XplanaZine

Since Rob and I started a bit of back-and-forth re: his article on corporate mergers and their possible (…) blessings, I feel inclined to say a bit more about Microsoft Internet Explorer.
As more and more websites and applications become IE-dependent, the opportunities for people to experience other browsers begin to disappear. For example, the new Library website here at the University of Oklahoma is pretty much an IE-site. It works with Netscape 7, but that is really an accident - not anything the designers did on purpose. If compatibility problems emerge with Netscape, they would not hesitate to declare it an IE-only site (the employees at the Library are no longer allowed to have Netscape browsers on their machines at work). Likewise with Blackboard - it looks like we will need to tell incoming students with brand new Macintoshes in the fall that they cannot use Safari (Blackboard is not inclined to support it), but instead they will have to download and install IE for the Mac.
But what’s so great about IE? Here’s a hilarious email that Randy Hoyt, one of my students (and a Mozilla-fanatic), sent me last week:

I came across a link to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer home page. I was a little curious what Microsoft would have out there about IE 6, so I followed the link. Here are the top ten reasons to use IE (from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/enthusiast/topten.asp):
1 Quickly access all your favorite Web sites.
2 Select your own home page.
3 Help protect your privacy on the Web.
4 Easily work with pictures on the Web. (The new Image Toolbar … )
5 View Web pages even when you aren’t connected to the Internet.
6 Easily locate Web sites you visited several days ago.
7 Print Web pages with confidence (print preview)
8 Customize the toolbar with your most commonly used features.
9 Get the latest updates to help keep your system secure.
10 Quickly search the Web for information you need.
Wow … those are some cool features. These should probably have been the top ten reasons to use a browser. I guess two are legit features of IE and not other browsers:
#4 – I don’t know any other browser that has that ANNOYING image toolbar! :~)
#9 – I actually have to go to mozilla.org to download the latest version.
Randy’s sarcasm is justified. Is that really the best that Microsoft has to say about its browser? Because he is exactly right: this is a description of why browsers are cool, not why IE is any more cool than any other browser out there.
Of course, if you haven’t used other browsers you wouldn’t know what you are missing. When I met with the Library folks here last week to talk about their new website, we started talking about Netscape and IE, and I asked them why IE didn’t have tabbed browsing. Oh yeah, they said, tabbed browsing… that is cool, maybe it’ll be in the next version of IE.
Actually, there are MANY features that Microsoft with all its billions could surely include that I sure would like to see: tabbed browsing (and other pop-up preferences), customizable themes, sticky notes, launch manager, XML-based bookmarks with multiple export options, quick keys and short cuts, download manager, integrated HTML editor / publisher (good old Composer). BrowseMan has a comparison chart that is rather eye-catching in this regard…
But since more and more users have never known a browser other than IE, they do not even realize what they are missing.
Meanwhile, I was very amused by another link that Randy sent me: an IE-skin for Mozilla. Ha! The discussion board is worth the trip! Comments like this are typical:

Well it really gives me a very YUCK! feeling to cover Mozilla with such a awfull interface like IE.. but HEY!! at last I can throw IE to trash and install Mozilla to my USERS!!!! HEHEHE they´ll never see a difference!!
That part is fun!!
In short: Microsoft IE does not rule the browser market because it is the best browser. It rules the market because it is an 800-pound gorilla (or perhaps a 900-pound gorilla? 500-pounds? a colony of gorillas?)
Which is actually giving gorillas a bad name…