Why you should send Internet Explorer to your Recycle Bin
Naturally, I get many raised eyebrows whenever I suggest that someone should stop using Internet Explorer as their web browser. Usually they've been using it for years and have no idea why not to use it. Surely I must simply just hate Bill Gates, corporate America, and capitalism on a whole. Quite the contrary!
Though there are many good reasons to ditch IE, here are a few that let me to choose an open-source program called Firefox.
1- Security! Microsoft is the king of security holes. Which means viruses and worms for its users!
2- Tabbed browsing. I can have countless pages open and it's all in one window, not taking up my whole taskbar. There are only tabs within a single window.
3- RSS feeds. Get your news headlines in a 'bookmark'. And they automatically update! Though news isn't the only type of RSS feed available, it is popular. Also blogs (online journals aka weblogs) that you like to keep track of new entries to. See if there are any new entries without wasting time going to the site. If there are, click on the title and it'll take you right to that entry!
4- Change the look. Tons of themes are available for Firefox. Like Hotbar, only minus the spyware!
5- Extensions. Being a web developer, there's an extension that adds a bar chock full of goodies for me. With a single click I can see if a page I'm working on validates, conforms to accessibility guidelines for disabled people, etc. I can view the code of any page on the web to learn new tricks that I see being used on a site, and that's all just in one extension! There are hundreds. Another extension I just love is the auto copy one. Highlight text on a page and it is automatically copied without having to do the whole "control-c" or "right-click, copy" thing.
6- It is standards compliant. Which may not mean a whole lot to you, but IE has a way of interpreting the code that pages are written in that is not consistent with how things are supposed be. They have their own little special tags and what-not, in favor of doing things in a consistent manner. So sometimes pages viewed in IE don't look like or act like they were intended to. Read more about Web Standards.
7- (Much) Greater CSS support. Even the new version of Internet Explorer that is still being developed will not adequately support style sheets. For more on CSS, read The Basics of CSS. I can't even begin to speculate as to the real reasons why, but for some reason Microsoft insists on delivering a product that keeps the internet stumbling.
8- Password manager. You can save your username & passwords for every site you visit so you don't have to remember them all the time. You can also choose not to use this, clicking on "No" or "Never for this site". Firefox allows you to be in control of your internet use.
9- Adblock. Don't want to see ads from everywhere? There is a little transparent image that shows up on anything that looks to Firefox like it could be an ad. Click on "Adblock" and you'll never see it again!
Need I go on? For more info visit the Browse Happy website. (Note: Safari is Mac-only, maybe Opera too? Mozilla Suite is not even recommended by Mozilla anymore, which leaves Firefox for most users!) So download Firefox. Note: They also offer an E-Mail program called Thunderbird. It is easy like Microsoft's Outlook Express, but (same as the browser) much more secure than Outlook or Outlook Express. Or should I just say- it is secure? Extensions and themes are available for Thunderbird too.
And best of all- It's all free! No reason not to at least try them!
