This website does not support Microsoft Internet Explorer !

Millions of people don't use it to browse the Web.

You shouldn't use it, either . . . — Why not?

Tell us, O Oracle: Why not use Microsoft® Internet Explorer?

Bad behaviour

Well, for starters, Internet Explorer® is unable to correctly display a Standard web page. If I were to design this website according to the way Microsoft® wants to force everyone to do things, I'd have to use a Javascript to make a drop-down navigation panel for my links.

Problem with that is —although a lot of web designers still do it— many others consider using Java for webpage design inadvisable for security reasons.

You see, Java is a programming language. A very useful one. A Javascript is a little program that runs on your computer —if you let it. Browsers have configuration settings enabling you to “turn off” Java and javascripts. But there is a bit of a problem. Many websites rely on java and/or javascripts to function well —or even to function at all. Most webmasters are honest: the java applets they use help people who come to their website have a better, easier time.

On the other hand, you might remember your parents telling you not to let anyone you don't know into the house. If you have your browser set to run Java, you're opening the front door to every stranger you see on the WWW. You won't know until he's in your parlor whther or not he means you harm. Of course, if you're running a Linux operating system, even the damage that a malicious javascript can do is quite limited. On Microsoft Windows®? Maybe not so limited. . .

Even worse than Java is Microsoft's ActiveX technology. The short definition: Microsoft designed in a way for retailers to collect information about your computer and deliver advertising as well as multimedia to your computer by default. Crackers, spammers and purveyors of malware, also love this technology. It'd like hanging the key to your front door on a hook under the doorbell.

Microsoft puts you at risk while trying to evade the law

In their attempts to crush all competitors, Microsoft has repeatedly run afoul of the law. Usually they buy their way out. Currently they still owe hundreds of millions of dollars [actually, Euros] in fines for their mafia-style business practices. In order to evade the law during the Clinton Administrationin the USA, Microsoft decided that they would not be required to make alternative web-browsers available with a [mandatory] installation of Windows on a new PC, if they could prove that Internet Explorer wasn't just another web-browser: they claimed it was an integral part of the Windows operating system. And they designed it to be so. What they didn't care to take into account is the plain fact that if an integral part of the operating system is open to the Internet, anybody who tries to can then crack into your operating system!

Of course, Microsoft doesn't care about you. They have it rigged with manufacturers and marketers that you have to buy Miscrosoft Windows as part of your new PC. And so instead of fixing their own problems, the allow other corporations to make millions of dollars patching the security holes Microsoft builds into their software. One grimy hand washes the other. . . in money. So there are a lot of very happy stockholders, making a tidy profit by putting you and your family at risk.

Why exactly can't I use this website in Internet Exporer?

Microsoft has chosen deliberately to flout the internationally agreed-upon W3C standards for HTML and CSS —the markup “languages” that the World Wide Web uses to display website content on the browsers. It's not that Microsoft is a poor organization that hasn't the resources to develop a good-quality, standards-compliant web browser. The could do that —and then add optional features that will make it unique in a better way. But they don't! Flouting standards is a calculated marketing strategy that Microsoft employs to enhance it's near-monopoly position in several software markets. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they do it a lot.

You might not care whether you can use my website. Fair enough. But the issues of HTML standards and Java are not the only ones that make MS IE, frankly, dangerous. Rather than rant on, I will give you a those links to investigate.

Since you have the good karma that has enabled you to get to this web-site, I also will give you two links to download free alternatives to MS IE:
OPERA and Mozilla FIREFOX —both are W3C standards-compliant.
Did I mention: secure, standards-compliant and no cost?

Last, not that I'm a big fan of Washington's Keystone-Kops-version of the Gestapo, but it's my civic duty to make you aware that the US government's Dept. of Homeland Security has only cited one Web Browser —ever— as a definite security risk: Internet Explorer®.

Good, reliable browsers

standards-compliant and free of charge:

Microsoft®, Internet Explorer®, and Windows® are either registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
The names Mozilla® and Firefox® and the Firefox logo are trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation.

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