75% of Linux code is written by paid devs

[GoldenTiger]

Ummm... what? Do you want to compare the specs of each browser because I am more than happy to do that. IE loses by a landslide in every category,

Show me one site that is IE only (that anyone would actually use), and I will show you a shoddy developer and another site that doesn't work in IE.


EDIT: As far as your argument that people would use it if it was truly better, they do. FF has the biggest market share of any browser by quite a bit.

I would also like to meet the people who know about other browsers, doesn't use one, and uses freeware. I have yet to meet a single person that meets those requirements.

Spec-wise and security-wise IE8 has won nicely in independent studies... the only things it doesn't really support still aren't used on anything yet in any case.

Sites that are IE-only are very common in the corporate world and on college sites for student logins. Since virtually everyone uses IE, they don't try to warp their programs around to fit alternative niche browsers.

Firefox has I think a 15-16% market share, if I remember the last statistics I saw. Internet Explorer was 65%+. Explain how that makes it the dominant browser in market share by "quite a bit"?

I know a lot of people who know about Firefox and/or Chrome, but do not want to use them as they feel it's either insecure or not worth the hassle of installing and/or porting their preferences to since Internet Explorer does what they need. This ranges from relatives such as an aunt who installs lots of software and customizes her Windows Mobile phone (an HTC Touch Pro) quite a bit, to friends who simply don't see the value in using other browsers and view them like most consumers view Linux.

I think the main reason why IE is still hanging around pretty much everywhere is because its integration with Windows makes it fairly easy for company IT departments to push out updates. This keeps companies using IE, and people just go with it at home because it's already installed with Windows and they are somewhat familiar with it.

You can make the same argument for Windows itself . I'm sure this has an effect but not a large one as far as overall reasons why not to switch to an alternative browser.