# New computer blues. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030 "2012-03-17T04:00:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/21 "2012-03-18T12:34:04Z")
I know the OP said don’t suggest another browser - but look at this thread. All this farting around trying to make it work when there’s more than one 2-minute free download available that will fix everything. Not quite like buying a new computer or changing OS. Anyway, to me it seems a bit of a waste of time to me anyway when the solution is so simple. (I managed to persuade my girlfriend to use Chrome - and all I had to do was hide the IE icon from her desktop.) ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/22 "2012-03-18T12:47:23Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > I know the OP said don’t suggest another browser - but look at this thread. All this farting around trying to make it work when there’s more than one 2-minute free download available that will fix everything. Not quite like buying a new computer or changing OS. Anyway, to me it seems a bit of a waste of time to me anyway when the solution is so simple. (I managed to persuade my girlfriend to use Chrome - and all I had to do was hide the IE icon from her desktop.) Some of us are comfortable with our present browser and are knowledgeable enough to have it tweaked to both our liking and to meet security needs. One of the reasons I won’t change from IE8 to IE9 is that doing so would change all my settings and I’m lazy enough to not want to tweak all over again (and another reason is that my internet connection sucks so I’m not going to bother to try to download and have it fail 90% of the way through). ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/23 "2012-03-19T22:22:42Z")
> [@srzss05](#): > > Some of us are comfortable with our present browser and are knowledgeable enough to have it tweaked to both our liking and to meet security needs. One of the reasons I won’t change from IE8 to IE9 is that doing so would change all my settings and I’m lazy enough to not want to tweak all over again (and another reason is that my internet connection sucks so I’m not going to bother to try to download and have it fail 90% of the way through). Plus IE9 is a good, fast, robust, secure browser. It doesn’t deserve to inherit all the hate from previous versions; judge it based on its own merits, and you’ll probably find you’ve been judging it unfairly. The only possible complaint remaining about IE9 is that it’s not fully compliant with all the new HTML5 standards, to which I reply: 1. They are actually finalized yet, so no browser is compelled to implement any of them, much less all of them 2. None of the other browsers have them fully implemented either-- it’s just the bits they have implemented are different than the bits IE9 does Anyway, I use Chrome myself, but I like IE9 and I’d have no problem using it if Chrome wasn’t available for whatever reason. Hell, IE9 is \*better \*at process separation… Flash can still take down multiple Chrome tabs, I’ve never seen that happen in IE9. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/24 "2012-03-19T22:53:44Z")
IE9 is definitely “good enough” when compared with competing browsers. I think people just get too hung up on the sack of crap that was IE6. And the chatty, annoying IE7 and IE8. ---
**Author:** ![Wizard\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Wizard\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wizard_One)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/25 "2012-03-20T15:54:31Z")
Go to Adobe Reader preferences and unselect “Enable Protected mode at startup”. It isn’t an issue of IE, but that Windows 7 doesn’t very much like (and a few antivirus products as well) Adobe’s protected mode, hence it won’t launch to view documents “handed over” by IE. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/26 "2012-03-20T16:44:33Z")
IE9 still has [limited CSS3 support](http://www.impressivewebs.com/css3-browser-support/), which admittedly isn’t a very big deal (for now). It also doesn’t do the same auto-updating that Chrome and Firefox now do, and it’s dastardly hard to convince users to do it themselves when major IE updates are typically delivered as huge, optional Windows Update payloads. It also has a poorer selection of addons compared to Firefox and Chrome. More important is Microsoft’s embrace, extend, extinguish track record. IE still remains a single-platform (well, maybe two if you count WinPhone) renderer, and given the opportunity to remonopolize the browser market, is there any doubt that Microsoft will do the same thing again to exclude Mozilla and Apple and co? People hate IE because of its history; it took a decade-long war to win them over to some semblance of standards compliance. And every so often they try again with things like Silverlight, ClickOnce, and random browser toolbars that only tie into IE (OneNote comes to mind). Silverlight and ClickOnce eventually got Firefox and even Chrome support, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that they do compatibility only grudgingly and only as part of a EEE campaign. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong… a few years later. They spent a lot of time building up this ill will, and it’ll take a lot of goodwill to undo it. And FWIW I’m not some open-source zealot. I use and love Windows every day, and I used IE6 with NetCaptor loooong after Firefox became available because it was the best tool at the time. IE is a merely acceptable offering these days, best at nothing except security (which it does better than any Windows counterpart), and given its insidious history, I don’t think avoidance is entirely unjustified. ---
