Redmondmag on Dumping IE

nSignIfikaNt writes "Here is yet another article discussing options to using IE. This one is from redmondmag.com who claims to be the independent voice of the microsoft IT community."

should read "Alternatives to..."

[carcosa30]

Options to using IE? Should be "Alternatives To..."

And besides, IE is not even an option for anyone serious about, well, serious about anything.

Wow, this is incredibly interesting

[stratjakt]

Every time some guy I've never heard of working for some online e-zine I've never heard of writes an article bashing a Microsoft product, is it really worthy of attention?

What does Roland Pikapuile think of all this? Please include a link to his blog in the submission.

Gratifying to see it in the wild

[CodeWanker]

It's nice to see an article about this. All we're witnessing here is the natural evolution of the internet browser system... A monoculture gets decimated by pathogens, and that opens up niches for newer species. This is what any monopoly leads to when it's not protected by some level of government.

When was this article written?

[NCatron]

The article points out that Microsoft may add popup blocking to IE... is it just me, or did that already happen with WinXP SP2?

Is IE even "free" anymore?

[ARRRLovin]

With a required OS upgrade to get the latest features and security, can one consider IE "free" ?

Time to Dump IE?

[mcwop]

Yeah like, two years ago.

The darned thing still does not have tabbed browsing for god's sake. How long does it take MSFT to copy that one.

Re:An idea to beat Microsoft

[0racle]

So your saying the Mozilla foundation should be run by a bunch of assholes instead of people just trying to do a good job?

Why doesn't

[hackstraw]

MS just give up on the browser, and add some "ie like features/extesions" or some other specific windows features/native gui like Camino for OS X to mozilla and/or geko that are optional to make some broken websites work until the websites get standards compliant and be done with it?

To my knowledge, MS only makes money off of IE by licensing it to people like AOL (and that is a wierd thing, and another discussion), but they make nothing off of having it bundled with the OS, and would loose nothing by bundling some other browser.

It seems evident that there are issues with having a webbrowser tied so closely to the OS. Most of people's issues with switching from IE is that 1) ie is just there, so what else is there to use, and what else is better? 2) There are a few too many broken websites that end users blame the browser for if the website does not work properly.

And if someone feels like adding a completely off topic tangent here. What is up with the IIS websites and those damn "go to # on this page" links or whatever? They are annoying because I don't know what they are doing, and they sometimes break (even in ie) if I open them up in a new window or tab. Grrrrr....

Re:An idea to beat Microsoft

[sumdumass]

ha, how about pattening the integrasted popup blocker too?

It isn't wise to tit for tat here. Pattens would eventualy come back and byte someone. It is best to leave then alone in my opinion.

Fallacies or misconceptions?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser...It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.
What about Netscape 7.2 [netscape.com]? Technically, it is Mozilla 1.7, but it does have AOL-produced add-ons.

For example, Mozilla issued a patch that stops the browser from allowing an attacker to execute applications on a Windows system--something we're used to dealing with in IE.
For those of us that remember, the shell: vulnerability was because Mozilla passed it on to Windows to handle, and Windows failed at handling it. That's why Mozilla "patched" it.

Anything ActiveX-based won't work
There is an ActiveX addon for Mozilla.

Interesting too that he brings up the issue that non-IE browsers would be harder to manage using Microsoft products (ISA Server, etc.). I wonder why that is so.

AdSense FUD

[peterdaly]

I have been using AdSense for well over a year, starting a month or two after it was released. I have never seen any IE specific features. I first started using AdSense with Mozilla, more recently with FireFix. Seems like he may be having other problems, and jumped on the blame Mozilla scapegoat. Maybe he disabled JavaScript.

-Pete

OF COURSE Microsoft wants this known.

[Gannoc]

"See? We don't have a monopoly! See! See! Now, go ahead and make your little browsers while we lockdown digital media. And seriously, Fuck Apple. No really, fuck'em."

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[pbranes]

This is what I tell everyone that I help support. If you are a serious web user, you need to be using Firefox. The mantra that I repeat is: firefox reduces spyware, viruses, and security holes in your system.

