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• IE 6, or 7, or 8?

  Posted on April 11, 2009 at 15:41 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Reader CG wrote:

  Your advice yesterday was very clear:

  “If you´re still using Internet Explorer 6, run to the Internet Explorer 8 download site and get it installed, like, right now. IE 6 is the single largest source of PC infections ever invented.”

  But later in the day your advice is rather different:

  “I´m still ambivalent about Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Internet Explorer 8, if you have IE 7 installed and patched, and you use Firefox.”

  You may wish to comfirm your thoughts.

  I ask, because, following your initial advice, I did install IE8. However, it seemed to slow down several processes, and I have gone back to IE6.

  I use Firefox for all normal browsing. I only used the IE Tab Add-in for Microsoft sites that won’t allow Firefox, and the increasingly few other sites which don’t work well with Firefox. But in addition, I effectively use IE for batch upload purposes (with AutoIt) and also of course Secunia uses the IE engine. Plus some programs Help-About links seem to point to IE.

  Am I therefore at risk? Do not the IE6 security updates protect me?

  I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.

  I was afraid that’d be a bit convoluted. Let me try to put it all together.

  IE 6 is a festering boil on the posterior of Windows. Even if it’s all patched up, it’s still a mess.

  IE 7 is much, much better, from a security point of view. If you have it, and it’s all patched up, and you don’t use it, you’re fine.

  IE 8 is a decent browser. I’m not overly impressed with some of the touted features (for example, InPrivate Blocking doesn’t do much at all), but it’s significantly better than IE 7. I wouldn’t rush out to install it because IE 7 is good enough – particularly if you don’t use it. But if you have IE 6 and you need to lance the boil, IE 8 is a decent choice.

  All of this presupposes that you actually use Firefox, of course. I’ve been using the 3.1 beta for quite some time now, and haven’t hit any problems.

  I haven’t hit any performance problems with any of the browsers – can’t even perceive the difference (or more accurately the mood swings on my broadband connection dwarf any performance difference between browsers). You may be more sensitive to time delays than I, though.

  Windows News InPrivate Browsing, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8