Why I Don’t Use Internet Explorer

I stopped using Internet Explorer a year ago. I got frustrated over the fact that Microsoft hadn’t really upgraded the product in a couple of years, let alone improved it. They must assume that since it’s free, people will be happy with it the way it is. This is a bad assumption. Several browsers have now leapfrogged Microsoft. You owe it to yourself—and your productivity—to evaluate your options.

iRider was the program that initially lured me away from IE. It’s one of several multi-page browsers on the market. It does a great job of allowing you to browse faster and work with lots of pages simultaneously. As you are reading a page, if you see a link you want to read, you simply right-click and the page loads in the background. This virtually eliminates the Back and Forward buttons. You can keep reading and then go to the new page when you are done. It’s a great browser that is very fast and intuitive.

However, about three months ago, someone recommended MyIE2 to me. I switched and haven’t looked back. I like it even better than iRider. Here are some of my favorite features:

• Tabbed Browsing. You open new pages in a new tab. This makes it easy to flip back and forth between pages without having to reload the page. You can have a virtually unlimited number of tabs open at once. Once you’ve tried this feature, you’ll never go back. For me, this alone was worth the switch.
  
  
• Page Groups. You can save groups of pages and open them with a single click. For example, I click on the “News” group and my six favorite news sites open simultaneously. Each page is in a separate tab. When I get done, I click on my “Blogs” group, and all my favorite blogs open up. I have about seven groups defined. It makes browsing a very fast and enjoyable experience.
  
  
• Mouse Gestures. This is especially helpful if you use a TabletPC. You can control the browser with simple pen (or mouse) gestures. The program includes built-in gestures for going back and forward, moving to the previous and next tabs, closing a tab. and refreshing the page.
  
  
• AutoHide Toolbars. This feature hides the command menu and tool bars, giving you the maximum amount of screen real estate for viewing Web pages. When you move the cursor to the top of the page, the menu and toolbars appear. When you move the mouse pointer back to the page, they disappear again.
  
  
• URL Aliasing. This enables you to define an “alias” by which to refer to a URL. For example, when I type “ws” in the address bar, the program expands this alias to enter my Working Smart URL: http://michaelhyatt.blogs.com. This is kind of a poor man’s ActiveWords.
  
  
• Plug-In Support. The program offers full support for my favorite IE plug-ins, like RoboForm, the Google Toolbar, and Net Snippets. It also has a ton of MyIE2 plug-ins available. There are special search plug-ins, weather, “FlashSave,” and more.

There are numerous other features I have come to rely on, including popup blocking, quick searches, skins, and a built-in download manager. I also like the fact that there is a very active MyIE2 forum. (The program was originally written in Chinese, so some of the discussion areas are in Chinese; however, the English discussion areas are just as active.)

Best of all, MyIE2 is freeware. You can use it for as long as you like. However, donations to the author are encouraged and made easily accessible through the Help menu (i.e., “Help | Donate to Author”).

Other people rave about FireFox, a new browser preview from Mozilla. I admit, it also looks impressive. However, I’m so satisfied with MyIE2, that I haven’t been willing to invest the time and energy learning one more program. As always, “your mileage may vary.”