With the latest version of firefox, it checks for program updates automatically, it downloads program patches, and it attempts to find necessary plugins for pages and install them if you tell it to. Firefox is about to reach the point to where the adoption rates start increasing exponentially.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[NanoGator]

"And besides, IE is not even an option for anyone serious about, well, serious about anything." ... except for viewing 99.999% of the sites on the web.

Re:An idea to beat Microsoft

[orasio]

Very interesting.

Opera had tabs ages before mozilla, and that is very recent history. That in the context of browsing, of course, tabs are a ubiquitous interface.

Anyhow, you should remember that software patents are really evil, more evil than Microsoft, and they need to be destroyed much more than IE. IE only hurts their users, but software patents hurt everyone!

Re:Oh yeah?

[jawtheshark]

Depends on your corporate environment. Where I work, we run Windows NT4 (properly separated from the internet) on brand new Dells. Sound cards? Yeah, the machines got them, but there are no drivers. DirectX? On NT4? DirectX 5 was the last one, I think.

Outlook Express? No trace of it, even IE is at 5.0 or so... We do use Outlook 98, but as I said.. properly firewalled.

I don't think that corporate setting is somehow exceptional.

Re:Why doesn't

[jm92956n]

Microsoft doesn't make any money on the browser itself; however, the broswer allows them to make money through associated activities. IE's default home-page (MSN) sells more than enough advertising to make the entire operation profitable.

I use a Mac and I liked the article

[theolein]

My title above is a disclaimer. I am a Mac user, and only use a PC via VNC to view webpages in IE. That said, I found this article pretty straightforward about the pros and cons of IE and alternative browsers from a Windows point of view. The guy make valid points about centralised management of IE vs. the standalone path of Firefox et al that would be a question in mainly Windows environments.

That said, all of these problems can be overcome by a good admin who thinks creatively, and I seriously doubt that much active development is going into ActiveX using sites these days.

Ironic, but expected...

[Chuck Bucket]

Really, IE is just so out of date I can't imagine anyone using it unless they have to. I'm still showing off Firefox at my work, but only have 2 others using it. Now that it's about to go 1.0 it should be easier, I love the RSS feature, the Https 'yellow' highlighting and the find-as-you-type new features of 1.0.

All in all I think the only thing that IE is good for is to cause my Mom's Dell to download viruses and trojans so I get the Support call!

CB@#$%^&

Re:could this be a trojan horse?

[attam]

They will try it out, get turned off by the minor differences (such as tabs), and then switch back to IE

how does one get turned off by a feature that is totally non-intrusive if you want it to be? it's not like firefox forces you to use tabs. but for the people out there (like myself) who never knew what they were missing, it may be a very welcomed change and a reason to leave IE for good.

Re:could this be a trojan horse?

[el-spectre]

"users with good taste in software" is the phrase you're looking for. There's nothing bizarre about prefering better tools, especially for those of us who use computers 60+ hrs/week.

There _is_ a fair bit of fanaticism around here... but that's not what's spreading firefox... the fact that it is flat out BETTER is.

more troll food from the slashdot founders...

[Anonymous Coward]

With the constant bashing and FUD related to anything that is even remotely MS, slashdot loses credibility...

IE issues are in the real news, along with the alternitives. Serious admins and other IT people DO NOT come to slashddot for help related to any MS issue due to the FUD you generate, this is sad when the knowledge that is on slashdot could help...all this is due to the constant bashing and FUD being encouraged by the ADMINS of slashdot...

-give it a rest CmdrTaco, you feed the trolls far too often-

(the artical and its posted bashing attempt by CmdrTaco are old news BTW, even if it was just published, not worthy of any REAL IT news site that repeats what OTHERS have written...)

now I can expect for CmdrTaco to place this IP on a ban again, guess the truth is too much to deal with, so ban those that don't want to ride the hate-wagon...

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[NanoGator]

"Funny. I use Firefox at all times. I have no problems with viewing 99.999% of all sites I visit. And I'm dead serious all the time."

I use both Firefox and Opera, and I still can't quite 100% dump IE. The truth of the matter is that it's still not so easy to get rid of, especially when one visits sites with video content.

Thank Microsoft, thank crappy web developers, I don't care. There's still more that needs to be done. On a side note, I just ran into this problem a couple of minutes before this article materialized. Doesn't happen often.

