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30 December, 2004
Walter S Mossberg (30/12/2004 Total Telecom) comments on the emergence of the Firefox browser. He writes:
'Microsoft hasn't made any important functional improvements in Internet Explorer for years'. And believes that 'Firefox is both more secure and more modern than IE, and it comes packed with user-friendly features the Microsoft browser can't touch'.
I’ve seen similar comments and sentiments echoed elsewhere. Some of these comments are understandable – Firefox is clearly a browser that users are taking to in some numbers. But how much of that is because they genuinely believe it to be better and how much because they keep reading articles that suggest it is more secure and ‘better’ than IE is an interesting point.
The idea that IE has “not been developed for years” is one of those urban myths that seems to grow through repetition. Software updates, such as the pop-up blocker included as part of SP2, have made significant functional changes to IE. In addition to the pop-up blocker, SP2 also incorporates several other major IE enhancements, including download monitoring (warning users about potentially harmful downloads, giving you the option to block files that could be malicious), an Information Bar (providing better information about events that are happening as you browse the Web, so it’s easier to know what’s going on and address potential security issues) and enhancements to the Add-on Manager (to improve security and reduce the potential for crashes by allowing you to easily manage programs which have been added to your Web browser).
Anyhow, this is one time of year when we’ve all got better things to do – and think about – than debate the merits of Web browsers. I wish you all the very best of New Years.
| (C) 2004/2005 J Fishenden
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