Microsoft’s IE Bug – Another Reason to Abandon Ship?

I have not been a fan of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser for over a decade now, and I refuse to use it personally, and I often tell others to do the same. With a new security bug being identified in the browser, millions of others may be wishing they were not IE users either. Sadly, it comers pre-loaded, and is accepted with open arms by millions who know no better, and so when an issue arises, it can potentially cause a massive problem for a huge community of users.

On September 17th, a new security hole was identified in IE 9 and earlier versions of the browser, and a temporary workaround was released while the company is "working to develop a security update." The temporary work around is reportedly tough for the average user, because it must be manually configured and set up.

This bug is considered a “zero-day” vulnerability, meaning it is newly discovered, putting it into a category of being a rare find. “Any time you see a zero-day like this, it is concerning. There are no patches available. It is very difficult for people to protect themselves," said Symantec research manager Liam O Murchu.  

For me, I stopped using the browser when I got deeper into my career as a web designer. It did not take very long to figure out that of all the browser choices out there, Microsoft’s IE (and related technology like Outlook) is greatly behind the times as far as supported code, making it very frustrating to many web designers at times. Web pages that use even moderately modern coding look great in most other browsers, but fall apart many times in IE. Due to the lack of support for updated coding and even meagerly advanced features in web design, it causes designers to often have to use code to work around and hack the IE limitations.

For those who still maintain a relationship with Internet Explorer, you may have gotten bit by this latest bug that allows malicious sites to get through and attack the weakness to get to your system. While the temporary fix is available for those with the ability to work it out, I have read many articles suggesting that until the permanent fix is out, that users should discontinue using IE, and at least switch browsers temporarily (if not permanently in my opinion). "There are other browsers that people can use temporarily until the problem gets fixed. Or they can gamble," said Paul Ferguson, senior threat researcher with Japanese anti-virus software maker Trend Micro.

Obviously, I do not attribute this or any bug in IE to my reasoning for discontinued use of the product, but hopefully this as well as the reports that IE is falling behind Google’s Chrome browser in user popularity, will cause Microsoft to step it up in the browser department, and catch up with coding technology while still maintaining security.

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