all they need to do is enable Automatic Updates and the browser will be updated as needed, with no prompts.

Having worked on many people's home computers, a lot of people do not have updates enabled anyway, so this won't change anything. The clueless users out there will continue to use their unpatched Windows along with IE6.

make me some tea: People still use IE?q

IE9 is great, actually. I've switched completely over to it.

Pre-9 IE should be forgotten.

wee: Sim Tree: Many in-house apps still use IE6, so they can't upgrade without spending $millions in development costs.

And hardware costs in some cases. I know of some large companies who have people running some really crusty old hardware.

We've tried to get rid of IE6 where I work. Too many custom apps with web interfaces are keeping it from happening.

My former company still ran Win2K on all their machines. It was impossible to upgrade IE without buying a new OS for every computer in the joint.

Why they were still using computers from last century... I'll never know.

WTF doesn't the link work? All I get is:
Dot Nuke Error
An Error has occured. An error has occured.

I thought it was supposed to be about how IE6 is broke, not IE9.

PingTimeout: IE9 is great, actually. I've switched completely over to it.

I sincerely hope you are trolling.

I tried it, to be fair as always, but the bookmark and history "features" alone suck so hard I can't think of a worse browser - even those on my phone are better. Even farking Safari is better, although it's not like people are desperate when they can use good browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Opera.

_{/Alphabetized history?? Seriously???}

Microsoft should just produce an exploit for some long-known IE6 hole that upgrades your computer to IE9 whenever you use IE6 to visit a webpage with the exploit on it. And then provide that exploit publicly and invite webmasters to include it on their sites, while also putting it on Bing and all Microsoft's sites, and making deals with Google and Facebook and Twitter to put it on theirs too.

Oh, you didn't want your system to get exploited? Then WHY WERE YOU USING IE6? Your computer is probably already running a ton of malware that's gone in through IE6 holes. IE having gotten automatically upgraded should be the least of your worries.

I think we can all agree that the internet is pretty important to our culture and country. So, why doesn't the president make an announcement that everyone needs to upgrade their browser for a stronger America. I'm not joking.

It would help if Microsoft easily allowed multiple versions of IE to be installed on a computer. That way you could run new apps on IE 8 but still be able to run the apps that only work on IE 6. Then you could work on the apps and progressively get them upgraded.

Now if you have 20 web apps running that support IE 6, you have to upgrade them all at the same time and upgrade the client browsers at the same time. Not happening.

Famous Thamas:
We've tried to get rid of IE6 where I work. Too many custom apps with web interfaces are keeping it from happening.

This.

/weeps
//Luckily SOME of our stuff is Firefox compatible...

TheGreatGazoo: It would help if Microsoft easily allowed multiple versions of IE to be installed on a computer. That way you could run new apps on IE 8 but still be able to run the apps that only work on IE 6. Then you could work on the apps and progressively get them upgraded.

Now if you have 20 web apps running that support IE 6, you have to upgrade them all at the same time and upgrade the client browsers at the same time. Not happening.

Install a copy of virtual PC. I don't know if they still do it, but at one time, microsoft released copies of xp virtual machines for people who were developing web pages that had to be compatable with IE6 but who's own machines no longer ran that fossil. They were only good for a month or so, but they were free and relatively easy to use.

This is awesome news. Since I.T. feedback won't force our vendors to get their junk compatible with IE9, it will be nice to have help from Microsoft.

TheGreatGazoo: It would help if Microsoft easily allowed multiple versions of IE to be installed on a computer. That way you could run new apps on IE 8 but still be able to run the apps that only work on IE 6. Then you could work on the apps and progressively get them upgraded.

Now if you have 20 web apps running that support IE 6, you have to upgrade them all at the same time and upgrade the client browsers at the same time. Not happening.

Knowing this, why don't they make the latest versions able to act as the old versions if the head of the document tells it too. The best practice is to keep all software up to date and let developers control what parse engine is used for what, instead of having a mutually obsolete software balancing act.

