7 Reasons why NOT to Use Internet Explorer

by simplyianm on January 3, 2010

“Internet Explorer is good enough.”

“If I install another browser, my computer will be really slow.”

“Why do I need to upgrade? It works!”

“It’s easier to do with what we have now.”

I’m not exactly a complete hater of Internet Explorer (actually I am), but here’s the straight-out truth: Internet Explorer stinks. (No, I’m not the only one.) I’m not calling it the worst browser. (Actually, it is.)  People still use it because it comes prepackaged with a new Windows computer, it’s hard to remove, and many are just not tech-friendly. Last summer, I went to New Jersey to see my relatives. Guess what? All of them used the crappy Internet Explorer 6 or 7, and when I told them about Firefox, they said it would slow down their computer. This is a myth; Firefox makes your computer faster. I never convinced them to use Firefox, but they had a lot of viruses. (This has been fixed because of IE 8) This is not an “I love Firefox” post, so I will cover seven big reasons, not in any particular order, why exactly not to use Internet Explorer.

1. Cross-browser compatibility – IE is not the most compatible browser. It lacks many things relating to CSS, Javascript, and other things. Many sites also claim they are “optimized for IE only” so not using IE would help protest it. Some major CSS details are not in IE.

2. Address Bar – The address bar, like all browsers, is the gateway to the Internet. Having a good address bar can dramatically reduce the time it takes to get to websites. Both Firefox and Chrome are great in their searches in history or bookmarks. IE does this, but it is less visually-appealing.

3. Speed - Internet Explorer’s speed is HORRENDOUS. The page-to-page speed is barely slower, but the startup speed is like a snail. The fade effects when opening menus take a small but critical half of a second to load.

4. Nuisance Dialog Boxes - Whenever I use Internet Explorer, I get “Do you want to turn AutoComplete on?” “Do you want to remember this password?” At least put it at the top like in Firefox/Chrome!

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5. The Spazzing Cursor – When I go to a page, what do I see? A spazzing cursor. The hourglass (or circle-loader in Vista) flickers when downloading something. Is is just me or is that just plain annoying?

6. Two processes – I don’t have to really explain this, but why in the world are there TWO processes of iexplore.exe?

7. Low extensibility – Internet Explorer is missing one huge thing that other browsers have — a wide range of addons, extensions, themes, etc. The default Internet Explorer theme is dull but it’s as good as you’ll get. Plugins are all by major developers (Bebo, AIM, delicious, etc.) so I don’t see something good like AdblockPlus coming soon. This was the ONLY good thing about IE7, now it’s gone. See: open source really is a necessity.

Conclusion

There are many other great browsers out there. If you’re having trouble picking, I recommend you go to BrowseHappy to find your perfect browser or just keep reading my blog.

So, what are your mishaps with IE?

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

imacalinao January 5, 2010 at 8:50 pm

Yeah! I'm posting with DISQUS!!!

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No Name January 14, 2010 at 4:57 pm

I downloaded firfox and my computer crashed so what are you talking about IE rocks

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Ian January 15, 2010 at 11:20 am

Well, Firefox doesn’t work well on all computers. You might want to try Google Chrome.

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Akhil January 21, 2010 at 7:53 pm

i finally visited ur site!chrome is good except when u download java….it doesnt work.ie is dull,boring and slow i agree.firefox is good but in my opinion chrome’s better

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Ian February 1, 2010 at 10:50 pm

Yes, Chrome can look better. Benchmarks prove though that Firefox is faster on a clean install.

Reply

Anthony Martin June 28, 2010 at 3:27 pm

In my experience, Firefox is a memory hog. I had four tabs open once and it was using like 400MB of my RAM. Of course, that’s a little extreme and I think it was a bug (I was using a beta build).

I prefer Chrome because it both uses very little memory, has extensions and themes, appears to be more stable, and it’s definitely prettier (very important).

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