I think the other reviewers have pretty much covered all the cool features out there.
But let me confess without any offence to other reviewers (who have done such a good job) that these are not the reason why I run IE as my default browser.
Reach
IE is the only browser which allows me to browse around 98% of the web site without any major problems. The reason is IE supports older web-sites built just for NS 3.x - 4.x (it had to capture the market), supports IE proprietary HTML (was a standard around which countless web sites were built), W3C DOM (standard now), CSS 1, CSS2 etc & so forth.
Any web technology you name it IE has it. No doubt why IE is so bloated.
Forgiving
IE is also built as a very forgiving ( peace to all) browser when it comes to standards. It is built to handle any web page written by any dummy web programmer without complaining. Results more bloat, slower than strictly standards compliant browsers like Opera
The strict standards compliance is the reason why Opera (and others) cannot render/draw many web pages correctly or handle JavaScript. But it is also the main reason for their small size (not much error recovery)
It allows me to watch any grandmas web page built using any tool (even automated tools that produce dirty code)
Leading Web Application Development Platform
What IE? Application development platform??
With plethora of web technologies like SOAP, Web Services, .NET , XML, XSL etc. hidden beneath that pretty face IE is the No 1 development platform for Web programmers (client side programming). NS & Opera come no where closer.
Why should a normal web surfer bother about this? Well, IE is the only browser that will allow you to browse web sites built using these cutting edge technologies ( and associated MS extensions ;)
Multi-platform browser
What????????????? IE????????????????????
IE runs on Mac OS 9, Mac OS X (built on Free BSD unix kernel) & also solaris, HP-UX etc. In fact it is the default browser on Macs (no matter how much they hate MS).
The only leading OS where IE is scared to run is Linux given all the hate-MS crowd lurking there ;)
NS runs on many OSes too. But who wants to run a bloated & slower browser anyway. ( NS bloat according to their FAQ is due to support for Motif toolkit. Come on, who will complain if they drop support for that grandpa’s toolkit & use newer toolkits like QT or GTK+?)
Opera is windowz only. Given it is a closed source browser (no source code available to public) & that it comes from a small company (without much resources), the chances are very bleak that it will ever be ported to other OSes.
IE rulz
Come on dude, whether you like it or not you don’t have any choice. Have netscape, opera on your system (they look so cool) but finally you use IE to get your work done(whenever these wannabes fail you).
Hate it? Uninstall IE?? Your windows will not work without it. IE is the engine that powers Windows user interface. All the web-style interface you see in Windows explorer, Outlook, Outlook Express, MS Word, Excel etc., it all comes from IE (shared with IE). Monopoly was not the only reason MS tied IE to Windows. (That is why IE takes Windows down along with it whenever it crashes badly). And you thought IE was just a ’’web browser’’?
A reality check ( to any unbiased web surfer)
Count the number of times you go to IE in a month to get your work done. If it exceeds 15-20 uninstall your other browser, you’ll save some disk space.
It is is below 10, well the browser merits following up for some more time ( till it works the other way round). If it is between 10-15 choice is yours to make.
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IE & me
Hated it when it was 3.5.x. Crashed so often, was darn slow compared to Netscape 4.0 ( my preffered browser then).Didn’t allow me to browse as many sites as NS 4.0
Got slightly better with 4.0. Worked well but still it’s performance sucked compared to NS 4.5 (still my default)
But when MS (microsoft) came up with IE 5.0. I switched not because it came pre-installed with the OS (did not matter to me) but it beat NS hands down in speed.
All that happened later is history. NS (old application) has died after 4.7.x.
Another NS has been created starting with 6.0 version ( should have been 1.0 as it is totally new code). But it was very bloated & buggy. Those who complain about IE bugs should try running NS 6.0 as their only browser for a month :(. I did.( well, as my primary browser.Had IE for backup).
Given all the anti-MS monopoly brouhaha, tried Opera 5.0. Used it for a couple of days. A cool browser, but not a IE killer. So back to IE 5.5
I run IE 5.5.x on my office PC ( cannot upgrade till IE 6.x becomes approved) & IE 6.x on my laptop (at home).
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I DO NOT WORK FOR MICROSOFT
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