Germany Suggests Users Not Use Internet Explorer Due To Security Concerns

Oh, brother. You know things are bad when people start ditching your product over fears that it's slower and less secure than other free alternatives, but things are really bad when a government recommends to its citizens that consumers should ditch your product if they haven't already. It almost sounds too weird to be true, but the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (better known as BSI) has actually issued a formal statement urging consumers to shy away from IE and try their luck with something else...like Firefox.

We can't say that we're experts in translating the German tongue, but the gist of it is that German users are recommended to not use IE until Microsoft issues a fix that remedies a critical vulnerability that some are saying had a lot to do with the Chinese attack on Google. It's likely that Microsoft will patch things up and life will continue on as scheduled, but there's more to this story that that.


Internet Explorer has been taking hits for awhile now. But this is probably the biggest, most widely recognized hit of all. When a government issues a statement, it's more than just some frustrated user complaining. It makes people take notice, and while we doubt that IE will lose a ton of market share (thanks to it being packaged within Windows), it certainly won't help its standing in the market place. After all, when is the last time you heard of a serious security hole in any other browser aside from IE? We're waiting.