The Garden of the Blind

Something happened yesterday that made me quite upset. For reasons that are unexplained, but range from irrational paranoia to Orwellian brotherhood, I am no longer allowed to use Mozilla at work. In all fairness, I was never allowed to use it at work, but I did so for nearly a year with little comment, including from network technicians who saw my computer and noted that Mozilla was installed on it.

That's not the point though. The point is that I suddently realize how much I despise IE. Except for time I spent at work during a few months last year, IE has never been my primary browser. I have used Netscape since I first browsed the web back in 1996, and didn't give up on the Netscape 4 series until late 2003, when I was shamed into trying out Mozilla again and realized that my earlier hatred of it (which was actually directed more at Netscape 6, which is sort of the same thing, and yet not) was not as rational as I would have liked. Sometime in March, I finished my conversion by transitioning to Firefox (the transition isn't yet complete, since I'm writing this from Mozilla).

My point is that I love the Mozilla family browsers. Easy to use plugins, tabbed browsing, and overall simple design make it a wonder to work with. I like the way that it doesn't become like a different program when I try to open a different kind of page. I like the way that it is not easily exploited by viruses, and how it takes extra effort to make it more difficult for attackers to access my computer or my profile remotely. I love the way that I can uninstall it without crashing my operating system, and I like how, as I learned this week, it can be uninstalled under Windows XP (actually, blocking users from uninstalling IE is a good move in the sense that uninstallation completely crashes Windows, but it does make it harder to repair a corrupted installation). I love the way that casual browsing with it doesn't inundate my machines with spyware.

I finish with a quick letter to Internet Explorer:

Dear IE,

Please stop sucking. You no longer have monolithic control over our lives, except when mandated by bureaucratic paranoia, so swallow your pride and learn some lessons from your fellow browsers.

First of all, you should divorce the local file browser. Together, you've done it well, and you should let it continue to do that well, but it is for you to go a different direction.

Second, give up some control over our computers. Sure, there's a lot of cool things that your fancy ActiveX controls can do, but you really shouldn't be doing any of them. Where there's a legitimate need, find a stand-alone program to do it. Where there isn't such a need, we will all be better off without your ability to meddle. Also, your settings don't have to be the same as the settings for the rest of the computer. I'm just saying.

Third, they're called tabs. They're wonderful. Get some.

Reluctantly,