We’ve established by now that I am a long-time Macintosh user. As a result, my experiences with Microsoft products have been fleeting and mostly limited to either Word or Excel. Internet Explorer? Just like most US politicians and marijuana, I tried it once but wasn’t really into it. Like the artist formerly known as the Goat, not to mention our very own social idealist currently in exile, I have strong views regarding my browser experience. Dad, if you’re reading this, download Firefox NOW.

Last night I wasted an entire evening completing online insurance quotes for my new car. Well, it wasn’t really wasted as I have a wealth of information before me and I feel I have found a damned good deal. But I was sad to see there are some insurance companies who refuse to enter the enlightened age. If you don’t click here, here, or here, then you won’t know which insurance companies insist upon building their quote estimators in the land of IE and refuse to recognise my Firefox experience. Why would companies, whose sole purpose is to insure against accident, theft, unstoppable forces of nature, provide a website which solely supports the most commonly (not to mention easily) hacked computer program which is still installed as standard on just about every operating system available? Am I the only person who thinks that maybe, just maybe, these companies might not be the best for my insurance needs?

So my friend, who used to be a Goat but now thinks he’s Jackson Pollock, asked why I didn’t just use IE to view the offending websites? Just because my computer might have the ability to run Microsoft programs doesn’t mean they will be on my computer. So the aforementioned friend/goat/artist recommended a small extension for Firefox called IE Tab, a marvellous little extension that opens the page you’re viewing in a new tab, IE style… at least, that’s what I’m led to believe. There doesn’t seem to be an OSX version. Discrimination certainly is ugly.