Reader Voices: Institutional IE

Why do so many large institutions, intentionally or not, force website visitors to use IE instead of the browser of their choice? Readers had much to say on that subject after we heard the tale about a U.S. Customs website that requires foreign businessmen to use Microsoft’s browser. And it does appear that government bureaucracies are particularly prone to taking the IE-only approach.

“In government, particularly, they make technology decisions based on what they perceive as the ‘standard’,” wrote one reader. “They see Microsoft as the standard. Once they make the decision to go that route, they go whole hog and use IE-only extensions. That shuts out or causes errors in other browsers. They could write only HTML, script, XML, etc. that will work with any browser. But, once the decision is made to go IE-only, they are encouraged to use all extensions and don’t worry about other browser. This is how a large bureaucracy works. I’m not saying it’s good or right, I’m just describing how and why it happens that only IE works properly with government websites.”

Of course, it’s not just governmental agencies that discourage the use of Firefox and other alternative browsers. “Not surprisingly, I find the most flagrant abuser of the must-use-IE scenario is Microsoft — when I have to deal with Microsoft I don’t even try to use alternative now because they just don’t work,” wrote another reader. “Another group of companies that don’t like anything other than IE are financial institutions like the banks and credit unions. Rather ironic that the same organizations that are telling us to use online banking because it is more convenient are the same ones that use insecure software. Then they have the gall to whine about all the increased fraud they have to deal with while also demanding we subject ourselves to security risks because of some convenience factor. To be fair, we mistakenly and erroneously think they mean the convenience is for the customer, when it is actually all for them.”

But even some Firefox fans said there were good reasons for institutions to use IE. “Firefox is a great personal browser — I use it myself along with Avant,” wrote one reader. “But for my business, I use IE. I develop software that needs to work with the Internet. All my clients have settled on Microsoft as the most cost-effective environment. I can easily and quickly implement security that ties in with corporate Microsoft security models. If I find a bug or problem, I can have a Microsoft support team working to fix it immediately at no cost to my company. For me to support any other browsers, it would cost a lot more in development and testing, and greatly increase the time of my development cycles. Firefox is especially bad that way, as it does not support business automation tools that work well with Microsoft Office and .NET. And if the government supported Firefox, then they would have to support other browsers, too. That would be a huge hit in testing and development, costing the taxpayers a lot more money.”

Then again, not being able to use their browser of choice can cost taxpayers a lot of grief as well. “My mother asked me why she couldn’t log on to Medicare.gov,” wrote another reader. “She signed up for Medicare starting June 1, 2007 and was trying to set everything up to view her claims. After a lot of digging, I discovered that the Medicare.gov site uses Internet Explorer-specific JavaScript functions. I submitted a detailed bug report to medicare.gov, only to get form-letter answers and the bug report marked ‘solved’ when nothing had been done.”

Of course, there are always ways to get around what the government wants you to do. “The Federal Department of Education’s website, the one where starving college students must go to repay student loans, is this way too,” wrote a reader. “It requires IE. A lovely work-around is the Firefox extension IE Tab, which allows a Firefox 2.0 tab to function as IE. It’s even programmable, so that every time you go to a certain website, it will open in an IE tab. It’s not perfect, and I don’t know how secure it is, but it beats having to run a separate browser.”

Several other readers recommended the Firefox IE Tab extension, but it does sound like security is indeed an issue. “Just so you understand,” posted one reader. “When you use IE Tab to render a page, you are actually using MS Internet Explorer — with all of its vulnerabilities.”

But in browser politics, it’s not always possible to vote with one’s feet. “Some years ago the Democratic Party here in Arizona decided to hold an online primary and hired a firm in Mass to build a website where people could vote,” wrote one reader. “What a mess. Of course it only accepted Internet Explorer and then only certain flavors of Windows IE. And forget it if you had a Mac. The upshot was that hundreds if not thousands of individuals couldn’t vote. Especially those of lower income who went to schools and libraries to vote and those facilities often were Macintosh or didn’t have the right version of IE installed. It caused quite a flap for a few weeks but as usual, no one learned a lesson there and sites continue to be antagonistic to all but IE.”

It’s not just in the U.S. that government agencies make it hard to use anything other than IE. “I work for a municipal city government in Germany and am all for getting away from I€ and using Firefox,” wrote a Euro-conscious reader. “I went so far as to install Firefox on all our PCs –70 PCs and 10 servers –so that I would have less support problems. Unfortunately, the county government IT department made a deal with Microsoft a couple of years back when they were setting up the county website. M$ sent two software engineers to help program the site, including database programming and web-site programming. The cities were never told what conditions M$ made but, we were told loudly and clearly that no non-M$ software would be supported by the county IT department. This in spite of the fact that the state government had already decided to switch to Linux and Open Source software. Presently I have a policy of installing Firefox and Open Office on the PCs and deleting the shortcuts to I€ and M$-Office programs. I then add the shortcuts only ‘as needed’ for the personnel who actually wind up having problems with their daily work. So far I have about 15 PCs where I have had to add the shortcuts.”

But of all the stories about institutions requiring IE, a brief anonymous post noting that the U.S. Air Office demands for secure log-on pages drew the sharpest reaction. “Let me get this straight,” mused one reader. “Our illustrious military, whose secure communications and secrecy of battle plans are crucial to national security, not only depends on but forces its officers to depend on Microsoft Internet Exploder for some of its communications? Time for me to pack my bags. I have a sudden urge to visit scenic Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada; I hear it’s nice this time of year. And I’ll bet the Canadian armed forces use Firefox. Seriously, I don’t think I want to be here when some clever enemy launches the first true 21st century war, with cyber attacks as well as conventional ones, and the U.S. defense simply crumbles. Between their squandering resources and trained men in the middle east for the past six years, shaky and questionable leadership, and use of IE for military communications, we’d likely witness the sack of Washington within hours of the official declaration of hostilities.”

Do you think those institutions that require IE have any defense? Post your comments on my website or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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