Even DirectX?

[Mia'cova]

"and even DirectX, are all, in my opinion, overly integrated and give hackers too much access to core PC functions."

Wasn't that the point of DirectX? To provide more direct access to hardware for purposes such as graphics? That's why you couldn't play games in windows 3.1 and had to use DOS; you couldn't get at the hardware. The trick is how to do it safely.

It sounds like this guy's taking one idea and applying it to everything here. There are some things that do need kernel integration for performance reasons. As for doing it with your browser, I don't really see the point. Integrate all the browser's IO by way of tcp/ip, win32, directx, etc and leave all the rendering engine out of kernel space. But microsoft is probably doing exactly that for the most part. It's hard to say what's part of the windows operating system (kernel) and what just ships with it. Sure there's a lot of stuff that you can't uninstall but that doesn't mean that stuff isn't bound by the same rules that an application like firefox is bound by. It's pretty hard to say how integrated IE really is or if most of these bugs are just there because MS ships when stuff is just "good enough.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[NanoGator]

"That 1/1000th of a percent makes a huge differemce doesn't it?"

Well it certainly comes up quite a bit whenever Slashdot links to a site with video in it.

I've seen "It doesn't work in Firefox!" at least twice in the last week or so when Slashdot pointed to an article. That's not really Firefox's fault, though, it's MS's stupid web implementation of Media Player.

I think my point has been misinterpreted. It wasn't a poke at alternative browsers, it was a statement that IE still has to be used once in a while. You can look at it from the "well that's just 1 of millions of pages" point of view, or you can look at it from the "DOH!!! Dammit!!!" point of view when the one time you can't visit a site you do end up firing up IE. Anybody not using Windows is completely left out in the cold.

Be dismissive all you like, but the mere fact that you can write a page that is inoperable in anything but IE is a problem. I'm not talking about looking at the browser via scripting, I'm talking about broken web standards. That shit happens all the time because too many peeps test only with IE, and it's just a leetle too forgiving when it comes to malformed HTML. (And we all know about their standards adherence.)

I'm really annoyed that my previous post was modded as troll. Give me an f'in break. I don't see how Slashdot can cook up a number of "It doesn't work in Firefox!! @#$#@$@#$" comments and not recognize the validity of what I said.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[handslikesnakes]

I'm really annoyed that my previous post was modded as troll.

If what you really meant was that you have to use IE for the vast minority of sites, then you misspoke.

"And besides, IE is not even an option for anyone serious about, well, serious about anything." ... except for viewing 99.999% of the sites on the web.

implies that IE is superior to FF for most of the web, which is just plain wrong.

I'm not actually convinced that you meant what you claim to have meant; I have you marked as a foe because you're prone to making these kind of trollish statements (and then getting huffy and defensive).

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[Trolling4Dollars]

I have yet to run into a page that I can't use in Mozilla that is of any value me. Now... I know I'm not the barometer for the average user, but I'm not that quirky either.

MSI repackaging tools

[ortholattice]

OK, I can't stand it anymore. Most of the article was a rehash of what we already know (with some inaccuracies that the readers here have dutifully pointed out), but there was one thing that glared out at me, that no one has discussed here. (I'm probably making a mistake posting this so late at top-level, no one will ever see it, but at least I'll have done my duty for the record.)

Of course, you could use MSI repackaging tools for easier deployment through SMS, Group Policy or some other tool, but it's a shame that these vendors haven't realized the market potential and made their products more accessible to corporate IT departments.

Now, to be honest I have no idea what an "MSI repackaging tool" is. Like an RPM packager or something? Maybe someone can explain. Anyway, it sounds like it might be relatively easy for someone who has this tool to do, and (if they're feeling in the spirit) make the package available. Or heck, maybe even sell and support it! It sounds like this might have a major appeal to corporate IT departments, who usually have some money to toss around.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[mreed911]

Which one?

Red Hat? Debian? Yellow Dog? Ubuntu? Mandrake? Fedora? Knoppix? Suse? Gentoo? [distrowatch.com]

Until linux standardizes out a little bit more it'll be hard for users to seriously consider migrating to it, and harder for sysadmins.

