I'm fairly well known to be not a real big fan IE, to say the least. I've avoided IE like the plague ever since I discovered just how bad you could abuse vbscript and ActiveX back in 1998.
They were cool features at a time when people didn't think about security, I know most programmers were initially thrilled with the possibilities of vbscript and ActiveX.
But when I discovered sites trying to secretly install crap -- keyboard loggers, spyware, etc -- on my computer with IE, that was it and that was back in 1998.
At that time, I loved MS Office and Microsoft products in general and I thought IE would be just as high quality. I was quickly disillusioned when I'd do things like click the STOP button in IE 4.0 and it didn't stop loading the page, and this was in the dialup days when you damn well wanted the page to stop loading if you clicked stop.
Around 2002, when IE had effectively killed off everything and Netscape 5 and 6 were disappointing turdballs, they basically lost interest in maintaining it entirely.
When 2004 hit, spyware and backend installs had become a 5-alarm fire due to Microsoft's neglect and, as I mentioned in another thread, I did Verizon DSL support and everyone that called had spyware and virus issues, including those wonderful non-removable hijack toolbars.
That level of neglect basically has killed all my former love of Microsoft. I used to think they were "da bomb".
The internet has pretty much evolved to be a FireFox and IE compatible world and ActiveX is for the most part a thing of the past.
If I have to use IE at work or somewhere else, that's their problem and they can clean up the mess
[/end Microsoft rant]
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