So, Microsoft Australia is running a competition to encourage people to switch to Internet Explorer 8 by hiding a AUD$10,000 cash prize on a website somewhere on the Internet that can only be viewed using their browser. After all the anti-trust grief Microsoft has gotten, I wouldn’t have expected the company to try something like this. Personally, the only time I ever use IE any more is when I get a new computer and use it download Firefox. I did give Chrome a try when it first came out, but I found its UI a bit too minimal for me.

I have to admit though that I still notice plenty of friends and family using IE. Usually, when they call on me to fix their computer problems, the first thing I do is install Firefox, make it the default browser and hide access to IE. People get confused about why I do that, and are hesitant to switch to a different browser at first, but they get used to it and it sure helps to keep their computers clean.

Firefox is sadly not quite as good these days as it used to be, and every new version seems to be more bloated and prone to crashing than the last. The day may yet come when I’ll have to ditch it for something else but if Microsoft insists on telling Firefox users to get lost, I don’t think that’s going to convince me to move to IE.