Internet Explorer says you’re a novice PC user or an experienced PC user who can’t or isn’t willing to experiment or upgrade. Firefox has gone almost mainstream mainly because IE holes have been published in mainstream media over the last few years. There’s different types of Firefox users… those who update, those who don’t. Chrome is the browser of choice for the cool kids or the average IT literate but non developer person…
I’ve been running Google Chrome 5 for what seems like months now (it’s probably weeks) and it’s by far and away the fastest browser out there. It’s still in BETA testing right now, but i’d imagine it will be going live very shortly…
Do you like Internet Explorer? Yes? No, wrong answer. You don’t like Internet Explorer. That’s the message we’re trying to push here in the EU 
Internet Explorer is a real pain in the ass for me. Why? Because about 40% of people use it (some version of it), which means if i build a site without looking at it in IE, there could potentially be a lot of problems i don’t know about.
Versions 7 & 8 are generally not a problem… it’s Internet Explorer 6 which causes the headaches. Over the last year or so, there have been campaigns to ‘kill’ internet explorer 6, but none have really gone mainstream. The kind of people that use IE6 are the kind of people who bought a computer 10 years ago and haven’t updated ANYTHING on it since.
They’ll click ‘no’ to anything that pops up and have gotten in to the routine of waiting 20 minutes for their computer to boot up. That’ll be followed by 50 applications & windows which open upon start up.
I can understand that… not everyone knows what they’re doing… some people will never understand or ‘get’ computers full stop. However, using your PC for a few years and not updating anything is just the same as buying a car and literally not checking anything like tyres, water, oil, lights for a few years…. Notice a new noise or some smoke appearing? Pretend it’s not there… drive it until it literally stops working, then call a mechanic
It’s this sort of attitude which keeps IE6 alive and well when really, it should be in a digital grave (along with the entire internet explorer range). IE6 came out in 2001 and lasted until 2006. That means if you’re running IE6, you probably haven’t bothered getting a new PC in the last 4 years (which is perfectly fine), getting a new operating system (you’ll get away with that) or updating your browser (that’s where the line has to be drawn).
For this post, i was trying to put together my own stats on just how many people are using IE6. Because this is a blog & i talk about technology most of the time, only about 4% of you use IE6 because you are fairly up to date and tech savvy. Looking at stats from theleavingcert.com, that rises to over 6% which is a bit closer to the 10.9% figure found on w3schools.com…
Over the last few days, news has emerged of Google getting hacked by the Chinese which in turn sparked them to start a ‘war’ against the chinese government. Ironically, the reason google was hacked was largely down to a vulnerability in Microsoft’s IE6.
Both German and French governments have since issued warnings to their people NOT to use IE6. Perhaps with this sort of mainstream attention, we may finally see the end of IE6 but ultimately, it’s not really IE6 that is the problem…. it’s the person using it. They need to update their attitude along with their browser and they’ll probably do so once their credit card details get swiped 
Don’t worry, the heading is a bit dramatic – this is just a regular IE security alert, you know, the one’s we see all the time but rarely get in to the public eye… well this one has. Apparently Internet Explorer has some sort of huge security flaw which has resulted in a security expert advising people to use an alternative browser.
“If users can find an alternative browser, then that’s good mitigation against the threat.”
I love the way they don’t mention anything at all about it on the official internet explorer homepage… look at the irony here;
Microsoft.ie was also hacked earlier in the week for several hours. I let that pass but this security flaw (which apparently logs passwords from games and can be used to carry out similar tasks on more serious stuff) is too big to brush under the carpet. Whilst it takes a certain type of person to carry out these attacks, Microsoft deserve all that’s thrown at them as they should be bulletproof in terms of security. No excuses. Not when you’re the largest software developer in the world and have a majority share in browser wars.
But i’m preaching to the converted here. 88% of you guys are using Firefox with just 8% IE. Tech savvy audiences are already using Firefox and the kind of people who use IE are the kind of people who can barely switch on a computer, never mind download & install a web browser. Unfortunately that’s over 50% of internet users 
In that article, they question people’s ability to find another browser…
“If users can find an alternative browser….”
I’m not going to insult you guys by asking that question
