How to kill IE6

March 9th, 2011 § 7 comments

Internet Explorer 6 is a piece of shit for a variety of reasons that, but mainly because it is dangerously flawed.

But now, at last, it is being killed off completely.

What I don’t understand, not being much of a techie, is what all the fuss about it being killed of is for. Microsoft even has a site dedicated to it with how to help – educate, encourage, join the cause and other stuff.

Microsoft could kill IE6 in one go. No fuss. No bother.

All Microsoft have to do is issue one last update. Make it a security update that when installed installs IE8 or whatever the latest version is that MS has cobbled together.

The majority of savvy non-commercial users don’t use IE anyway, the mojority of non-commercial users of Windows have the auto-updates set so it will do it itself when the user clicks the prompt when asked and if a security update is issued rather than just ‘an update’ any one looking after a commercial IT system would have to be a muppet not to update. Job done.

Those people left that don’t want to upgrade from IE6, well, fuck em.

As I say, I’m no whizz when it comes to these things so it may be a little more involved than that, but still, the premise remains unchanged. Doesn’t it?

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§ 7 Responses to How to kill IE6"

  • Spann says:

    Something like 35% of China still use IE6.

    In fact, according to http://ie6countdown.com/, 13% of the world still uses ie6 – That’s a pretty big number.

  • Spann says:

    Oh, furthermore: Do you think that if people updated their machines at all they’d still be using ie6?

    • Sim-O says:

      That’s it the ‘ordinary’ gets a notification from the Windows update thingy saying it needs to install some updates. They don’t know what’s being updated or why so if that update doesn’t replace IE6 then IE6 isn’t gonna get replaced.

  • Chris says:

    Only problem is MS have become fair game for any anti-trust lawsuit that you can dream of. If they did this, guaranteed someone would dream up a reason why it’s screwed them over (maybe they sell IE6-only add-ons), sue and probably make millions out of them.

    I mean jesus, they were sued for not offering alternative browsers on new PCs running Windows – despite the fact Windows is theirs. Then they were screwed for not offering the choice to change your search engine the first you boot up IE – despite the fact it’s a MS product running on an MS operating system.

    I would have laughed if someone had told me this 10 years ago but… I actually find myself feeling a bit sorry for Microsoft. And in no change from the norm, I finding myself considering the EU to be a bunch of cunts.

    • Sim-O says:

      True, MS probably would be shafted, but if the user is already using a version of IE then it’s hardly like they’re stealing users from another browser.

      If it was packaged as an ‘update’ rather than a ‘use our browser not theirs’ deal, it might protect them a bit… maybe?

      • Chris says:

        I did a bit more reading – it looks like IE7 was pushed out as an automatic update, but it was a “genuine advantage” thing, so you have to verify your copy of Windows to install it.

        Where in the world are the highest number of ripped of copies of Windows? You guessed it – China!

        So basically yeah, they could have sorted this problem out a long time ago by just offering it as an update to everyone regardless. But then I do sorta see why they didn’t…

  • isty says:

    There are 2 main reasons it’s still so popular. Firstly, about 10 years ago MS told all businesses that IE6 would be the only browser they’d ever need again so LOTS of corps built intranets and other critical business software around IE6 making big use of it’s incorrect handling of HTML, it’s flaws, it’s activeX features, and various other stupid stuff it does. Years later MS release IE7/8 and all those intranets etc break because MS have started actually using web standards (a bit). Companies are tight bastards and won’t pay to upgrade entire intranets so they’re effectively trapped with IE6. MS Killing it off through an update would probably make a lot of companies think twice about using MS again.

    The second reason is in China a vast % of users use pirated versions of XP so can’t update due to ‘genuine advantage’ checks on MS update site.

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