In support of Internet Explorer

I have lived and worked in that strange country, the Internet, since, well, since before it was the Internet really. I began my days online during the era of Compuserve in the 1980's so I think I can say I have run the full gamut of experience in the feild.

Today, I have what I see as a particularly balanced view because I have use for, and use almost every day, a number of browsers. On my machines, which include Windows, Mac and Linux boxes I have IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari browsers as well as the browser built in to a couple of little Linux based netbooks I have around the place. They all have strong points and weak points in style and usability but generally, they all do pretty much the same thing. None of them however, have the sheer weight of user numbers that Internet Explorer has.

In recent days I have seen warnings issued by German and now French governments saying that Internet Explorer is dangerous and not reccommended for use and that they urge people to use Firefox or some other browser instead. Seriously. What the heck is a government doing even thinking about this kind of thing? They tout free market compettition to the world and then when product A does well, they slap a monopolies or anti-trust suit on it.

I know why Internet Explorer has a bad reputation in France. It's because the French in general, and I live in France so I know wherof I speak, are obsessed with paperwork and process and are very, very conservative in almost all subjects. Internet Explorer has a bad reputation in France because the large businesses and the government agencies have I.T departments that all like to preserve their working status-quo and who like to justify their existence by producing more barriers to change in the name of security and safety. False barriers I might add.

In the past I worked for one of Europe's largest banks. Their I.T department mandates the use of IE 6 because they say that they haven't had chance to test IE 7 let alone IE 8 yet so these latter two, being unknown quantities, are deemed to be unsafe. They also refuse Microsoft automatic updates.

In computer terms, this is the equivalent of refusing to drive a modern car with antilock brakes and airbags because these are operated by magical means and might voodoo away one's soul so we'll keep on driving our Ford Fairlane thanks very much.

Internet Explorer is the target of more attacks because they have more market share and a bad guy wants to affect as many people as possible. This is why there are no viruses for Apple computers. They are quite simply not a viable payload target. If Firefox had more share than IE, we would see more security warnings for Firefox and the French and Germans would start whining again about them, telling us to use something else.

I use Internet Explorer 8, I use Microsoft Security Essentials and I have zero complaints.