In a move to warm the hearts of people who work in the web industry, many governments around the World including the Australian Federal Government, have recently issued stern warnings against the use of any of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web-browsers.

It has long been a complaint from web-developers that the World’s most used browser, IE, in it’s various versions, is a substandard and potentially dangerous product.

The frustration for the IT community has been getting people to listen. “Who cares what a bunch of computer geeks say about IE ? It works ok for me.”

The fact is that even IE8 is one of the least standards-compliant browsers. The annoying part of that is websites which don’t display properly or give spurious ‘error on page’ messages. The serious side are the security holes which leave users open to possible abuse from cyber criminals.

Many people don’t realise that all the various browsers out there are completely free. It’s akin to being offered a brand-new 2010 Mercedes to replace your old, familiar but flawed Ford. Why wouldn’t you upgrade ?

Here is a sobering passage from the ABC news report today:

The Government is warning that people risk having their computers infiltrated and passwords stolen unless they install temporary fixes from Microsoft or use alternative browsers.

Here at AIS we prefer the Firefox browser, but Safari and Opera are also browsers we enjoy using.
We recommend trying a few and making your own decision about which one you’ll switch to.

Whichever browser you upgrade to, it is important to keep it up to date.

Link to full article: ABC News: Australian Government warns against using Internet Explorer web browsers Jan 20th 2010