The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser | Hacker News Reader

The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser

techcommunity.microsoft.com

41 pointsccnafr32 comments

I used to take numerous steps to prevent my parents from ever accessing IE on their computers. I'd install Chrome or Firefox with adblockers, show them how much nicer the experience was, and leave the Chrome icon on their desktop, start menu, and quick launch panel. But the IE use persisted. So I then hid IE from the Start Menu and changed the default association for all .htm and .html files to Chrome. Still I found they were somehow using IE. To this day, I have no idea how. It occurred to me the other day that they may have been opening the File/Windows Explorer and typing a URL into the folder path, which would then switch it to IE, but I've never been able to confirm.

Fortunately they're both on Windows 10 laptops now, and seem to like Chrome well enough. But even if they somehow trigger one of Microsoft's inane hard-coded associations to open up a webpage in Microsoft's browser, at least it's in Microsoft Edge instead of IE.

Just install a friendly Linux distro and relax

Define friendly? Cuz I've watched an eclipse install nuke ubuntu before. Granted this was a few years ago, but still.

Why would you install eclipse on a locked down Linux desktop for a parent?

I think the point was more that it shouldn’t be that easy to break a desktop.

I can brick a Fedora install by not rebooting between two specific consecutive dnf commands.

Everyone saying "well they shouldn't be installing anything, lock them down" should really be saying "just buy them an iPad".

He's saying eclipse caused this on a linux distro while windows/mac would probably not go nuclear from an eclipse install.

inb4 eclipse uninstalls windows wireless drivers.

They shouldn't be installing anything. Don't tell them the root password, turn on automatic updates, and forget about it.

My non-techie father has been using an Ubuntu 1604 LTS workstation for years with no trouble.

I've found linux mint to be fairly friendly, and heard good things about elementary and budgie (if you prefer the more osx oriented flavors).

Additionally, peppermint os was designed around a web-centric OS experience some time before chromebooks became a thing: https://peppermintos.com/guide/ice/

Finally, Chromebooks. Got one for my wife, who is about as computer illiterate as it gets (only computer she'd previously owned was a mobile phone) and it Just Works for her. Aside from being pretty locked down, it's about as friendly of a linux OS as linux gets.

My parents have been using Xubuntu for about the last 8 years or so. Once I told them that it looks and works like Windows (at least from the UI perspective), and here's Firefox, Thunderbird, solitaire, and how to turn it off, they were good. No huge problems since.

> and here's Firefox, Thunderbird, solitaire, and how to turn it off, they were good.

This is a core point. We've reached the point that for common users, the OS doesn't matter anymore. Browser, video player, image viewer, word processor... BOOM! Done!

I think this is why there' such a push toward cloud-based subscription services because OSes (a decade from now?) will be the modern equivalent of a locked-down dumb terminal.

It's part of the reason, I'm convinced, that Microsoft went Chromium. Even the browser doesn't matter. It's just a face... a front-end to a search engine, subscriber-based online apps and targeted tracking.

Yeah, no development environment installation ever trashed a Windows installation!

On a computer used by people who cant handle opening the correct web browser? Seems like a bad idea.

The story gives the impression that they were perfectly capable of opening the WWW browser that they wanted, and managed to out-smart their IT person, who was continually mucking around with their system to try to force them to use the one that xe liked instead. They might do well with a Linux operating system, especially if it makes that interfering IT person give up in horror because it isn't Windows, and thereby stop continually mucking around with their computer and user settings. (-:

Remember that sometimes grandma manned a crew-served grenade launcher.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667485

Wouldn't a Chromebook be a better option for non-technical users who only need to use the Internet and websites?

elementary or mint xfce would be a nice candidate (nothing more than nice; but that's already nice for long term peace of mind)

> To this day, I have no idea how.

Have you tried asking them?

An oral response to such a question from a non-technical person may or may not make sense or every accurately reflect what they did. People behave differently when they're being watched, so they may not even be able to show you what they did if you sit down with them at the computer.

I've observed this with a number of older people who didn't grow up with computers.

> An oral response to such a question from a non-technical person...

I about spilled my coffee. Too funny, so accurate! Brings back so many memories, including responses similar to the five stages of grief to a simple, nonaccusatory question.

See: Martin Short as Nathan Thurm...

It really annoys me that Microsoft ships Windows Server with IE and not Edge. It's very dangerous.

It personally bothers me that enterprise server software comes with consumer GUI applications on by default.

Really makes me wonder how much of today's internet would work in IE6

Quite a lot, actually. Most of the modern HTML5 is geared towards web and mobile apps, really. You can build most sites with old HTML4. Unless peeps are using a big-name CMS, most sites are still running on old HTML standards.

Very little of anything that uses JavaScript. IE6 doesn't support ES5, so huge amounts of very trivial code today would simply not run. IE6 also supports very little (no?) CSS2, so you'd be lucky if anything rendered sensibly even if the JavaScript was fine.

I imagine lack of support of TLS (by default configuration) would mean very little of the modern, encrypted web would work with it. (Out-of-the-box, the latest thing it supports is SSLv3.)

This is what I wanted to say: I does not work, because "multi tenant" TLS; unless your server is configured to serve one single SSL certificate on SSLv3, IE6 is dead.

As someone who recently set-up a Windows XP VM, you often can't even download a newer browser because those download sites use TLS.

As a comparison point, I've an old 1st gen iPad (iOS5) that I use from time to time to browse the web with JS disabled. There are occasional layout issues, blank screens (JS-based websites), and out of memory-related crashes (too many large images), but most sites actually work fine.

iOS5 is not as ancient as IE6, but I'd nonetheless expect something similar holds for IE6 with a few more broken layouts and less crashes. One of the sibling comments might have a point with TLS though. Speed might also be a concern.

You are able to browse anything? Mine tends to crash on most of the pages; luckily I can still use it for ebooks reading with Readdle's Documents since default app also has memory problems

Yeah. Try reading HN on it -- which is what I mostly use it for. Most links will open just fine. Just avoid the front pages of most news sites.

Some portions would work just fine :)

http://mincss.com

(disclosure: I'm the creator)

Few years ago I booted a Sun sparc with java hotspot browser. I could use google

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