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German Gov't Tells Citizens to Ditch Internet Explorer

by Terrence O'Brien on January 18, 2010 at 08:31 AM

German Government Tells Citizens Ditch IEThe German government has decided to hop on the blame-Microsoft bandwagon this week, and is urging citizens to use alternative browsers, instead of Internet Explorer. After the company admitted that security flaws in its Internet Explorer 6 browser were the point of entry for the attacks on Google in China, Germany decided to take the somewhat over-reactive step of warning users off of all versions of the browser.

Microsoft was of course peeved by the move and rejected the idea. A Microsoft spokesman told the BBC the attacks were perpetrated by, "highly motivated people with a very specific agenda... There is no threat to the general user, consequently we do not support this warning."

While a government warning its citizens from using an entire product line may be unprecedented, it's hard to argue with IE's long history of being a security nightmare. Granted, no browser is completely secure, but IE has proven time and time again to be a bigger and easier target for hackers.

Switched strongly suggests alternate browsers, like Chrome and Firefox, for both security and usability reasons. [From: BBC]

Tags: browser, germany, ie, internet explorer, InternetExplorer, microsoft, security, top

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