Yes, each one does things slightly different - different pathing, different packages, etc. But, copmare this against Windows - "Home" or "Professional." Two flavors, same program.

The right distro of linux for your use is a good thing - finding the right one for a particular use can be a *itch.

Re:Why doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they aren't stupid?

Seriously. IE a crucial one of many, many means MS has of keeping people locked into their OS, which is their real cash machine. Giving up any of many, many means usually gains them nothing and potentially loses them everything. They would be dumb as hell to surrender on the browser front (or any other front, for that matter). It is in their best financial interest to keep people locked into their stuff as long as possible.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[SuneSpeg]

"With the latest version of firefox, it checks for program updates automatically, it downloads program patches, and it attempts to find necessary plugins for pages and install them if you tell it to. "

Sounds like everything i hate about IE with default configuration ?

Security

[Sweetshark]

While this is impressive, Mozillas XUL also introduces some security hazards. Right now they are not really used, but see this example in the 0.9 Firefox Series [nd.edu] shows the spoofing/phishing possibilities. IE got into trouble by integrating too much with the OS, XUL might integrate mozillas to far too...

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[Phexro]

Of course, Slashdot isn't even close to being valid HTML, so you get what you can take rendering it - in any browser.

obedience

[SethJohnson]

By switching to IE, then you are jumping through the hoop the website developers have set in front of you. I recommend you just ignore the site and move on. There's plenty of other content on the web that's not obfuscated from visitors with browser requirements. Maybe over time, the developers of said sites will realize they can increase their page hits if they open up their site to W3 standards.

Be careful what you wish for.

[robotoil]

Your current MS IE alternative may become the focus of malicious hacker if enough people move to it. That is the only thing saving grace about the alternative browsers, not enough people use them to be of any interest to hackers.

It's amazing! People still run IE?

[Proudrooster]

I have been doing some guest teaching at a local high school and when the kids found at that I ran Firefox and Mozilla my credibility quadrupled. As long as Google, GMAIL, E*Trade, and EBAY work with Mozilla I'm good.

On the other side of the age spectrum, Firefox is the ultimate geriatric browser since old-folks who will click on nearly anything that moves can do the least amount of damage to their PC's.

However, I wouldn't count IE out just yet. People will be flocking back in droves when the new Palladium/DRM IE arrives. It will keep users safe from any copyright infringement while installing even more spyware.

Re:Only need IE to get past 'unknown browser' scre

[FatTux]

User Agent Switcher

Yeah, so you are counted as one more IE user. May work in the short term, but it will contribute to shift the statistics towards IE, what is we *definitly* don't want.

Linux Desktop

[superpulpsicle]

Unfortunately the key to linux on everyone's desktop is too many factors.

Graphics card -> ATI and Nvidia are clearly not ready

Databases -> mySQL is actually pretty damn good

UI -> KDE and GNOME is good but still flawed

Browsers -> Firefox hmmm....

Viruses -> good shape

Spyware -> good shape

Adware -> good shape

Office -> still no good email client

Games -> Argh!

Dev -> Still think it needs a good GUI dev tool like visual basic to knock .net off.

Re:An idea to beat Microsoft

[paj1234]

IE only hurts their users? No way. Non-IE users get punished for being non-IE users. You'd like a truly spectacular example? Try this anywhere outside of IE:

http://www.odeon.co.uk/Odeon/home.html

But then, luckily, IE users get punished much more severely for being IE users. Non-IE users get inconvenienced sometimes; IE users get whacked with rather large PC repair bills. If that's not justice I don't know what is!

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[dubstar]

Funny thing, all this automatic downloading and updating is something that people used to like to bitch about with IE.

Funnier thing is that there is a pretty huge difference between IE auto-installing ActiveX controls and such without informing the user and Firefox checking for updates for itself and related plugins from its own website, asking the user if they would like to download and install them, then proceeding based on that. Nice trolling though.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[handslikesnakes]

This isn't OSS zealotry refusing to acknowledge any criticism of certain software, this is simply people giving their response to a comment that was flawed in a number of ways.

Firstly, it was poorly worded; it certainly implied to me that you thought IE was the better option for 99.9999% of the web, and I think the responses to your original comment demonstrate that I'm not the only one who misinterpreted you.

