OK, so I have a dig at the big blue '
' being insecure. To a large extent this is always true,
the track record has not been good. In fact there have been
many sources,
loads of sources,
the sources keep on piling up,
goodness when will the sources stop,
sources telling us
that Internet explorer is a massive pain in the arse!
Have I made my point? Perhaps I should reiterate with the evidence showing the problems with designing for internet explorer as moaned about by web designers. All of the following are complaints by people who want to see all browsers sticking to becoming w3 compliant!
In January 2010, a new virus appeared on the black market taking advantage of
a security hole in ALL versions of Internet Explorer between 5 and 8. It's name?
Arora.
How does Arora work? It exposes a security hole for which there is NO solution to yet
and uses it to install software like trojans allowing data to be stolen! Even from
large corporate networks! Still using Internet Explorer?
The choice is up to you really, there are many safer, compliant browsers out there. They are also strongly supported too! In fact, One or two have been named as the next leaders in browser market share. So what is the problem? Why do people not use them.
Below is a selection of browsers. It is in no way complete but it offers a brief description of the main alternatives to Internet Explorer. If you are adamant that you wish to keep Internet explorer please, please, please do yourself a massive favour and update to version 8 at the very least!
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation.
Firefox has 22.98% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of August 2009, making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has 66.97%.
To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.
Latest Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (aka "geolocation") based exclusively on a Google service and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through add-ons, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.
Firefox runs on various versions of Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and many other Unix-like operating systems. Firefox's source code is free software, released under a tri-license GNU GPL/GNU LGPL/MPL.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser released by Google which uses the WebKit layout engine and application framework. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. In September 2009, Chrome was the fourth most widely used browser, with 2.84% of worldwide usage share of web browsers. Development versions of Chrome for Linux and Mac OS X were released in June 2009.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. First released as a public beta on 7 January 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Apple has also made Safari the native browser for the iPhone OS. A version of Safari for the Microsoft Windows operating system first released on 11 June 2007 supports both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Safari had a 4.07% market share in August 2009.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)
Opera is a web browser and internet suite developed by the Opera Software company. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying websites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones, but for other devices it must be paid for.
Features of Opera include tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing and malware protection, strong encryption when browsing secure web sites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as HTTP cookies.
Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Evaluations of Opera have been largely positive, and it has innovated or pioneered many key features of modern browsers. Despite these factors, Opera has captured only a small fraction of the worldwide personal computer browser market. It does, though, have a stronger market share on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants. Editions of Opera are available for devices using the Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems, as well as Java ME-enabled devices. Approximately 40 million mobile phones have shipped with Opera pre-installed. Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS and Wii gaming systems. Some television set-top boxes use Opera. Adobe Systems has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite.