Bacontastesgood: PingTimeout: IE9 is great, actually. I've switched completely over to it.

I sincerely hope you are trolling.

I tried it, to be fair as always, but the bookmark and history "features" alone suck so hard I can't think of a worse browser - even those on my phone are better. Even farking Safari is better, although it's not like people are desperate when they can use good browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Opera.

/Alphabetized history?? Seriously???

So do you have any actual examples of why it's a poor browser other than preference?

TheGreatGazoo: It would help if Microsoft easily allowed multiple versions of IE to be installed on a computer. That way you could run new apps on IE 8 but still be able to run the apps that only work on IE 6. Then you could work on the apps and progressively get them upgraded.

Now if you have 20 web apps running that support IE 6, you have to upgrade them all at the same time and upgrade the client browsers at the same time. Not happening.

Pretty sure this is possible. I had IE6 installed alongside a newer version (can't remember if it was 7 or 8) a couple years ago when I decided to check my website in IE6. I found it by googling, with very little effort.

What about those using Windows 95/98?

There wouldn't be that much of a problem if...

PEOPLE STOPPED DESIGNING WEB SITES / APPLICATIONS TO SPECIFIC IE VERSIONS!
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BROWSER AGNOSTIC STANDARDS!
THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STANDARDS YOU JACKHOLES!


/end rant

Grand_Moff_Joseph: Problem solved:

[cdn3.digitaltrends.com image 300x290]

Unless you're on your work network which only uses IE6, in my case at least until recently. My location had to get upgraded when our central office upgraded a web app, which turned out didn't work on IE6.

DigitalCoffee: There wouldn't be that much of a problem if...

PEOPLE STOPPED DESIGNING WEB SITES / APPLICATIONS TO SPECIFIC IE VERSIONS!
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BROWSER AGNOSTIC STANDARDS!
THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STANDARDS YOU JACKHOLES!


/end rant

True, but everytime Microsoft agrees to a standard, they then turn around and add non-standard stuff to their browsers. Worse are the companies that require you to only use IE. An example, Linksys (owned by Cisco), Westell and other personal routers, where their web page access only works with IE. Partners in crime here.

incendi: PingTimeout: So do you have any actual examples of why it's a poor browser other than preference?

Well, it can't render a large portion of today's websites properly, for starters.

IE9? It meets Web Standards (via Acid3 testing). Tested via http://acid3.acidtests.org/

They did a considerable amount of work in meeting standards for IE9. IE6 was a far cry from standards. IE7 and 8 were small improvements.

Still, no evidence that IE9 has flaws outside of personal preference. Personal preference matters a great deal, but there's no reason to be misleading about a product.

Flogster: I'm starting to think I should update my netscape

You do know that Firefox is the descendent of Netscape, in some ways. Firefox is what Netscape would have become had AOL not bought it, and then screwed it over in favor of IE.

Latinwolf: DigitalCoffee: There wouldn't be that much of a problem if...

PEOPLE STOPPED DESIGNING WEB SITES / APPLICATIONS TO SPECIFIC IE VERSIONS!
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BROWSER AGNOSTIC STANDARDS!
THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STANDARDS YOU JACKHOLES!


/end rant

True, but everytime Microsoft agrees to a standard, they then turn around and add non-standard stuff to their browsers. Worse are the companies that require you to only use IE. An example, Linksys (owned by Cisco), Westell and other personal routers, where their web page access only works with IE. Partners in crime here.

This actually isn't a problem anymore. Microsoft finally wised up.

I'm a developer, so believe me when I say I hate IE8 and below. It was a nightmare to deal with IE6, and 7/8 were no picnic. IE9, though, adheres to standards with very few faults (I actually haven't seen any at all, but I don't want to be too optimistic).

With Microsoft completely embracing HTML5 concepts, I don't see IE10+ deviated from the standards any longer. It look a decade, but they finally learned their lesson.

lysdexic: What's really scary is that most of the government still uses IE6.

