Justyn Smith | Blog » Internet Explorer

Microsoft launches IE6 Countdown

Justyn — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:18:17 +0000

Microsoft is monitoring the worlds usage of Internet Explorer 6 by launching a website, IE6 Countdown. Their aim is to try and get the global usage under 1% so more websites can drop Internet Explorer 6 support which will save web developers a lot of work trying to support a web browser that is 10 years old.

At this point in time 12% of the world is using IE6 which is down 9% from last year. China has the highest users of IE6 coming in at 34.5% where Norway and Finland come it at just 0.7%. Australia is only at 3.2% while the US comes in just under at 2.9%.

If you have a website and would like to join the cause you can add a banner to your website asking the user to upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer 6 lives until 2014

Justyn — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:06:55 +0000

I know this is old news, but I felt like I needed to post this information. It seems that Microsoft has extended support for Internet Explorer 6 until 8th April 2014, despite campaigns to kill off IE6. If you have a look on IE Blog it states that the upgrades to newer versions are the responsibilities of the end user or the company.

The engineering point of view on IE6 starts as an operating systems supplier. Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product. We keep our commitments. Many people expect what they originally got with their operating system to keep working whatever release cadence particular subsystems have.

Microsoft has extended their support for Windows XP until 2014 and Internet Explorer 6 was supplied with Windows XP, so there will still be updates for another 5 years.

Internet Explorer first, Safari last against phishing

Justyn — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:12:33 +0000

An independent security research group named NSS Labs found that Internet Explorer 8 came out on top at stopping phishing attacks. Firefox and Internet Explorer both tied first followed by Opera and Chrome. Safari was the biggest loser, coming last with only 2% of phishing attempts being blocked and there was no difference between the Mac or Windows client.

You can read the full PDF document that NSS Labs has detailing the testing process and their results.

Internet Explorer 6 Blocker

Justyn — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:49:40 +0000

There has been some issues with my blog and viewing it with Internet Explorer 6 (mainly the lightbox effect) and since Internet Explorer 6 is 8 years old I felt it was time that people should be upgrading their web browsers to atleast Internet Explorer 7.

Microsoft have released Internet Explorer 8 and it has major improvements over Internet Explorer 6. The other options are ofcourse Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Safari.

People that try to view the website in Internet Explorer 6 may get an error saying “Operation Aborted”, you can refresh the page and it will load alright but I am not going to go through all the hassles to try and support a browser that is so old.

Force which browser to use?

Justyn — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:54:49 +0000

Just recently I got a suggestion via Skribit to stop forcing you, the reader to use a certain web browser. Now with out being rude, I am not forcing you to use any web browser.

For those that don’t know what I am talking about, I have a bar across the top of my page when visiting the site in Internet Explorer. The bar simply states:

Please, stop using Internet Explorer as a browser. It’s slow, unsecure and doesn’t render web pages correctly. You may download free and better browser like Mozilla Firefox or Opera. Close.

Now, I am not forcing you to switch browsers, if you look closely there is also a Close link at the end of the sentence, so it removes the recommendation. Maybe if I had the site redirect to a page that said “LOL, your using Internet Explorer, FAIL”, there would be a reason to make a suggestion.

I just am recommending an alternative web browser to use, at the end of the day it’s your choice what web browser you would like to use.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Justyn — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:44:33 +0000

Microsoft have released English, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese beta 2 versions of Internet Explorer 8. The installer weighs in at 23.1 MB and users will be required to remove beta 1 before it can be installed.

As per the previous releases of Internet Explorer 8, there is compatability mode which allows the sites to render as if they would if you were viewing them in Internet Explorer 7.

One of the things I noticed during the install, is you can import settings from other installed browsers, which was neat.

View: Internet Explorer 8 Screenshots
Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Remember, it still is a beta, so there will be bugs. If you happen to find any bugs, please comment and let me know what you find.

SPAM is getting smarter, or people are more stupid

Justyn — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:28:47 +0000

I just got the following email, from admin@microsoft.com with the subject Internet Explorer 7. Now the contents of this email seems legit, but is totally fake.

Download the latest version!

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Please do NOT click on the link to download the latest version, this goes to some anonymous website, most likely infecting your PC. Always, and I mean always use official, microsoft.com website for any updates.

Happy internetting!