You are supporting Microsoft in its attempt to monopolize yet another market, the web browser market. You can expect that if and when Microsoft accomplishes this, Internet Explorer will no longer be free as it is now. Despite its contentions, Microsoft is not giving away Internet Explorer as a service to consumers, but is only spreading it so that at some future time, they can capitalize off of it.

Think about it for a minute - If Netscape's products weren't so widely used, do you believe Microsoft would give away Internet Explorer - or any software for that matter? They've successfully driven Netscape Communications out of business with this marketing trick. Worse, they're trying to grab complete control of how users view the web. If they gain control of this media, the world wide web will be in the hands of one single company - a company that has a consistent 20-year history of questionable, foul-play, and in many cases illegal business practices. This should NEVER be allowed or tolerated.

Developing a bogus web browser and giving it away - tricking, if not forcing, potential users into using it - for the sole purpose of driving their internet competitors out of business (mainly, Netscape Communications), is one of these recent 'practices'.

In recent versions of Internet Explorer, read the "About" info carefully. That's right, at its core, Internet Explorer mainly consists of code stolen directly from Mosaic. Microsoft was forced to admit this when they were sued for antitrust violation. Mosaic was a free, open-source web browser that was developed by NCSA for several Unix systems. This browser later evolved into Netscape Navigator (also known as Mozilla) while Microsoft was quickly hacking up another browser using this stolen code to "compete" on the marketing fields. This resulted in the piece of bloatware that you're using right now.

 

"The Browser Wars of the 1990's are over. It's impossible to imagine any judicial action that will remove Microsoft's browser from the desktops of virtually all the world's PC users. It's worth pondering a mystery that the Court of Appeals has not yet felt obliged to worry about. Why has Microsoft spent so much money and muscle on a mission of giving away software?  --  The answer is that Microsoft is a forward-looking company with a sharp eye for the power points, the lever arms, the control valves in the emerging digital economy." -JAMES GLEICK

In short, CONTROL OF THE INTERNET MUST NOT BE "OWNED" BY MICROSOFT.

Almost every other browser is free, and most of them are superior to Internet Explorer in several key ways:

• Memory Usage - Hard disk and RAM requirements of IE are huge compared to other equivalent browsers.
• Security - "ActiveX" poses major security risks, including the ability for a remote server to hang your computer, or worse ...
• Speed - Microsoft is known for slow programs, and IE is no exception.
• Stability - Like most Microsoft products, Internet Explorer is crash-prone.

You can download and use any of these browsers at no charge:

• Netscape Navigator/Communicator - from Netscape
• Opera - Another commonly used browser available for several platforms
• Arachne - DOS only
• Konqueror - KDE's file manager/browser, Unix-based systems
• Cyberdog - from Apple, Mac OS only
• HotJava - from Sun
• Lynx - multi-platform text-only (but very fast) browser
• Mosaic - from NCSA
• OmniWeb - from Omnigroup, for Openstep and Mac OS X
• Web Explorer - from IBM, OS/2 only
• WebSpyder - from Caldera, for DOS

I still want to use Internet Explorer.

If you still want to use the bill gates explorer, i certainly won't stop you. However, unlike microsoft, i believe in freedom of choice.