  Firefox is most often mentioned as a suitable replacement, and it will even import bookmarks, cookies, and settings from IE.

Of course, you may get pushback that Explorer is required for this site or that one.  Just point out that they can do 99% of their browsing in Firefox, and only launch Explorer for those few sites that need it.  After all, it isn’t like IE will be unavailable—they couldn’t get rid of it even if they wanted to do so.

Update: not only has CNN run a story along these same lines, but they mentioned Porter by name.  Way to go, dude!  Now when do I get namechecked by the news media?  <pout type="smirking" />

Comments (5)

  1. Pingback ::

    css voyeur at collisionbend.com » Ahem….

    […] ven Eric Meyer, a gentleman I know that wouldn’t say anything that would hurt a fly, said it. Now the government is saying it. I’ve been downlo […]

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    Matt's Internet Extravaganza

    Eric Meyer Knows his stuff
    Eric’s Archived Thoughts: Exploring Other Alternatives Meyer says what a lot of other people have been saying. Quite a few notable people are getting on the dump IE bandwagon. Is it enough to start a revolution? Who knows, but things…

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    digitalphlame.com

    For The Good of The Country’s Security
    Last Week CERT recommended everyone switch off IE, now The Department of Homeland Security
    is recommending the same. Fight Terrorists! Get Firefox!

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    BlogSoCool

    1 month for microsoft to loose its position
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    Qwety / Railway Gauge standardization / DOS standardization / Windows OS Standardization all happened becuase of the network externality effect. IE today has a 95% user base that gives it big advantages …

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    Java guff and stuff

    IE View for Firefox
    Like Eric the number one complaint I get from people that I convince to switch to firefox is “www.example.com doesn’t work in firefox, I want IE back”. The solution: The IE View extension . Opens any bug-riddled html page into everybody’s favour…