This is meant for people who think about what they are doing and what the consequences are.

Individual actions aggregate into larger social and economic manifestations.

Most people, unfortunately, are only concerned with themselves and the immediate short term effects of their actions on themselves. However, there is always an intelligent sector of society which is capable of more long range thinking.

The bottom line:

• You should not use Internet Explorer 7 because if do you will be contributing to an economic monopoly which is designed to maximize profits for a particular corporation, and because of this narrow focus has the effect of stifling innovation.
• You should not use Internet Explorer 7 because if you do you will be contributing to locking yourself into vendor dependence with a vendor who has shown that when the economic incentive is removed, they will not address security or usability issues.
• You should not use Internet Explorer 7 because it is a strategic tool that is used to foster dependence and eliminate “competition” (from Microsoft’s perspective, which equals “choice” from your perspective).

Here is some history for you:

Netscape Navigator, based on NCSA Mosiac, was the first “commercial” web browser. When I first got on the Internet in 1994 it was in pre v 1.0 beta, and it was being given away freely. At that time there was no TCP/IP stack in Windows and it was necessary to use a third party one such as Trumpet Winsock.

In 1995, as Netscape Navigator gained traction widely as the standard in web browsers, Bill Gates got the epiphany that the Internet was the future, and refocused Microsoft on catching up. Internet Explorer 1.0, released in 1995, was built on licensed Mosiac technology.

Internet Explorer was then developed through six version iterations up to 2001. If you read the official Microsoft IE history page you get the idea that here was a great web browser that was being built and developed to serve the public (the customers). The reality is that the web browser was being built and developed to eliminate Netscape Navigator. Once Microsoft achieved that aim, through first giving their browser away, then bundling it, then building it into the operating system, along with licensing agreements with PC vendors that have been judged anti-competitive in US and European courts, Microsoft stopped developing Internet Explorer.

Five years. No new version.

Until Firefox came along and gave people choice, gave them new innovations in web browsing. Prior to the rise of Firefox there were other options, such as Opera or Mozilla (which is what Netscape Navigator became when they open sourced the code, and what Firefox is based on). However, since none of these represented a threat to Microsoft’s market share, they did nothing.

Once Firefox started grabbing 10% of the market share, however, Microsoft sat up and dusted off IE.

Their idea is to give you some shiny things and get you to take the red pill and go back to sleep. Once they kill Firefox, it will be business as usual. Microsoft is focused on maximizing profit. That means not doing unnecessary work to increase value to you when they don’t have to.

Using Internet Explorer 7 means helping to kill off the competition, and returning to a position of dependence and servitude on a corporation that exists to take your money and give you as little as possible in return. It’s called “maximizing shareholder value”.

You can read more in Wikipedia’s entry on the History of Internet Explorer