Monday, March 7, 2011

Microsoft Campaign to kill IE 6

Microsoft has a new campaign. Kill IE6, in the recent announcement by Microsoft “Friend's don't let friends use Internet Explorer 6,".

IE6 Countdown site:
Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we’re in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it’s time to say goodbye.

Internet explorer 6 is a 10 year  old browser with outdated web standard, as a web designer we usually pay much attention in building websites that is compatible with this browser and this adds to our work load.

So why there are still IE 6.0?
There are two  reason why IE 6 is still being used. First, It is the default brower for Windows XP. The second reason is piracy. Pirated installation of Windows XP limits the user to upgrade to the latest  version of Internet Explorer because users are afraid to Microsoft license tracking. Using IE 6 posses security threat since it is an old browser and loaded with vulnerabilities.

China (34 .5%), South Korea (24.8%), Saudi Vietnam and Taiwan (10%) are among the highest number of IE 6 users. While the Philippines has only 2.2% mainly because of the use of open-source browser like Firefox and Chorme which are modern and updated browsers.

The goal of Microsoft is to bring the global use of Internet Explorer  6.0 to less than to 1%.

If you are using Windows XP you can upgrade to IE 7 or IE 8. For Vista and Sev7n you can test the IE 9 beta.

My suggestion is use open-source like Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. This browser are updated with latest web  standards and also don't forget to update your IE even you're not using it. This will add security to your system.

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