Microsoft: Internet Explorer 6 "Outdated"
Microsoft: Internet Explorer 6 "Outdated"
Posted 05/17/2010 at 4:07am
| by Paul Lilly
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Microsoft has kicked off a new campaign that likens Internet Explorer 6 to old milk. The quirky comparison is Microsoft's not-so-subtle way of telling users that its dated browser has expired and it's time to go shopping for a new one.
"So why use a 9-year-old browser?," a page on Microsoft's Australia portal reads. "When Internet Explorer 6 was launched in 2001, it offered cutting-edge security -- for the time. Since then, the Internet has evolved and the security features of Internet Explorer 6 have become outdated.
"With the latest state-of-the-art security features, Internet Explorer 8 is designed to cope with today's modern cyber crime. In fact, research proves it."
Microsoft goes on to reference a browser study by NSS Labs in which IE8 caught socially engineered malware 85 percent of the time compared to Firefox 3's 29 percent, Safari 4's 29 percent, and Chrome's 17 percent.
IE6's market share has steadily declined since Windows 7 came out, which ships with IE8. According to Net Applications, IE6 now claims 17.6 percent of the browser market, down from 25.3 percent nine months ago.
Image Credit: Microsoft
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bloodgain
May 17, 2010 at 11:00pm
Extended support for Windows 2000 products ends on July 13, 2010, which should officially end the Win2000 lifecycle. At that point, there will be no supported operating systems that require the use of IE6 or earlier. So, there's no reason Microsoft can't simply end support for IE6 as well -- and they should. I think ending support for a free product after nearly 10 years is perfectly acceptable, especially considering that there are more recent versions that are also available for free.
For companies that cling to Windows 2000 or Windows 2000 server, they will simply have to do what every company still using unsupported versions of AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris do -- upgrade or cope. The days of expecting an OS lifecycle of greater than 10 years passed 15 years ago. Most companies now are prepared to upgrade their OS's, if not whole systems every 5-6 years at a minimum, except where network connections are internal only and the need to upgrade is small. And almost all companies have plans to upgrade within 10 years, as the longevity of the equipment itself dictates that new equipment will be bought, in which case it makes sense to determine if a viable upgrade path exists to avoid mid-term upgrades for non-critical systems. Any Systems/Network Engineer worth his salt will include an upgrade path in his initial plan, and again once the new plan is written for the upgrade.
So, long story short, stop preaching to the choir, because nobody else is listening. Give them a fair warning, and then leave them to fend for themselves when the next Conficker hits. They'll get smart and upgrade now, or learn the hard way like everybody else.
Slugbait
May 17, 2010 at 12:06pm
We should keep in mind that there is no IE upgrade option for anyone using an MS operating system released before 2001. Those old machines will be forced to run IE6 until they are retired.
PawBear
May 17, 2010 at 9:29am
I've upgaded friends to IE8. The first thing you get is some nonsence about accelerators. People don't want to deal with this stuff. Then I set a homepage and home brings up something else. Can't MS ever do anything simply that just works?
*** "Either we conform the Truth to our desires or we conform our desires to the Truth." ***
Cruzg10
May 17, 2010 at 11:18am
MS always has a history of things that work like the epics of Windows ME, microsoft bob, Vista, etc
rabbit01
May 17, 2010 at 6:18am
I think most users of IE6 are probably using that on their company supplied work computers. That's what's on my co-workers' laptops. Our IT dept said that IE8 might be incompatible w/ some of the corporate apps. I'm using IE8, haven't had issues yet. For non-work related web browsing, I use FF.
brotherj
May 17, 2010 at 5:38am
Browsers are FREE for crying out loud. Who's grandparents are so inflexible that they refuse a FREE upgrade or (even better) a brand new product to navigate the info superhighway? I can't believe there are so many out there Microsoft actually has to campaign (i.e. beg) consumers to make a couple mouseclicks and upgrade.
Hell, I check Chrome for an update on my home systems once a week (I like my Chrome shiny and new)
SuperiorBeing
May 17, 2010 at 8:02am
Most of the reason people don't change web browsers — other than business related things — is that they are content to just use the computer instead of actually understanding it.
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