Do it, Micro$soft. See if the State Department will be as nice to you as the Justice Department was.

I wonder how true that is anymore. There is, supposedly, an increased emphasis on information assurance and certification and accreditation of systems across all federal agencies. Don't know how much traction that has outside of DoD space, particularly down to the common user desktop, but if it does have any, addressing CVEs is a big part of it. There's not much that gets more hits in CVEs than browser vulnerabilities. Well, except Java and Oracle, of course.

DigitalCoffee: There wouldn't be that much of a problem if...

PEOPLE STOPPED DESIGNING WEB SITES / APPLICATIONS TO SPECIFIC IE VERSIONS!
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BROWSER AGNOSTIC STANDARDS!
THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STANDARDS YOU JACKHOLES!


/end rant

I got laughed out of the room when I suggested that it would be a bad idea to install a mission critical application that depends on IE.

Laugh it up now, suckas.

Dr J Zoidberg: /The beauty of chrome without the evil

First, what browser is that, second, what evil are you referring to?

make me some tea: PingTimeout: make me some tea: People still use IE?q

IE9 is great, actually. I've switched completely over to it.

Pre-9 IE should be forgotten.

I use IE for a few things and yeah 9 is definitely an improvement, but something about the way it "feels" is just still not right to me. I dunno. I use Chrome for just about everything except Fark.

My boss feels the same way. To each his own. Personal preference is honestly what should drive your choice of browser - not compatibility concerns.

Latinwolf: Worse are the companies that require you to only use IE.


BMC SERVICE DEEEEESSSSSKKKKK!!!!

/run a linux desktop
//have to keep a virtualbox VM around for this horrid app

lysdexic: Do it, Micro$soft. See if the State Department will be as nice to you as the Justice Department was.

Except that most corporate and governmental departments have custom policies for upgrades. What is being talked about in the article only applies for stand alone self-managed systems.

Of course, another way to handle this is to give IE6 users negative feedback. I manage a small website that includes a graphical, rich text version of a page as well as a plain text-only version. When a client hits the site, it checks the browser ID in the HTTP header. If that browser is a text-mode browser (like Lynx) or a legacy-GUI browser (like Netscape and IE up to v6), they get the plain text version by default.

If it is a legacy-GUI browser, the underlying CGI will add a single line text banner at the top of their landing page (I check the referrer) informing them that they're viewing the site in a degraded mode, along with a link for more information. Any additional pages they hit moves the banner to the bottom of the page. They can still switch over to the full graphics version of the site, but I do nothing to ensure that it'll work with Netscape 4 or IE6.

DigitalCoffee: There wouldn't be that much of a problem if...

PEOPLE STOPPED DESIGNING WEB SITES / APPLICATIONS TO SPECIFIC IE VERSIONS!
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BROWSER AGNOSTIC STANDARDS!
THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STANDARDS YOU JACKHOLES!


/end rant

Standard discussion we used to have when planning upgrades (back when I did that sort of thing):
Person1: We have to be sure we've done the testing so we're sure nothing breaks on [our SW] and [subcontracter's SW] when we upgrade [product1] and [product2].
Person2: Shouldn't be a problem. Surely everyone involved coded their products to standards.
Everyone: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I work for a very large company. Many computers still use IE6 here.

No. No I will NOT give up ie6 on my oldest computer, because the m8therf*ckers at microsuck did something with 7 on up that somehow broke MusicMatch 7, and that is my favorite mp3 music player of all time. I use that computer exclusively as my music server/juke box, so I sure as hell am not damaging/removing the only music program with a genuinely random randomizer that doesn't repeat the same fookin' 40 songs out of a playlist of 400,000.

eat my shiat M$, for breaking a program that had nothing to do with the internet, and fook yu Yahoo!, for ruining the program and then abandoning it in the first place.

I used to use Internet Explorer 9, then I took an arrow to the knee.