IE is no better or worse than other browsers in terms of stability.
Being an IT person I practically am forced to use it all the time—most of the Web interfaces I have to use in my work require IE and refuse to work with anything else (righteously so – other browsers don’t support ActiveX).
So if I had problems with IE, I would know ;-)
Here’s the truth:
If IE crashes on some sites or refuses to work altogether, chances are that you have some spyware or adware sitting on your computer… So, by using Firefox or Opera as “stable alternative” in case IE doesn’t work properly, you’re trying to avoid the real underlying problem…
When computer is clean from spyware/adware, IE is as stable as others, and may be even more.
Just recently, I stumbled across an article about CoolWebSearch, a spyware parasite with dozens of infection/action vectors - it infests every aspect of a computer. If my people manage to contract it (not that easy in my work environment!) – I send their computers for reinstallation desk. It’s THAT BAD. If people with CWS continue to work (IE blows up, so they use the dreaded humpty-dumpty Firefox or not so dreaded Opera instead, suffering from pop-ups and installing more software in an attempt to tackle it, making their PC’s a mess) - their personal data, form contents, autocomplete search data etc. get uploaded to a server accessed by malicious people.
So I believe escaping from IE problems to other browsers is doing the world NO GOOD, because identity theft costs millions… I can understand using Opera because it has more functions, but escapism hurts.
Moving to Linux is not a solution because
- Linux doesn’t yet stand up to useability standards – it might be good for geeks (free/cheap and very customisable) but is not good for corporations at all. Users just refuse to learn other platforms, and rightfully so – rebel admins are rarely being hired in serious companies, nobody wants a liberal on this post. So most companies they’ll work in will have Windows.
- The problem with Linuxes (there is no such thing as a “standard” Linux) is that there are LOTS of flavours and lots of different desktops to learn, settings to tackle – for the same thing. For an Admin it’s much easier to learn ONE registry structure with tricks than SCORES of settings for each platform.
- There is no single ideology behind Linux products, so the interface is often counterintuitive, because everybody makes their own guides.
- Driver support for Windows is unsurpassed and will remain so, hardware maker companies want their buck, and so they must cooperate with computer makers who make their buck too – and for the latter it’s much easier to dwell on Microsoft offers.
If I ever had to move off MS software (Must change livelihood for that! :)) I’d choose Mac which is well thought and has only ONE OS behind it. Linux to Mac is what Firefox is to Opera—eclectic vs. well-planned.
So I think, instead of imposing a variety of Linuxes just for “competition reasons”, I’d rather have one OS at work & at home to care about—which I do; it’s still familiar, be it XP Home, XP Pro, or 2003…
But what I do agree, MS must be closely watched and hit if they try to put unfair prices on their products…
Competition must serve people, not make life harder. Isn’t life easier when if you know one computer, you know them all. After all, computers are meant to help people do real-world jobs and tasks, and not to be a useless toy existing just for a mere purpose of studying its metallic guts.
