The Beginning of the End for Internet Explorer?

Microsoft developed its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser with the express intention of killing off the incumbent market leader (Netscape Navigator) and dominating the planet - and it did exactly that!

By 2002 of the more than 600 million global Internet Users, IE had around 90% of the market.

Today, according to NetMarketShare, IE still dominates the global desktop web-browser market with a 55% share.

That dominance however does not translate to the booming mobile space where IE's 2.31% share falls well short of Apple's Safari (53.91%) and Google's 2 x mobile browsers - Android Browser (23.44%) and Chrome (12.94%).

Even Opera Mini (3.51%) out performs IE in the mobile browser space.

But IE's future is now even more shaky after Microsoft admitted on Saturday that all versions from IE6 - IE11 have a serious security problem.

According to a Microsoft security advisory, "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system...could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights."

What's even more troubling is that Microsoft can only resolve the issue for the latest versions of the Microsoft Operating System: Users operating Windows XP or earlier versions have no way to protect against this vulnerability - ever.

If you're running Windows XP or older - stop using IE immediately and permanently!

Microsoft has suggested a couple of steps to take for Users with more recent Windows versions to address the problem until they can resolve the issue, but our recommendation (and that of the Australian Government) is to simply download, install and start using an alternative browser. The two most popular are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.