I've just seen on BBC News 24 that the German government is telling people not to use IE until after the bug exploit doing the round is patched.

'For you, the browser war is over!'

In Soviet Russia, browser uses you!

They've issued similar warnings a couple of times in recent years.

Is it actually legal for a government to make such statements? They are directly or indirectly promoting alternative browsers, which would be like our government saying "Mercedes are insecure; get a nice Rover!".

I'd think it's more like saying "The chassis in the 2009 Ford Focus has a tendency to snap in half. You may want to get another car."

How is this any different to saying "there is an unexploded bomb in the middle of Hannover, we are clearing the area until it is made safe."

Every week there is some part of a major town or road closed due to unexploded British or American bombs. This is a danger to the public and the government has a duty to protect them until the danger has passed.

Although, in this case, they are only advising users not to use Internet Explorer (until the flaw is fixed), as opposed to prohibiting its use, which is less than what they usually do when there is a similar physical danger.

They also do the same thing with other products, either working with the manufacturer to organise a recall or issuing a warning to the public that a product is unsafe and should not be used - it should either be disposed of or returned for repair or money back... Cars, electrical goods and children's toys are often subject to government warnings - the cars usually in association with the manufacturer, but the latter 2 are often subject to safety notices, when the manufacturer won't get involved (often cheap no-name imports from Asia or former-Eastern Block countries).

If you peel off the layers you'll find someone from Google probably paid off a German MP to get this going public. A bit like the money that changed hands to make MP's lie about 'Swine Flu' and other profitable things.

From the BBC site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8463516.stm



Ah well, that's alright then.

Saves a lot of people heading on over to the evil that is Firefox.

How are the corporates, which are glued to IE6 with no hope of ever escaping, going to deal with this?

And now France joins in:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8465038.stm

Unofficially use Firefox portable.

95% of users wouldn't be able to here.

France follow the German lead.
News CLICKY

I take it the majority of your users can't download files from the internet, even via something like dropbox, or even email it to themselves or did you mean they simply wouldn't be aware of such a "solution".