The “Ballot screen” launched in late February-early March on the Old Continent, has not yet accelerated the decline of Internet Explorer. Between February and March, the software Microsoft has indeed lost 0.8 points in share of visits on average for a Web site in Europe. Nothing unusual, since Internet Explorer has given up more ground between November and December 2009 for example (- 1.7) or between December 2009 and January 2010 (- 0.9).

Firefox stagnates

In six months, Internet Explorer has seen its share of visits reflux of 4.1 percentage points from 61.2% to 57.1%. In one year, the browser displays a loss of 7 points since it was 64.6% in March 2009. In December 2009 IE is symbolically dipped below 60%.

Who benefits from this hegemony is crumbling? Firefox? Yes, but not as much as one might think. Since late 2009, the share of Firefox tramples (29.3% in December, 29.6% in March). No effect Screen bundle to address not here anymore. In six months, the Mozilla software has won a point, a little less than two in one year. The release of Firefox 3.5 in summer 2009 has not boosted positions.

Internet Explorer 54.9% in France

Google Chrome has the wind in their sails, led perhaps by promotional campaign orchestrated by the search engine. The browser was first reached in March by 5.3%, earning 2.2 points in six months. In one year, it rose 3.9 percentage points. Good performance for this software, fast and just keeps getting in his version stable and beta. He is ahead now little safari.

Opera him despite a nice reputation and strong assets, not move one iota. It showed a 2, 2% in March 2009. Same in March 2010. The Norwegian publisher stated in March taking advantage of the screen in Windows multichannel.

In France, Internet Explorer has dropped 1.3 points to 54.9% between February and March 2010. Firefox rose slightly to 31.4%. Safari and Chrome are neck and neck (5.8%) and Opera behind (0.8%),.

In four other European countries (Spain, Italy, Belgium, United Kingdom), IE is in decline, advances Chrome, and Safari and Opera are stagnating. More Challenging for Firefox, which is gaining ground in Spain, but lost in the United Kingdom.

My argument is simple: the benefits of using IE are too few, and the faults too great, to put off the adoption of an alternative any longer.

Security
Internet Explorer is a very vulnerable browser. It allows many trojan-horses, worms, spyware and adware and other viruses through without the user doing anything wrong or knowing that anything has gone wrong.

In June of 2004, the US Government’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), produced an article which advised users to stop using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

This is just some of the controversy surrounding Microsoft and IE regarding security. Many Internet Explorer users are now setting security settings to ridiculous levels, which slows down and stops certain sites from displaying.

What makes other browsers better than IE at protecting vs. spyware and other attacks? Well, it’s simple really – most other browsers don’t make it so easy to install malicious software on your system without you knowing about it. IE makes it relatively trivial through two features called ActiveX and Active Scripting. These technologies were designed specifically for the purpose of giving websites more control over a user’s computer. Unfortunately, as we have seen with exploit after exploit – that’s not always a good thing.

In addition to the spyware issues, IE in general has had a terrible track record when it comes to all types of serious security issues. For years now, it’s seemed like every time you turn around there is a new way to have your computer taken over via Internet Explorer. Put ‘internet explorer’ and ‘allow an attacker to execute commands’ (with the quotes) into Google and you’ll see what I mean.

Why do people use Internet Explorer?
Internet Explorer is used by most people simply because it is on their computer when they buy it. We shouldn’t just cave in to microsoft’s tricks about using the default browser, we need alternatives and we have better alternatives.

Other Alternatives
Lucky for us, we have alternatives. The good news is that the alternative browsers are actually as good or better than IE. There are many out there, but in my opinion the Mozilla products are the best. I personally prefer and recommend Mozilla Firefox. Not only does it keep your browsing sessions a lot more secure and spyware-free, but it also supports the standards religiously and has a wide range of powerful features. Arguably the biggest benefit to using a Mozilla-based product is something called tabbed browsing. What this allows you to do is have multiple pages open within a single browser window. Rather than going from window to window in the taskbar, you can simply switch between clearly visible tabs, all within the same view. You can even do this and many other commands via the keyboard if you are into that sort of thing.

Using Firefox will not require any major shift in your daily browsing habits. It’ll import your favorites automatically, and you can benefit from the improved security starting the first time you open it. With the popup blocking enabled, you can breath quite a bit easier when browsing to unknown sites. Attempts to install garbage on your system that could have easily succeeded if you were using IE will simply be ignored by Firefox. Plus, the whole time you’re browsing you’ll know that you are doing your part to keep the soul of the Internet alive by choosing to use a browser whose developers actually care about standards.

Of course, I still use IE. (pause for effect); it’s how I get my Windows security updates. : Seriously though – Windows Update is a must, and it only works in IE, so that in itself is a good reason to fire up IE once in a while. Aside from Windows Update though, there is still the occasional site that I go to that doesn’t look right in any other browser. Those sites, by the way, are all the more reason to not use IE. They weren’t written according to the standards, and they look bad in any browser other than IE as a result of that fact. Using IE all the time just because the occasional site is designed so poorly as to look like crap in other browsers is utterly bad form. I implore you not to give into this temptation.

I ask that you consider these points and pull down a copy of Firefox, Opera, or another alternative browser. Run it for a week and see how it feels. As mentioned above, I personally recommend Firefox due to its excellent development team and large user base. Once you have had some time to get to know your new onramp to the web, I think you’ll find that you’ll wish you had switched sooner. No longer will you have to worry about garbage clogging up your system because of your browser, or having to make a mad rush for a patch every time an IE vulnerability is released.

Finally, and most importantly – spread the word. It’s time now for us to put alternative browsers on the map and let it be known that we are aware of our choices. We need not settle for what we are being fed when there are better, more secure alternatives out there.