Over the weekend, a . This is serious because it was a zero day flaw that has not yet been patched and can be exploited to run arbitrary code for installing viruses or malware on a computer. This has several major implications for computer users as upwards of one quarter of all web browser traffic uses Internet Explorer. Using the browser while it remains unpatched is a big risk.

This is one of the primary reasons that I recommend that computer users have more than one browser for their computer. Web browsers are programs that we use daily for all sorts of things. You could be reading your email through a service like Gmail, watching videos through YouTube or Netflix, catching up with social media on Facebook, or just reading the news. When a security flaw affects such a critical program, it can really cause issues. After all, it is impractical to just not use the web until the flaw is fixed as that could be days. By having multiple browsers such as Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, Safari or Opera on your system, you give yourself an alternative to use until a company patches any major security flaws. Of course, make sure to keep all versions of the browser updated to avoid any other security problems.

Now, the recent end of life of Windows XP, this flaw with Internet Explorer brings about another problem. Anyone on the operating system that still relies on Internet Explorer is permanently at risk. Microsoft has officially stated that they will not release any security patches for the system at all. Their are only two solutions for those people in this situation: upgrade their operating system to one that is supported or switch permanently to an alternate browser that still is updated for security which is increasingly more difficult.