IE Browser Share Dropping, Microsoft Launches Spyware Tool
Via Brainstorms and Raves we find that IE's market share keeps dropping after the large marketing push for Firefox.
While my wife likes the integrated Mozilla package better, we have been using Firefox (and Thunderbird) for some time now. I test my web site with IE, Mozilla, and Opera regularly and with my involvement with Linux, Mozilla/Firefox is definitely my browser of choice. Why? Mainly because I support open standards, especially when it comes to the web.
Even so, IE is used by just under 80% of visitors to my site.
With Microsoft's efforts today concerning viruses, spyware, and pop-up ads, maybe they can fight against this loss of market share. To me it seems like a half effort, too late, except Microsoft has a history of making baby steps before it dominates and destroys a market that interferes with its ownership of mass market computing platforms. At the moment their anti-spyware software is going into beta. We'll see how it does against Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft AdAware, both of which I recommend.
Update: Well, I ran Microsoft's tool and it did find something, although I haven't run any anti-spyware stuff in a little over a week. It has an always active piece that I'll watch to see if it interferes with anything. Since I also have Norton Antivirus and Zone Labs Integrity Client running constantly, we'll see if this newcomer picks a fight with them.
Amazon.com links:
Josh Poulson
Posted Thursday, Jan 6 2005 09:19 AM
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