Internet Explorer 9 Insecure Browser Warning?

I.E. 9 is regarded as an extremely safe browser. When my latest P.C. arrived it came configured with Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9. For many years I was firmly committed to Mozilla Firefox as my browser of choice. Going even further back in time I used Netscape Navigator too.

Why then have I continued to use I.E. 9. and why have I not installed Firefox?

Firefox was great when I first discovered it. Via the S3Fox Organizer plug-in it was for a while the most convenient way to upload and manage material on Amazon’s S3 storage system.

The problem with it was that as fast as people made useful plugins for it, the quicker it seemed to be upgraded so that they would no longer work.

There was a particularly nice plugin that enabled people to be able to automatically check boxes, which was a boon when Twitter changed its policy on what sites like unTweeps.com, who identify who is active, and who is following you, were prohibited from placing a ‘select all’ option in their results.

Two upgrades after installing this plugin and Firefox no longer supported it.

Now I must admit that I.E. 9. is a quirky browser. Some commercial websites, such as that of communications ‘experts’ Ogilvy.com won’t display properly unless something called ‘compatibility mode‘ is enabled. Closer to home it affected the opt-in form on the sites of a few of my I.M. friends, reversing the background colour so that black type appeared against a dark purple, nearly black, background. The message was unreadable.

The background was supposed to display as a welcoming shade of cream.

But it’s exactly due to these quirks that I’ve continued to use I.E. 9. You see I want to know how my pages look in a ‘hostile’ environment, and avoid these kinds of things displaying when people view my websites in I.E. 9. If I don’t use the browser, it’s difficult to understand its quirks.

Some bright spark at this stage is probably reaching for a one button mouse, and about to comment: ‘get a Mac and use Safari‘. They’re missing the point.

You see it’s not about whether or not Safari is a better browser, Mac or no Mac, it’s about the fact that 22% of all Internet users use Internet Explorer as their browser of choice.

I am sure most Mac owners are very nice people. One of my former wives owns one, as does our son, and the man who comforts our daughter and they are all wonderful human beings.

But there are a small group of Mac owners who do get up my nose, such as my friend, so called, who one morning awoke with an idea that would save the world.

He rapidly turned his ‘idea’ into an Apple Pages  file, sent it to all his friends using an CC e-mail with addresses of all fully visible in the header, and appended as his ‘call to action’, ‘if you can’t read this get a Mac’.

I mean did he expect people to bother to read it, after that treatment?

Microsoft claim that Internet Explorer 9 is their safest browser yet. Indeed they believe it to currently be the safest browser commonly available.

I was surprised, therefore, when on upgrading one of my WordPress sites to version 3.31 a window appeared in the dashboard informing me that I was using an insecure browser, and that I needed to upgrade to I. E. 9., which is the browser I use.

Incredibly, similar warnings have appeared on various website I’ve visited over the past couple of months. My Yahoo Mail account being one of these. So why is this?

According to NSS Labs Internet Explorer 9 is an incredibly secure, and safe browser. It is able to detect up to 99% of the malware that it encountered.

That as good or even better than the other browsers out there.

Microsoft has also improved the smart screen url filter that comes with the browser.

And it stops you from downloading files from websites that are known to be dangerous. Indeed with the introduction of  Windows 7 security seems to be Microsoft’s first priority.

Why are these strange warnings appearing?

Could it be someone believes the new I/E. 9 really could be a threat, or is it simple incompetence?

Footnote: Since writing this I have, perversely, installed Rockmelt, which has improved considerably since I last used it. My productivity though is down to zero!

Stephen Bray writes in a stream of consciousness, but sometimes is a good read . . .