All right, kiddies, I was going to let this past week’s Internet Explorer shenanigans drop, because I’m frankly sick of hearing about them, and I doubt I’ve got many readers at this point in the summer, anyway.
But the other day, the Register reported that US CERT (the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team) was recommending using anything but Internet Explorer. Chris Pirillo, former Tech-TV wiz-kid and Microsoft fan has had it, evidently. And Paul Boutin of Slate (owned by Microsoft, as he points out in the article) is recommending a switch, as well.
It’s time to jump ship, folks, that’s all I’m saying. Even Microsoft has said they’re not even developing IE anymore, except for the new Longhorn version of the operating system, due when? 2006 now? With IE, what you’ve got now is pretty much what you get for at least two more years.
Where you gonna jump? Find out about a more-than-viable option after the break:
Everybody and their brother is now recommending Mozilla’s Firefox. Heck, I was recommending Firefox at the beginning of last year. The folks I know who switched haven’t missed the annoying popups and security holes, they tell me. You’ll also (I do daresay) notice a considerable speed bump.
You may need to do just a smidgen of work to switch smoothly. Boutin sums it up pretty well:
That said, be aware that getting started with Firefox isn’t a one-click operation. After installing the browser, you’ll need to reinstall plug-ins for some programs, as well as Sun’s Java engine for any Java-powered pages. Let me save you an hour of head-scratching here: Save Sun’s Java installation file to your desktop, then go back to Firefox’s menus and select File -> Open File to install the downloaded .xpi file into the browser. That’ll work where other methods fail without explanation.
Once you’re set up, it still takes a day or two to get used to the interface and feature differences between Explorer and Firefox, as well as the fact that your favorite sites may look a little different.
Heh. Your favorite sites may look a little different, because they’re probably being displayed correctly now, but that’s a different issue altogether. I’ve done it myself, on Windows machines and Macs, and it’s not bad at all. It’s worth the little effort it takes, folks, believe me. There. I’ve said my piece, now it’s up to you:
