Ethan Kaplan, Director of Technology for Warner Bros Records (blackrimglasses.com), commenting on the Email Battles article, Microsoft Employees Rage As Internet Explorer Ship Sinks:

Things we already knew. IE sucks, Microsoft dropped the ball on what could have been their flagship product in favor of what? The mess that is .NET?

Sorry, Ethan. Some still need to catch up.

That’s why Email Battles began its State of The Browsers Audit to determine the current state of browser adoption, specifically among technically knowledgeable users. Why techs?

Because they’re the “ramp-up” portion of the technical adoption curve. Choices made by network managers and power users filter down through their organizations and social nets. In addition, they happen to make up the bulk of Email Battles readers, and we’ve watched their use of Internet Explorer drop from 76% to 51% in just one year.

We discovered that some of the most articulate opponents of Internet Explorer are among the strongest Microsoft supporters: Employees, ex-employees and Windows network administrators.

After presenting this information, we monitored responses across the web, arbitrarily cutting off our review 100 respondents who clearly agree or disagree with the assessments of the Microsoft supporters.

While many forums commented, we tried to limit our assessment to sites that feature a cross-section of knowledgeable users. For instance, on a pure Linux site, like lxer.com, users would have a low probability of enjoying Internet Explorer, as it works only on Windows. Thus, we narrowed our review to comments made on addict3d, ars technica, digg, osopinion, reddit, and slyck.

These well regarded sites cover a wide range of technical users, from p2p file sharing geeks to news publishers and network managers to snotty know-it-alls. We’ll let you decide which is which.

Sticking With IE
Internet Explorer defenders frequently confused us by charging that:

  1. The comments were made by a cabal of Windows haters;
  2. Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista will squash its competitors, and;
  3. There is no problem, so what’s the big deal?

Of course, a close read of the article shows that comments were made by Microsoft lovers, not haters. As for IE7 on Vista… an unreleased product has little to do with decisions power users must make today. The “What, me worry?” approach is similarly irrelevant, given IE’s current security problems. The favorite IE-based alternative was Maxthon, which provides a tabbing environment for IE users.

onewing (digg):

This may be a big shock to you guys, but some people actually PREFER IE. I have friends I have got to try firefox and opera, but they prefer IE’s page rendering and compatibility with websites. I personally prefer opera, but there is a valid argument for a lot of browsers.

j_bellone (digg):

Opera renders nice, but always seems a bit slower to me than Firefox and IE. I currently use Firefox, but have to go to use IE6 for some things (banking, and college-based services). I actually prefer IE6 because it does load quicker, and renders a bit faster. Their are two major reasons I use Firefox: tabbed browsing, and the lack of ActiveX bullsh*t.

Nexus6 (ars technica):

… Memory management in FF sucks, FF leaks like a wooden ship in a storm.

allen (ars technica):

I actually like IE - as opposed to Firefox - because I find that managing bookmarks via the Windows “Favorites” works better for me than the single file “bookmark.htm”, which Firefox inherited from Netscape.

Anyway, the point I would like to make for the benefit of any Microsoft person reading this is that IE is still a good product with some real strengths - so please don’t give up on it.

Switch To Anything But IE
Those who agreed with Microsoft supporters quoted in the article, that IE should not be the browser of choice, cited security, tabs and extensions as primary motivators for moving to other browsers, and named Firefox, Konqueror, Mozilla, Opera and Safari as favorites.

skyfex (digg):

Of course, everyone at Microsoft doesn’t hate IE. But remember that it takes some guts for an MS employee to publicly state their dissatisfaction with IE, meaning there are probably many others. Doesn’t come as a surprise, really, but the real story is that employees are giving their opinion online.

Sirocco (digg):

Heh, my boss tried out Firefox (at my behest) and stopped the first time because it took slightly longer to load, and his home page (MSNBC.com) looked a little different. But hey, he has to clean off his system weekly, whereas thanks for Firefox and Sygate I don’t ever get spyware or anything else I don’t desire. It’s his choice, but he’s a die-hard MS fanboi, and aside from him everyone I’ve shown Firefox has adopted it immediately. It’s a better browser, plain and simple. MS either needs to step in the ring and compete, or drop IE entirely, because by God it has been holding back the web for over half a decade :(

Oblisk (ars technica):

I had the joy of interviewing with the IE department at MS a while ago. One of the things they mentioned is that, the reason they are behind is because after i.e 5 or 5.5 came out they were the market leaders with what at the time was a great product. Then the team was gutted, from like 155 people to 2. So since then they have been playing catchup.

Cybrwolf (digg):

I don’t hate everything Microsoft does. However, I do hate the decisions they make simply based around market dominance. The biggest security issue with IE is simply Active X scripting. Active X is tied to the IE web Browser, IE is tied into the core of the Windows OS. This is the crux of the problem, if Microsoft had kept IE separate from the OS, IE wouldn’t nearly be as bad as it is, right now. I like competition, and would like to see Microsoft “really” develop IE, but only as a stand-alone app, not a UI plug-in to the OS.

UWSalt (ars technica):

The only reason I use IE at work is because I have to in order to access certain internal sites. It’s slow, annoying, and cumbersome to use. I blame IT for most of that, and use Firefox for everything else that I can.

Get back to me when IE 7 is ready to be rolled out in the corporate environment.

Wesley Parish (osopinion):

I’m considering banning the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer … because there is very little else on the net that attracts malware quite as quickly.

Lordfoul (slyck):

Many dislike IE due to it’s OS integration, lack of innovation and the constant stream of vulnerablities that are continuously discovered in it.

Of the coming IE7, Janne (ars technica) writes:

Browser scehduled to be released in about a year, “squishes” a browser that is available RIGHT NOW? I would sure hope so, otherwise IE7 would be a huge flaming disaster.

All in all, eighty-one percent of those commenting agreed with the sentiments of the Microsoft supporters cited by Email Battles, which seem to be: Get away from Internet Explorer, while you can.

Links External Comments: Addict3d, Ars Technica, digg, LXer, OS Opinion, reddit, Slyck.

Background:

Related Info Concerning the Windows Graphics Rendering Vulnerability on Email Battles: