German and French governments warn against using MS Explorer

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (about Germany), http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (about France).

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The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems.

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On Friday, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security issued a warning against all versions of Internet Explorer and recommended that users switch to an alternative such as Firefox or Google's Chrome.
The French agency Certa issued a similar warning.
"Pending a patch from the publisher, Certa recommends using an alternative browser," it said.
But Mr Evans said that calls to change browsers were "not very helpful".
"If you look at other browsers, it's likely they will have other vulnerabilities," he said.
He pointed to a report by security from NSS Labs reportedly showing that IE8 provided better security against phishing and malware than other browsers.
"We feel strongly that IE8 is most secure browser on the market," Mr Evans told BBC News.
His advice was echoed by Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos.
"Switching away will get away from this particular problem," he told BBC News. "But all browsers have security flaws."
Mr Cluley said that switching away from IE may create other problems, particularly for companies.
"Some web-based applications may not work at all if you're not using Internet Explorer."
Microsoft is currently working on a patch for the problem, but a spokesperson said it could not commit to a timeframe.
The firm traditionally releases a security update once a month - the next scheduled patch will be ready on 9 February.

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It looks like IE is going downhill faster than expected! If you haven't moved then it's about time! :D
Just... why no mention of Opera? I suppose it's not really popular... :(

What's the best alternative?

Depends on your personal preferences I guess... The second most popular browser is Firefox, also probably is the most secure if you use AdBlock and NoScript.

Thanks, Zalbard, I'll give the Firefox a try. :wave:

yeah all about firefox these days :) got most my mates using it now, hell evven my parents

Explorer really is a pretty secure browser, the issue is that it's such a target. Although FF does have a large market share, IE is still (for many good reasons) a corporate standard and the choice of 98% of all uneducated computer users (who, being uneducated in computers, don't really know of alternatives or when/why to use them)... eg. the two best target groups. Plus by finding a bug you get to take a poke at the gigantic MS corporation, which sounds more fun than poking at Mozilla, but that's just icing on the cake.

i use google chrome.

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Originally Posted by zalbard

Just... why no mention of Opera? I suppose it's not really popular... :(

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How could it be popular? Opera simply doesn't work properly with many websites and if you look at all the proprietary applications in companies running in browsers pretty much nothing works. (and no, to the user it doesnt matter if its the fault of the websites being coded to work with ie instead of adhering to standards, if it doesnt work its broken, no matter who is at fault).
Besides that, there is no advertising that reaches people who don't know about it yet, lets face it firefox would have no more marketshare now than opera without the massive advertising it had on google in the days before chrome.

Opera doesnt need much resources, I had it running significantly faster on my old PII 400MHz than IE 6 did.

Chrome is my primary browser, firefox just feels so sluggish now

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Originally Posted by naokaji

How could it be popular? Opera simply doesn't work properly with many websites and if you look at all the proprietary applications in companies running in browsers pretty much nothing works.

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That might have been close to the truth over five years ago, but nowadays Opera works like a charm. Opera came a long way from 7 to 10. ;)

Wait. This makes no sense, why would google waste their time with IE? They already have chrome, which is significantly faster and lighter, not to mention safer.

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Originally Posted by Bodkin

Chrome is my primary browser, firefox just feels so sluggish now

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Yep same. chrome is so fast.

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Originally Posted by Cuthalu

That might have been close to the truth over five years ago, but nowadays Opera works like a charm. Opera came a long way from 7 to 10. ;)

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No, he is right. I use Opera as my primary browser and love it but there are quite a few websites that don't work properly with Opera.

I would use Chrome if it had Quake Live support and AdblockPlus.

funny that they now list chrome as suggested browser when they warned for chrome a year ago as well :rolleyes: (the reason was that it had more security flaws than IE and FF together and due to the unique id chrome uses for every user...).

Firefox FTW. But do you really need to have your government tell you that IE is crap?

I use Chrome to do the light surfing, but for some things Firefox is still better because of Addons like Flashgot, Autopager, DownloadHelper, Illimitux or SkipScreen. It may change now, with time more Addons will be ported. Download Manager in Chrome is a joke as it is now too. Hell I can't even see the ETA, pause, restart or retry DLs.

I prefer Chrome's way to open new Tabs next to its parent (you can use FoxTabs for this, but I found it was too much hassle, too many options), but OTOH I prefer the way to reopen recently closed tabs in Firefox (I'm a keyboard user, Alt+s, up, right, enter :D)

Chrome loading time is way faster than FF (even without any Addons), it is what Firefox used to be. It's much faster than IE8 too.

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Originally Posted by Luka_Aveiro

I would use Chrome if it had Quake Live support and AdblockPlus.

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My QuakeLive tag is "Mumps", add me if you want some frags :)

I used Firefox until about 2 months ago, when my friend got me to use Chrome. Man this :banana::banana::banana::banana: is FAST. Only 2 complaints I have are 1. Needs better printing options, and more of their functions actually showing up in the menu at the right. 2. Some websites still don't work with it.

Chrome is very fast. FF is what i use though simply due to the addons and the themes. You can make it look exactly how you want it to.

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Originally Posted by Cuthalu

That might have been close to the truth over five years ago, but nowadays Opera works like a charm. Opera came a long way from 7 to 10. ;)

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Yes hes right. I use Opera as my primary browser and some stuff just doesn't work correctly. Go to http://revision3.com/ and try to watch anything. Also Hulu has been messing up big time lately while IE8 works.

When Opera gets real support, there is no question in my mind it will become the best browser in the world. They probably should advertise more.

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

No, he is right. I use Opera as my primary browser and love it but there are quite a few websites that don't work properly with Opera.

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Opera is also my primary browser. It's excellent ;)

Luckily it has problems with very few.

When I first started using Opera, you had to pay for it. It's been my primary browser since. However, I still can't completely uninstall IE because of the reason others mentioned above. Such a shame. It's is such a great browser.

I guess someone forgot to stuff a couple envelopes with cash for some officials. tsk tsk :clap:

I think browsers like Lunascape6 are the future, multiple rendering engines & you can pick the one you want for whatever job you're doing. Right now you can render using Gecko, Webkit & Trident in Lunascape6