Secondly, you were responding to a comment which was essentially correct as if it was wrong; for any serious use (yes, other than sites that won't work outside of IE) IE isn't an option, primarily because of security issues. It can be secured, but why would you bother when there is a free alternative that is functionally identical? I think this can be almost universally agreed upon by anyone familiar with the situation.

If you come off as a troll, you're going to be modded as one. We can't read your mind over the internet; perhaps you should work on your demeanour.

Re:Only need IE to get past 'unknown browser' scre

[Justus]

But then the administrator of that page sees these articles about how alternative browsers are gaining momentum in the vacuum left by a lack of IE updates, checks his logs, sees that (amazingly) almost everyone who visits his page is using a version of IE, and decides that there's no reason to spend the time making it render properly in the other browsers or to even remove the browser ID check.

If the site isn't crucial (and personally I've never encountered a crucial site, corporate intranet or otherwise), then it's better to make your impression in the logs as a frustrated Mozilla/Opera user. Additionally, sending a polite email to the webmaster asking them to change their page wouldn't be a bad idea. If enough people do that, perhaps the site will be changed and the internet will be a little better for all of us.

Re:Firefox is cool - on the PC

[Fancia]

That's a very good point. I initially put Firefox on my Mac, to use the same browse I use under Windows and Linux, but stopped using it instead of Safari when I found it slower and less reliable on Mac than on other platforms.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[Dr. Spork]

While you're at it, install adblock and upload your list of blocked strings, and install mouse gestures so they work when middle-clicking. Noobs might not ever use it, but then again, they might, and find themselves puzzled how they could ever have used IE. These are features that I can't browse without once I got used to them, which was very fast.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[Xlipse]

I'm a Microsoft supporter. I prefer Win2K3 over Linux for my back end apps, especially in "everyday" environments. I'll run MS over *nix anyday of the week and twice on Friday's (when I get to go home and swill a beer!). Open Source definately has it's place, and it's a very small place, in my opinion.

However, comma, Firefox totally owns IE in every way imaginable. I'm glad Mozilla got their act together (I say that because I feel it was a crummy browser about a 8-12 months ago). I make a serious effort to put FireFox on every machine I touch, if possible. Comparing IE to FireFox is like comparing a Ford Rambler to a Mustang! The reduction in Spyware ALONE makes it worth it!

I was at one of my customers' home doing some work on a couple of her PC's. Last time I was there, I had installed FireFox on this lady's main PC so she could get used to it - this is a 55 year old, techno-scardy cat I'm talking about, BTW. Anyway, so when I was there again doing some work, I was upgrading her to SP2 so I ran a Spyware scans on both her PC's before I installed it. Take note, I ran a spyware scan on both her PC's previous, about 2 weeks prior.

Guess what? Her FireFox machine had NONE!.. well it had the one "DS Exploit" that it ALWAYS detects..

The IE machine.. had about four dozen!

Re:Linux Desktop

[swv3752]

Nvidia is easier to setup in Linux than in Windows. New ATI cards are a pain, but old ones (9200 or less) should auto install.

There are a lot of Databases that work well depending on need.

Evolution, is very good for the Outlook crowd and there are several others for everyone else. I like Mozilla Mail myself.

Re:should read "Alternatives to..."

[Awptimus Prime]

Open Source definately has it's place, and it's a very small place, in my opinion.

So what does your prefence of desktops have to do with whether they are open source or not? If Windows went open source, what OS would you run in its place??

What are the actual user benefits of closed source applications over open source once you eliminate the economic benefit to the person selling it?

I run Windows, but would be happier if it were open source.

Re:Why doesn't

[armondf]

It really is all about branding. MS don't want to bundle any third party application with their OS. They want the user to experience the Microsoft brand, and they will only consider putting in other applications as long as they can label/brand it a Microsoft product. One of the laws of Marketing: never dilute your brand with someone else's.

Re:Only need IE to get past 'unknown browser' scre

[Bert64]

So those people running these sites will only see IE in their logs, assume that noone uses anything else and continue to make sites that require IE.. This is not what we want atall, we should complain to the website authors and not use the site until it works with standards compliant browsers.