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Weblog:   Should You Give Up Internet Explorer?
Subject:   Other websites?
Date:   2004-07-07 01:10:28
From:   look_to_windward
Hi,


I'd be interested to know if there are any other mainstream websites that use ActiveX nowadays, apart from windows update? I use a mac and haven't really come across any sites that require it, apart from windows update. Annoyingly I wanted to access windows update for a friend on dial-up recently (computer continuously rebooting, uses an anti-virus program but never updates and no firewall), and couldn't download anything as it's broken in other browsers, there was no alternative given. The updates are really too large for her to download at home. I really don't see why they would exclude other browsers apart from to try to lock down their users to use their software and platform.


Frankly, when I find a message in a browser window that tells me the browser is checking my version of windows (as happens on Windows Update), that really worries me.


If that's the only mainstream one that requires it, why not use another browser most of the time and just use Explorer for Windows Update? There are so many other advantages to other browsers (standards support, pop-up blocking, tabs etc) apart from security, that the question should really be :


'Should you keep using Internet ExplorerTM?'
Full Threads Oldest First

Showing messages 1 through 9 of 9.

  • Other websites?
    2004-07-08 07:12:14  jwenting [Reply | View]

    None of the data collected by the Windows Update control is ever sent over the net except the list of updates it is requesting from the server (hard to get them otherwise).

    As to standards support, in that IE excels thank you very much.
    It's simply THE most complete implementation of the HTML, ECMAScript and CSS standards as well as XSLT and XML.
    • Other websites?
      2004-07-14 06:25:33  kyleadams [Reply | View]

      Wow. That is just about the most ignorant statement I've ever seen about IE and standards support. Go ahead, test it for yourself--try the W3C's CSS test suites. Be sure run through the selectors suite in IE.

      Of course, if IE was truly standards compliant, we wouldn't need things like Dean Edwards' IE7, would we?

      Anyone with a lick of knowledge about Web development knows that IE's support for standards is abysmal. Anyone claiming otherwise needs to do some more research.
    • Most complete standards implementation
      2004-07-14 02:24:07  paulwaite [Reply | View]

      Hee hee hee hee hee! That's a good one. IE good as CSS. Hee hee hee! I'm sure it's fine at everything else, but as far as CSS goes, IE6 is almost the new Netscape 4 (http://www.evolt.org/article/Browser_Wars_II_The_Saga_Continues/25/60181/).
    • Other websites?
      2004-07-11 14:17:20  badguy [Reply | View]

      IE isn't that good at standards - it implements them but isn't very complient as it doesn't strictly inforce the syntax.
      For example in Java Script on IE you can do document.forms(form) whereas it should be document.forms[form]
      Firefox supports all the standards you mention.
    • Standards support
      2004-07-08 09:50:04  look_to_windward [Reply | View]

      It was more the fact that it can look at your system etc that worried me, not that it would send info to microsoft in that particular instance. I'm sure it's ignorant paranoia : )

      Re Standards support, there are a few things which I've found frustrating about IE (various versions), like the lack of support for transparency in PNGs without a horrible hack (AlphaImageLoader), and various CSS problems - here's a few:

      http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html

      I wouldn't call that the best support, it's not bad, but there are better browsers, and Microsoft doesn't seem inclined to fix it before 2007. According to that table, it doesn't seem to be the most complete implementation at all (of CSS). The XSLT support is very nice, I wish other browsers had that.
  • Other websites?
    2004-07-08 04:34:48  simon_hibbs [Reply | View]

    >I'd be interested to know if there are any other mainstream websites
    >that use ActiveX nowadays, apart from windows update?

    There are many. Run IE and set it to ask you every time before running an ActiveX controll. The &^$* dialog pops up for me constantly. You can also switch it off completely.

    Simon Hibbs
    • Other websites?
      2004-07-08 09:39:32  look_to_windward [Reply | View]

      Thanks that's interesting, I didn't realise so many sites were using it. I'm on a mac so I can't turn it on or off. Haven't used Internet Explorer in a long time and can't say I miss it. The only site which I have to use IE for is a banking one which displays fine in other browsers but has one form which won't work : )

      Presumably the sites that I haven't noticed it on are serving up alternate content for other browsers. I wonder what they're using it for?
  • Other websites?
    2004-07-07 09:00:21  xeroply [Reply | View]

    Note that you can obtain security-related patches from Microsoft without going through Windows Update, and without needing ActiveX. Go to:

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/CurrentDL.aspx
    • updates
      2004-07-08 09:50:53  look_to_windward [Reply | View]

      ta
Showing messages 1 through 9 of 9.