See the rest of this thread. Security and lack of adherence to standards are the main problems.

Of course more people use IE and more people have attempted to exploit it so more exploits are found. I have plenty of programs I've made and have only used. They haven't had any exploits found and therefor must be infinitely secure :).

It also lacks a number of useful features that the rest of the browser world has had for a while, like tabbed browsing.

I guess that's more of a preference thing since I like managing seveal windows. So that when I'm dealing with several applications I can more easily discern seperate seperate sites I'm viewing. But generally I'm only viewing on site anyway. Though given the way that Microsofts development tools are going I'm guessing it won't be long before IE starts going with tabs. As far as other features the only one I can remember mentioning is the picture zoom thing but thats not initially part of Firefox and requires an extension. And if I really wanted a feature I could just develop the addon myself :P.

Manage addons... manage addons... nope, can't see it. Perhaps I don't have the latest version as I thought.

Must have came with the XP service pack 2 along with the pop-up blocker.

*goes and looks* I see M$ have redesigned their site since I was last there...

You should just use the windows update :P. No sense in trying to navigate the catacombs of Microsoft.

anyway, there's an IE service pack which I don't have. Figures. I really can't be bothered to download such a large file for so little gain

How do you know the gain without using it? And people always get on my case for jumping to conclusions without bothering to try.

(seeing as I never use IE anyway), so I'll just take your word for it. =P

Regardless I'm sure you use it plenty. Because it's easy to integrate into applications it tends to be used within apps to render HTML as I stated. So you're using it to display all that HTML in the BYOND browsers as well as numerous other apps that probably use it to display formatted text/HTML. Without those updates these security holes of IE probably extend to these apps as well.

Mozilla has one of those, too! Admittedly it's probably not as easy to use in Windows, but it does have the advantage of working everywhere else as well - something IE will never be able to claim.

.NET framework only works on Windows but I still use it since all other development options that are cross platform aren't nearly as nice to work with and I'm rarely interested in other operating systems anyway.

I just love Microsoft's lock-them-in marketing policy. "You already use Microsoft product X, so you should Microsoft product Y because you're guaranteed that it's the only thing that's compatible."

Well its not the only thing thats compatible. You can still use Firefox as well as many other applications. Since Microsoft has all the source and knowlege behind all their applications it wouldn't make much sense not to make sure they work well with each other. I highly doubt this is exclusive to Microsoft.

The worst thing about it is that it works so damn well. =P

Well they do make their products compatible with each other but don't deny compatibility to other apps and other apps will be just a compatible if built correctly. However Microsofts products work well with each other and for evident reasons it's more likely that they will be more compatible over 3rd party apps simply because Microsoft is going to follow their own standards.

Theodis wrote:

Of course more people use IE and more people have attempted to exploit it so more exploits are found. I have plenty of programs I've made and have only used. They haven't had any exploits found and therefor must be infinitely secure :).

An exploit that's found and fixed is more secure than an exploit that lies undiscovered for ages. Someone might discover the undiscovered exploit and exploit it. IE, and Microsoft products in general, have historically had large numbers of exploits that weren't fixed for a while.

By contrast, the Firefox dev team is offering a bug-finding bounty so that they can get as many exploits as possible found and fixed as soon as possible. I don't see Microsoft doing any such thing. If more exploits are fixed, the program is more secure. Therefore I would conclude that Firefox is more secure than IE even taking into account the fact that it doesn't have widespread usage; or if it's not, then it soon will be.

I guess that's more of a preference thing since I like managing seveal windows. So that when I'm dealing with several applications I can more easily discern seperate seperate sites I'm viewing. But generally I'm only viewing on site anyway. Though given the way that Microsofts development tools are going I'm guessing it won't be long before IE starts going with tabs. As far as other features the only one I can remember mentioning is the picture zoom thing but thats not initially part of Firefox and requires an extension. And if I really wanted a feature I could just develop the addon myself :P.