**Author:** ![markwilliom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@markwilliom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markwilliom)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/27 "2012-03-20T21:20:50Z")
Hi, Just Re-install adobe reader and enable updates. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/28 "2012-03-20T21:50:46Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > IE9 still has [limited CSS3 support](http://www.impressivewebs.com/css3-browser-support/), which admittedly isn’t a very big deal (for now). As I tried to say above (but flubbed with a typo), IE9 supports all W3C standards that are _actually standards._ When CSS3 is actually a standard, then we can all complain about it doing a lousy job of it-- for now, Microsoft (and every other browser maker, for that matter) has zero obligation to implement \*any \*of CSS3. I agree the slow pace of development on the web stinks, but the ball is 100% in the W3C’s court. > [@](#): > > It also doesn’t do the same auto-updating that Chrome and Firefox now do, and it’s dastardly hard to convince users to do it themselves when major IE updates are typically delivered as huge, optional Windows Update payloads. It also has a poorer selection of addons compared to Firefox and Chrome. IE security updates are auto-updated the same way as any other security updates; the only “optional” updates are those without security implications. And frankly, if people aren’t running Windows Update, they’re already lost-- IE can’t save people from themselves. As for addons, yeah, you make a good point there. > [@](#): > > More important is Microsoft’s embrace, extend, extinguish track record. IE still remains a single-platform (well, maybe two if you count WinPhone) renderer, and given the opportunity to remonopolize the browser market, is there any doubt that Microsoft will do the same thing again to exclude Mozilla and Apple and co? When do you anticipate this “opportunity” will take place? There are more non-Windows web browsing devices than ever before in history. Do I think Microsoft will do the same thing again? Of course not; Microsoft’s a completely different company now. Not only \*couldn’t \*they pull it off in the current IT environment, the Microsoft of 2012 _wouldn’t even try_. > [@](#): > > People hate IE because of its history; it took a decade-long war to win them over to some semblance of standards compliance. Microsoft stopped developing IE because everybody else stopped competing with them. As soon as Mozilla stepped up to the plate, IE got significantly better in only a few years’ time. Competition is good. > [@](#): > > And every so often they try again with things like Silverlight, ClickOnce, and random browser toolbars that only tie into IE (OneNote comes to mind). Silverlight and ClickOnce eventually got Firefox and even Chrome support, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that they do compatibility only grudgingly and only as part of a EEE campaign. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong… a few years later. They spent a lot of time building up this ill will, and it’ll take a lot of goodwill to undo it. Silverlight was developed because Flash was crap. And it was cross-platform from day one, the reason Linux didn’t get it is because Linux doesn’t have their stuff together when it comes to multimedia, and that’s all Silverlight did at first. (You can’t write a browser plug-in to play H.264 video on a platform that has no legal H.264 video codecs!) Adobe managed to finally ship a non-crap version of Flash shortly after Silverlight came out, but again, since nobody was competing with crummy ActionScript 2 Flash, ActionScript 2 Flash sucked. Competition is good. > [@](#): > > And FWIW I’m not some open-source zealot. I use and love Windows every day, and I used IE6 with NetCaptor loooong after Firefox became available because it was the best tool at the time. IE is a merely acceptable offering these days, best at nothing except security (which it does better than any Windows counterpart), and given its insidious history, I don’t think avoidance is entirely unjustified. “Insidious”? It’s a freakin’ piece of software. Relax. Anyway, if you see things from Microsoft’s point of view, I think you’d understand more about the whole IE thing. The W3C constantly screwed them over (the CSS box model thing is only one example of dozens), so it’s no wonder (IMO) that they wanted to do their own thing outside the W3C. And when IE did spec-out something, they invariably did a better job of it than Mozilla: “innerText” instead of “textContent”, a mouse event button variable that actually makes sense, the brilliant and supremely useful “readyState” which still doesn’t exist on any non-IE browser. Sorry for off-topic-ness. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030/29 "2012-03-20T21:54:59Z")
I think you’ve made some good points, and some that I don’t agree with, but I think enough has been said by both sides overall. In the interest of not further derailing this thread, I’m going to leave it at that 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-computer-blues/616030.md?page=1)