Jul
21
Browsers – The Open Source alternative
Posted by Harish TM | July 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Although browser preferences have been changing over the last couple of years Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the one of the most popular browser in use. Does IE deserve this prestigious position in today’s world of heightened Internet dependence?
Internet Explorer achieved its popularity, not based on its quality, but due to Microsoft’s marketing strategies. Although I am no one to pass moral judgements, and I do admit Microsoft’s marketing strategy itself was ingenious, I refuse to use substandard software.
Why is IE substandard? To start with, anyone who ever developed structured web pages using css ( or similar methods ) will know that IE was initially developed and since has been maintained with little regard for Guidelines. What this means is that those who want to follow guidelines can not do so for fear of having their pages disfigured by this sad excuse for a browser. I do understand that from a users point of view, this is not convincing. Unfortunately the incompetence does not end there. Internet Explorer has, for years, shipped with many known security vulnerabilities ( find them here here and here ). One would imagine that things would be better in the latest release ( IE7 ) but it turns out that it was not to be. IE7 too has its share of security vulnerabilities. What really shocked me was Microsoft’s response:
Hi, this is Christopher Budd.
We’ve gotten some questions here today about public reports claiming there’s a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7. This is an issue that we have under investigation and so we have some technical information we can share about the issue.
These reports are technically inaccurate: the issue concerned in these reports is not in Internet Explorer 7 (or any other version) at all. Rather, it is in a different Windows component, specifically a component in Outlook Express. While these reports use Internet Explorer as a vector the vulnerability itself is in Outlook Express.
While we are aware that the issue has been publicly disclosed, we’re not aware of it being used in any attacks against customers.
We do have this under investigation and are monitoring the situation closely and we’ll take appropriate action to protect our customers once we’ve completed the investigation.
I hope that helps to clarify.
Christopher
Thanks Budd, I am real happy that its not IE but Outlook. Whats more, you are going to wait till you complete your “investigation” to take “appropriate action”? Oh ya, its good to know that you have no clue as to whether or not its been used in any attacks so far. [Just as an aside, it turns out that the "public" was wrong in this one instance but right with regard to many other]
And here is an slightly exaggerated version of what might happen if you continue to use this “browser”:
So what does one do in the unlikely event of wanting to surf the Internet without losing one’s computer? One alternative of course can be found at http://ie7.com/:
Firefox
The true power of Firefox is derived from the fact that the browser is lightweight and allows for increased functionality by use of plugins. This article has an interesting analysis, and this has a case study.
Firefox also has better security – Why is this not a surprise? Well Firefox is an Open Source project and so hundreds of people look through the code that actually runs Firefox and make sure that bugs are kept to a minimum. There is no single testing team in the world that can beat this extensive scrutiny at the hands of the Open Source community, which consists of some of the best programmers around.
Whats more, shifting to Firefox is as easy as
- Download Firefox
- Install it [more help]
- Personalize it (optional)
- and enjoy a better and more secure Web Experience.