Many things in Firefox are extensions. This is a good thing. If I don't need to zoom images, then I don't want my browser wasting the time and memory to load whatever's required to implement image-zooming.

Must have came with the XP service pack 2 along with the pop-up blocker.

That would explain it.

You should just use the windows update :P. No sense in trying to navigate the catacombs of Microsoft.

It took me about 30 seconds. Windows Update would probably have taken longer just to start up. =P

How do you know the gain without using it? And people always get on my case for jumping to conclusions without bothering to try.

Because I never use IE anyway, except in the occasional embedded application, as you point out below.

Regardless I'm sure you use it plenty. Because it's easy to integrate into applications it tends to be used within apps to render HTML as I stated. So you're using it to display all that HTML in the BYOND browsers as well as numerous other apps that probably use it to display formatted text/HTML. Without those updates these security holes of IE probably extend to these apps as well.

True! I was intending to get around to it someday anyway. Trouble is it'll take me a day or two to download the service pack, and quite honestly I can think of more fun uses of my bandwidth. =)

.NET framework only works on Windows but I still use it since all other development options that are cross platform aren't nearly as nice to work with and I'm rarely interested in other operating systems anyway.

Your loss! I like to be able to compile and run my programs on as many systems as possible. It's not actually too hard once you know what libraries and compilers to use.

Regardless, I have little interest in .NET or similar cross-platform technologies. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less.

Well its not the only thing thats compatible. You can still use Firefox as well as many other applications. Since Microsoft has all the source and knowlege behind all their applications it wouldn't make much sense not to make sure they work well with each other. I highly doubt this is exclusive to Microsoft.

Compatibility is not exclusive to Microsoft, no, but the high level of exclusive compatibility they can achieve is. No other computer-related organisation can boast the amount of market share that Microsoft has. So Microsoft needs only to lock other people out of integrating their products with Microsoft's products, and tada! Monopoly. And that's exactly what they're very close to doing (see below).

Well they do make their products compatible with each other but don't deny compatibility to other apps and other apps will be just a compatible if built correctly. However Microsofts products work well with each other and for evident reasons it's more likely that they will be more compatible over 3rd party apps simply because Microsoft is going to follow their own standards.

As opposed to the standards that everybody else has agreed on, you mean? =P (Especially for to HTML and Javascript and associated web technologies.)

They don't deny compatibility outright (probably because that's impossible to do, not to mention potentially illegal regarding antitrust laws) but they certainly don't make it easy. Almost all of their proprietary file formats have to be reverse engineered, because they refuse to provide specifications for them. If they were truly interested in making software as good as possible, then they would do so.

Of course, Microsoft doesn't do that, because they're a huge corporation. Meaning that all they care about is profit. That's practically in the definition of a corporation. I can understand why that is, but I certainly don't like it.

I don't know, sometimes its fun to collect those little browser hijacker programs and find out how to get rid of them. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of one called TV Media. It copies itself when deleted, replaces registry entries before you can close the registry editor, and runs in safe mode. And of course, refuses to shut down like a good little program so you can delete it in the first place. SpyBot and Ad-aware can't remove it. And it also auto-updates itself whenever the owner comes up with a way to improve its unremovability. Haven't gotten rid of it yet, but I'm using Firefox at the moment anyway, so who cares.

I have, however, killed 2-3 of them in the past.

First thing I picked up with a Google search. Apparantly this should purify you of TV Media (free trial, not freeware)
http://www.giantcompany.com/ download.aspx?prodID=70&skip=true

The site where I yoinked the link said that by trying to manually remove TV Media, you risk damaging your computer so that it won't turn on or connect to the internet, because of necessary files it tried to associate itself with, or something.

Of course, I don't doubt that you've tried to look up a way already, but this is on the hopes you haven't tried this yet.

The file is pretty well known on Google, so I figure if there's something to be done about it, it has already been done by someone who knows what they're doing in that department.