While Internet Explorer is statistically the most popular browser, among tech enthusiasts it is probably one of the least popular. IE6 gave the browser a reputation for being riddled with security holes and while tremendous strides have been made to drastically improve security, IE in its current form is still thought of this way.
Over the past several years, IE has evolved to where its most recent release’s (version 9) look, performance, compatibility and speed are comparable to rival browsers. So here is a fun question, if IE is not currently your browser of choice, what would it take in order for you switch to it?
Personally, I am a Firefox user and it would take several changes for me to make the switch:
- Addition of a “master password” to protect saved passwords.
- An integrated spell-checker.
- An add-on like Ghostery.
- More security controls. For example, you can delete temporary files on the close of the browser, but I want the ability to delete cookies as well.
If it came down to it and all things were equal, I would be an IE user. Speed (which seems to be the big knock on it now) doesn’t really matter that much to me. For the most part, the speed a page loads is determined primarily by your connection speed (i.e. how fast the content gets to your computer) as opposed to the blinks of an eye it takes to render it. Yes, Javascript speed matters too, but I don’t really use my browser for anything where I would notice a difference.
If IE isn’t your current browser, why not and what do you use instead?
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Maybe a clean user interface that is not loaded with junk everywhere?
Hundreds of add-ons.
Speed.
It is yet one more Microsoft product that isn’t quite right compared to a competitor or two that nailed it. Things at Microsoft seem to get designed by huge departments, that’s the only thing I can figure.
IE9 already has a Spartan minimalist default UI (I have no idea where you get that ‘loaded with junk’ nonsense) and also performs fast with separate processes for tabs and has done so since IE8.
“Things at Microsoft seem to get designed by huge departments” – that’s right. IE9 has consistency in UI design with other Live products. Live Hotmail, Live Calendar, Live Maps, Bing and so on.
As a side note… I wonder how long it will be before we get the obligatory “It would take me switching from Mac/Linux to M$ Windoze!”
In short, a miracle.
Does it have built-in “Profile” syncing yet or do you need an add-on like Xmarks?
Good question. I think Chrome would have to have a crap release to make me go back. Otherwise, why fix what isn’t broken?
IE would need to have the following for me to switch back:
- extensions
- built in spell checker
- built in sync that syncs everything (bookmarks, history, extensions, prefs)
- a download manager would be nice
and one more thing that I will no compromise on….it would need to be cross platform. If I can’t use the browser across multiple operating systems and have all of my bookmarks, history, extensions, prefs in sync,I quite simply won’t use it.
The ability to add in extensions has been in IE for a long time, and IE9 has a download manager. Sync exists and it’s called Windows Live Mesh 2011.
The only one that IE doesn’t do on your list is spell check, you’ll still need to install the add-on ieSpell for that.