Will you be moving away from IE?

[daj]

As you may know the European Commission dictated some time ago that European Users must be given a choice of browser within an installation of Windows XP/Vista/7. Today, 1 March, the feature launches and at some point in the coming week you will be asked by Windows to chose to install and configure a new browser form a list of about ten, or stay with the one(s) you have.

So just for fun, what will you do? (Voting form at the top)

From my own point of view, I do wonder if it is really worth all the hassle. Those who are not sure will stick with IE, those who do care have probably already moved away.

[steve]

Those who are not sure will stick with IE, those who do care have probably already moved away.

Absolutely. Anyone who knows and cares has already switched, anyone else will just find it confusing. I suppose it might be the trigger for some of those who were thinking about it to actually take the plunge.

[hills]

Oops, I've already switched to firefox, so should have voted all "already switched", not "FIrefox"

I switched after that security issue with IE last year and haven't looked back. Plus its a consistant browser across my Windows and linux PCs.

[Gina]

I switched to Firefox many years ago and I still use Firefox even having switched OS to Linux a few years ago.

[nking]

An interesting question, a little like the German Dentist in Marathon Man – is it safe?!

Apple Mac users were/are always smug and feeling confident that their system is safe from Malware... err yes as their market share was approx. 7% then why write Malware to target Macs when there is very little return. Well, times they are a changing - according to security specialists, Macs users are now being got.

So onto IE, yep it had holes (IE8 is reputedly more secure than other browsers) but is still used by nearly half the PC users. Firefox has prospered but it is now possibly bigger than IE so will Malware writers target Firefox… probably. I personally use IE8, Firefox and Chrome and each has its ups and downs.

There, having lit the fuse I’m out of here!!!

[WestOz]

I changed to Firefox (and Thunderbird for emails) years ago.

[EvilV]

I went over to Firefox years ago and also tried Opera (a little). Now I use mostly Google Chrome, which is very fast and intuitive. You should try it on netbooks or other slightly slower computers. It goes like lightening and loads in a second, unlike Firefox. As an aside, I love some of the Google software, like Picassa, Google Earth, and also Google Docs, which for many straightforward home office tasks are really all I want. I have Office 2003 on my old laptop which is sort of retired, but I use Google Docs on my netbook which is in use every day.

HOWEVER: I have found one or two sites that don't work in Chrome. Revenue and Customs Self Assessment had some issues in 2009 and after some frustrating problem with unsaved forms, I found the whole thing worked in IE. Likewise some bits of my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. The part of the router config page where you set forbidden URLS will not activate if you entered the site urls in chrome, even though it looks like you have saved the urls. Maybe Forefox is the same there, I'm not sure. After puzzling for a good while about why I could still access the URLS, I opened IE, re- entered the details and blocked the URL for certain. This is weird, because I'd repeated the process several times in Chrome. I vaguely remember having some similar problems in Firefox on that router a long time back.

I have no idea why this happens, especially when the data was correctly entered in the first place.

My objection to IE was of course security. I really lost all confidence that the browser was safe when patches were coming out every few weeks after yet another gaping security hole was found. I don't trust Microsoft at all in security, and now use linux to access my bank or any other important data that I want kept private. I have dual boot on all my machines, but only use linux for financial type internet access. Obviously, linux could be targeted by villains in the future, which is why I don't do anything else on that operating system. I have thought of keeping a write protected usb linux operating system for bank account access. Since nothing is saved on the stick when you close a session, in theory, you could be sure there were no trojans on the stick to copy your data or passwords.

[M1DUL]

I switched to Firefox many years ago and I still use Firefox even having switched OS to Windows 7.

[mcrossley]

These are the February stats from my site, lets see if this initiative makes a significant change in the IE percentage over the next few months.

MS Internet Explorer 51.8%
Firefox 36.5%
Google Chrome 4.7%
Safari 3.6%
Opera 2.0%
Mozilla 0.8%
OmniWeb 0.1%

Personally I use IE8 in the main (much improved from IE7) and Firefox. Chrome though fast just fails to work with or renders poorly too many sites to make it worth persevering with at the mo.

I guess the thing is with the IE market share everyone (except the perverse) will test their site works against IE.

Mark

[geoffw]

I'm a long standing Opera fan!

[EvilV]

I'm a long standing Opera fan!

I HATE Opera - all those fat ladies yowling. Can't stand it.

[Log Cabin]

I'm a long standing Opera fan!

Same here

[gemini06720]

My browser of choice has been Firefox for many years - I have never trusted the Microsoft browsers, including version 8.

But Opera has been my close second choice, more so with version 10 which is incredibly fast (even a bit faster than Google Chrome).

When I write my Web pages, I only test them in Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome - I am not a 'fan' of Internet Explorer...

[mcrossley]

When I write my Web pages, I only test them in Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome - I am not a 'fan' of Internet Explorer...

Seems a bit odd not to test how your site will work for over 50% of your visitors - even if you don't like the browser they use. But that's my opinion.

Any hoo, this is runs the risk of becoming another Mac v. Windows, Linux v. Windows type thread. Now we've got browsers to argue about

Mark

[daj]

I, like Ray, have been a Firefox fan for years and do all my development based on that. I do however check it in IE 7 & 8 and I always get enraged at just how poor IE is, but as you say IE is still the masses so we should cater for them.

It's actually surprising how many sites are IE only -- at work we gave serious consideration to swapping to FF and ran a pilot project with a small group of users. They all much preferred FF however there were a handful of sites which only work with IE so in the end we had to scrap the project -- shame really

My worry with FF is it is becoming a little bloated now - Chrome is amazing for now, very fast. I had a look at Opera 10.5 the other day -- very nice too