I May Have Been Wrong About IE7

Back in November, I wrote a couple of blogs about the then-new Internet Explorer 7. Somewhere in there, I recommended that even if you use Firefox as your browser, you should probably update to the new IE7. I take back that recommendation.

After reading about problems caused by installing IE7, both on the Internet and from a couple of my own readers, I tell you now that if you update, you do so at your own risk. One of my readers wrote that his printer stopped working after IE7. When he uninstalled the EI7 and went back to IE6, it worked just fine.

There are many reports all over the Net documenting problems caused by the upgrade. Some report that the new browser continually crashed...another reported he can't watch videos on sites like YouTube...and still another said that he can no longer burn DVD's and CD's with Roxio software. There seems to be a wide variety of different issues apparently caused by the upgrade.

To be fair, the majority of computer users apparently had no problems upgrading, including me. As I reported in another blog in November, I upgraded to IE7 on my laptop. Nothing went wrong, other than the fact that I didn't like it very much and was not willing to put in the time to customize it for my browsing habits.

With that in mind, I didn't upgrade on my office desktop computer. After all, as many of you know, I am a hardcore Firefox convert and that is all I use 99.9% of the time. IE6 is just fine if I ever have to use it. And, after reading about other people's problems, I definitely am happy about not upgrading. Last week, I took delivery of my new home computer, equipped with Windows XP Media Center Edition, and IE6. Again, I did not upgrade. Thank God, when downloading the latest batch of Microsoft fixes, Microsoft, to their credit, does ask if you want to upgrade to IE7. "No" is now my answer of choice.

I read an interesting article this week by John Palleto, a writer with eWeek magazine who covers enterprise computing. He was incensed that Microsoft "hid" the IE7 upgrade inside their monthly security updates. He compared it to being suckered into opening an attachment to an e-mail infected with a virus or worm and that Microsoft had violated his trust. After thinking about it, I believe he is right.