Red Letter Day for Febs!

Starting today, Microsoft stops supporting Internet Explorer versions 7, 8, 9 and 10 on most operating systems.

IE has finally gotten such a bad reputation that Microsoft has backed away from the browser market. Microsoft's new Edge Browser allegedly has totally different code (only works with Windoze 10), but it's introduction is likely too late. This may be the end of the line for Microsoft browsers. The world has largely figured out that things work better when you use a better browser, and that has come to mean non-Microsoft.

So if you are one of the few who are still limping along on Internet Explorer, now might be a time to explore your (free) options.

A Microsoft browser-free world should be a pleasant thought for anyone writing web code but them not supporting the older IE browsers isn't going to stop people using them. Also, their lack of support for these browsers is simply an attempt to force users to migrate to their spyware OS, Windows 10:

http://bit.ly/1JI3XmR

Now, a real red letter day for me would be hearing the news that they'd gone out of business altogether...

The link that Februs provides should be deeply disturbing to all Windows users. However, I realise that this is probably the wrong forum to discuss this, but the bit that worried me most was the quote in the link (from another site) saying: "Overall, we believe that (Microsoft) Edge has reached a security parity with the Google Chrome browser, with both markedly superior to Mozilla Firefox." I find it hard to believe that Mozilla provides a greater threat than two of the biggest information gatherers on the planet. Does anyone know what the alleged problem with Firefox is (and does it only affect Windows users)?

Generally speaking, there's a lot of nonsense spouted on the web about this browser and that browser and personally I don't believe that Chrome or Edge are superior to Firefox. The claim is somewhat meaningless either way as both Chrome and Firefox release updates multiple times a year so the whole thing is a moving target. For every site that claims x is more secure than y there'll be a counterclaim somewhere, e.g:

http://for.tn/1ZkHBts

Apart from my own personal experience with browsers in terms of usage I also ask myself the question - who am I more likely to trust: Microsoft, Google or Mozilla.

Also, these days there are any number of browser addons to enhance security and in addition to Firefox I have Adblock Plus, Privacy Badger and Ghostery installed.

Sneaky, aren't they? >

Thanks Februs. My feelings entirely.

I have similar addons. I also find the FlashDisable extension very useful when using Firefox on Linux - it allows you to disable Flash but re-enable it with one click if you want to take the risk.

[End of my nerdy posts]