Germany advises its citizens to say 'nein' to Internet Explorer
By Ross Miller 
posted January 16th 2010 5:33PM
posted January 16th 2010 5:33PM
Autsch! In light of the recent attacks on Google China and Microsoft's revelation that an Internet Explorer security flaw served as an impetus in the assault, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security has released a warning to its population: avoid IE. Specifically, the report calls out the latest three versions -- 6, 7, and 8 -- but let's face it, those older versions should be avoided on grounds of usability alone. Boy, bet the Bonn-based agency is happy about that Windows 7 web browser ballot screen, eh?
Yeah right, that joke isn't a joke without the context, just link to the clip if you want to share it.
more countries should do this
@Giac
Along wit windows altogether.
@High
Yes, because windows has become too witty.
@Giac
I say we take em to court!
@Giac
The BBC did in the UK this morning.
@Giac
Germany didn't even have to do this, it already has one of the lowest percentages of IE usage
I concur with Deutschland, IE
@shenliam
You're joking, right?
@Giac
you can trust the germans to always have the best quality control, this is a prime example :-P
@Kev007 - not when it comes to VW (I own one)
@Giac
Yes, but in a proactive way; not a reactive one.
One implication of the frantic responses is that up to the point of attack, IE was something good.
@JeremyBenthem
IE still holds the top spot in germany by a wide margin - if you combine 6, 7 and 8. Which makes sense, considering that all three are vulnerable in this particular case.
@Bahumbug
Not according to this site:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-DE-monthly-200812-201001
There are many countries, especially in northern and eastern Europe, where IE is no longer the most used browser.
France followed and did the same now.
@tamosius Everyone knows VWs are Audi's ugly/slutty/easy bff
now that's gonna be a huge blow to IE, guess FF and Chrome need to start advertising more on google.de!!
@praveen .. in Paris right now there are Google Chrome ads all throughout the city. In the Metro, Billboards etc.
@taligent That's about 60 years too late for the German's to notice though.
@d0mth0ma5 award you the Internets of the day!
@d0mth0ma5
US math skills at work? Or just never updating a mantra
WW2 ended in1945 not 1950.
Reminds me of those TV people that keep saying there are 6 billion people because they've been saying that for 30 years, not getting that now there are 6.8 billion because time doesn't stop nor does sex.
(Talking of sex, I read osama bin ladin was married 4 times and has between 12 and 26 children, WTF)
@Wwhat It would be UK Arithmetic skills actually. Maybe you should practise your Verbal Reasoning skills, about does not equal exactly. (65 years felt too clumsy for a throw-away comment)
If we are being pernickety then, "That's about 65 years, 4 months and 22 days too late for the German's to notice though."
I'm using yesterdays date in conjunction with the German Garrisons surrender on the 25th August 1944 by the way.
Nice fact about Osama. His father (Mohammed bin Laden) married 22 times and had 54 children.
@Wwhat "Talking of sex ... osama bin ladin " mmm... to each his own I guess
@Wwhat
No. Twenty years ago there were 3.5 billion.
@TheConfuzed1 Actually 10 years ago it was roughly 6 Billion, 20 years ago 5.2 Billion, 30 years ago 4.4 Billion
Thanks for the updates on the number of people, as for osama, nobody knows fro sure, estimates according to wikipedia are between 12 and 26 I think it was, but I'm sure nobody knows except that it seems substantial.
And yeah you caught me grabbing that '30 years ago' out of the air, but I've seen 'respected' news people and 'pundits' from big names in broadcasting use 6 billion all through 2009 and I think they should at least be a bit more on top of things being news people and all.
Still, I should have not used an 'out of the air' number while making the point I was making, I feel silly now :(
Forgot to say I apologize for taking attention away from a good joke with my silly details complaint, it was a nice use of the other comment as a setup :)
Honestly, Internet Explorer should be banned.
@unhappyi8910user Aye! I don't see why companies still develop around it, and use it as the default browser. One of them being my company. It's just passed the point of reasoning. Why would you compromise your organization because of a useless application that has gotten worse instead of better over the years?
@unhappyi8910user
They develop for it because it's the most used browser.
@unhappyi8910user
I can't believe some of the stupid comments here. Do you people not realize why there are so many security issues with IE? It's the MOST POPULAR BROWSER. If Firefox or Opera or Chrome or Safari was the most popular, then they would have the most security issues because all of the bad guys would be targeting them.
@sweet greggo
It's not just about security.
@sweet greggo
If Internet Explorer's update system was as effective as Chrome's there would be nowhere near as many people STILL using IE6. No matter how popular Chrome gets it will still have the advantage of an easy, idiot proof and automatic way of patching vulnerabilities, with IE users need to make a concious effort to run Windows Update which doesn't happen, which is part of the reason it's such a security mess.
Newsflash: windows has automatic updating now, welcome to a decade ago, and glad to see you got out of that coma.
@unhappyi8910user
I am for free choice myself, let people use what they want.
@Wwhat
News flash: Around 30% people are still using IE6.
@swastyka
Poo on them, silly people.
@sweet greggo
Most COMMON browser. (and not by much these days) Most popular implies that people deliberately and with prior knowledge of other browsers decided to deliberately install IE.
Or do you consider it correct to say that lung cancer is a popular illness among smokers?
I agree that IE is bad, but you guys do realize that whatever takes IE's place in marketshare will soon have the same type of problem.
@M3
Thank You! I was wondering if anyone else would realize this. Same thing goes for Mac and linux.
@M3
People still use IE voluntarily?
@M3
So why not let the market share spread out throughout all the available browsers? That way not everyone will be effected if a single browser is targeted.
@PBB
thats not really true.
most linux distros have their own software repos.
making it hard for others to install crap on your computer..
@MarkAnderson
People who read engadget, probably not. Your average consumer, most definitely.
@pfanne
Harder is not impossible. If someone REALLY wanted to get you, they could with ANY os. The point I was trying to make is that people always want others to switch to firefox from IE or from Windows to Mac based on the fallacy that they won't get viruses. While its less likely, as their marketshare goes up, so will the amount of malware.
You know what WON'T have that problem? If Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome all have 25% market share.
@M3 The original comment seems to miss the fact that while all programs and operative systems have flaws, some are inherently more insecure than others.
And to the whole linux will get viruses when it's popular mantra: Checked up on how many percentages of all the servers connected to the net runs linux? Yeah, I'm not seeing the viruses yet ;)
@Sarig
yeah...checked how many times people browse the internet and use them as a day to day pc on said servers?
yeah.....didnt think so.
@ethana2 IE will probably still stick around (it is "The Internet" after all) but a healthy spread amongst the others will certainly help them all, including IE.
@nabberuk That's not a valid point in a fair comparison between desktop Linux and server Linux. A server is easier to target in an attack because it's always on and doing repetitive work. The only reason why a desktop OS appears more vulnerable is that the user is human and makes human mistakes.