Follow up thoughts on IE password eye feature - not a bad feature, but should be off by default

February 20, 2014 · 2 min read

A few months ago when IE 10 first came out, I made this post.

I'll admit it was a rant, and I appreciate all the comments.  People actually care about this topic and spend their precious time to give opinions.  After finally having some more free time to review the entire thread, I'd like to declare that the original post was incomplete, and the following is my more coherent opinion.

I've long been a Microsoft fan, love the way they build all kinds of features into their software and just let people's imagination go wild.  I can especially say that now since I've owned an iPhone for a while, still owning 2 Android tablets, 4 Windows Desktops/laptop, and played with all the phones in the store to decide to switch from iPhone to a Win 8 phone.

My problem with the IE password eye feature is not that it's there, but that it's on by default.  One thing I really think Apple got it right, is that any product out of the box should help prevent people from making mistakes that they unknowingly commit because they are not familiar with the product yet.  iPhone, out of the box, is easy to use and the user doesn't have to worry about security or other things they have no interest in learning.  This is something I think Microsoft has done from time to time, but not consistently.  For example, the new Windows 8.1 comes with Windows Defender automatically on (I hope there is not going to be another lawsuit similar to the old "preinstalled media player" one that will reverse this).  My wife is very technology savvy for a Human Physiology scientist, but seeing that for the first time and combined with all the media stories about computer security just turned her off IE.  Now she is a Chrome user.  I enjoy buying software that has all kinds of features built in, but I just think the default setting should be done assuming every first-time user doesn't know anything about the software.  If power users want to tinker with the settings, they are welcome to customize their own copy anyway they want.

I think it's because of that philosophy that I'm the only person who liked Windows Vista, especially the way UAC was done.  It protected every user who is new to the system, but the user can turn it off if they choose to.  I do wish that the popup dialogue works every time, that would help. :)

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Kevin Shyr

New on Geeks with Blogs

  • We Won The One Award I Actually Care About

    Full Scale made the Inc. 5000 for the fifth year straight, the 12th listing across my three companies. Here is why the one award you cannot buy is worth stopping for.

  • Your Customers Build the Features Now

    I let a tool I liked sit dead for a year rather than build the features I wanted. An MCP server meant I never had to, and your customers can do the same to your product.

  • Get the Size of a Directory in Linux the Easy Way

    du -sh for the quick answer, ncdu for the cleanup, df for the disk itself: every command for checking directory size in Linux, plus why du and df never agree.

  • Vim Search and Replace: The Ultimate Guide

    One :%s command replaces every match in a file before a find dialog would even open. The Vim substitute patterns worth the muscle memory: flags, ranges, capture groups, and multi-file edits.