Fighting malware and spam
Nearly 20% still running IE 6
VB poll finds users still running outdated browser despite campaigns to boycott it.
Despite widespread calls to boycott IE 6 and Microsoft's plans to retire support for the browser, 19% of respondents in a Virus Bulletin poll said that they are still running the browser, whether at home, at work, or both.
The browser has come in for heavy criticism due to numerous security flaws and its use of outdated technology. Indeed, in January both the French government and the German government issued advisories to computer users recommending that they switch to a different web browser, after it was discovered that IE 6 contained a serious security flaw that could be exploited by hackers and cybercriminals.
Although the flaw in question was patched by Microsoft in late January (ahead of the company's usual Patch Tuesday release for the month), support for the browser is already being phased out by Internet favourites such as Google, YouTube and Facebook, largely due to its lack of support for modern web standards.
In VB's poll, 15% of respondents said they were running the browser at work, indicating that, for many organizations, upgrading is not a priority - whether that is for reasons of compatibility with legacy applications or simply due to a lack of urgency in their IT departments. Campaigners who run the site www.ie6nomore.com hope that as corporate users find their browsing experience increasingly compromised by pages that fail to render properly in the aging browser, they will complain to their IT departments and put pressure on them to roll out an upgrade or install alternative browsers.
Some VB reader comments can be viewed here.
23 February 2010
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browser, ie6, poll, virus bulletin.
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