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Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Your Thanksgiving mission - Help eradicate Internet Explorer 6!

By | November 23, 2011, 8:53am PST

Summary: Time to kick IE6’s butt!

I’ve given you your Thanksgiving survival kit, now your mission, should you decided to accept it, is to help eradicate Internet Explorer 6 from US soil.

According to ie6countdown.com IE6 still has a 1.3% usage share in the US. While I’m sure that quite as lot of this is enterprise usage, I’m fairly sure that IE6 is lurking on a lot of home machines … the sorts of machines that your parents or grandparents might be using.

Check all those XP machines for IE6. If you find it, get rid of it. You won’t be able to upgrade the system to IE9 (because it won’t install on XP) so you’re going to have to look elsewhere. My preference would be Chrome (it auto-updates, so hopefully you won’t have to do it next year!), but go with what you think is best.

If you find something really old, like a system running Windows 98 or Windows 2000, then you might want to kill it with fire.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only are there old versions of IE still in use out there, but also old versions of Firefox and Opera (Chrome updates itself nicely so there’s little need to worry … although it might be worth checking just to make sure it’s working).

Together, we can eradicate IE6!

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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Your Thanksgiving mission - Help eradicate Internet Explorer 6!
LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222 28th Nov
I do my part. Whenever I encounter a PC with IE6 on it I'll upgrade it to IE8 or 9, depending on which version of Microsoft Windows they are running.
There's no helping China. As long as China exists, so will IE6 and all the problems it brings. I'm willing to bet Fort Knox that 99.9% of those IE6 users are on pirated copies of XP too. Causing more problems.

-_-
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Contributr
@Cylon Centurion I agree. 25%+ using IE6 is a real problem.
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@Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
@Cylon Centurion: Interestingly India is only 5.9% (rampant piracy too, there's no way they're all use Vista/Win7) and check out how high Japan/South Korea are.

That's even more shocking, both are very much part of the 1st world and technologically advanced too. I suspect nearly 10% of IE use in South Korea is IE6 due to his government's decision a year back to use ActiveX so wildly on government websites.
@Cylon Centurion As far as India and China goes, I think the numbers might be inaccurate and less severe than what it actually is.
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even in seats of learning!
cymru999 23rd Nov
I work in a large university and continually come across staff still running IE6 - the first I know about it is when one of our web applications wont work for them! Although windows updates are centrally managed users with admin rights can, and do, turn off most windows updates because "they are annoying" or "will need a restart". We are still on XP so IE9 is not yet an option but IE8 is the supported option.
I generally counsel against Chrome because it's rapid development model means that our web based learning system, which we only update out of term time, often develops incompatibilities. I have to say generally I do not understand the enthusiasm for chrome - it does start up quicker but that to me seems the only advantage as I find so many things that do not work with it the way I want it to - particularly toolbar helpers - even though roboform at last works with it the toolbar will not locate to the top where I want it to be. I have used Firefox a lot but the latest releases have seemed a bit buggy which has made me return to IE
@cymru999: You give end-users admin rights!
@bradavon Apparently they also use Toolbars D=

@cymru999 Chrome is superior. Believe it! Faster startup, faster page load, sandboxed pages, autoupdating, updates flash and java itself, massive plugin support. IE, even IE9, cannot compare.
As far as I'm concerned erradicate IE9 an M$ knows why I don't like it
No IE9 on XP is no excuse you can update to IE8 on it. But if you have a MAC you can't go past IE5 so it just won't work(LOL)
If IE 8 is not enough for us XP hold outs then look into latest Firefox.
Why should I? I love seeing this thorn stuck in MS's side. People who are ignorant enough to be still using it shouldn't be using computers.
@willyampz

Ignorant? No, more like non-tech literate or simply think "It works well enough!"

Really, it's time that Microsoft sent a 'kill' message to Windows XP telling people "Your machine is behind the times.... update, because after X date, we will NOT support Windows XP anymore!"
@Lerianis10: XP won't be supported from April 2014. It's not being supported as much right now. Just look at how many Windows Update hotfixes it gets nowadays, very little compared to how many it used to get.
@Lerianis10 wrote:
"Really, it's time that Microsoft sent a 'kill' message to Windows XP telling people "Your machine is behind the times.... update, because after X date, we will NOT support Windows XP anymore!"

Microsoft was selling Windows XP Home on netbooks as recently as 2010. What planet do you live on that you think Microsoft can or should arbitrarily cease supporting Windows XP now?

If Windows Vista wasn't such a hog, Microsoft would not have had to extend their support for Windows XP Home. Recall that Microsoft announced extended support for Windows XP Home (and Media Edition) in 2007, the year that netbooks running Linux made their splash.

Also, have you been paying attention to the world economy? Many people have lost their job or are working reduced hours and are struggling just to make ends meet. Nokia-Siemens just announced 17,000 jobs that are to be cut in Finland and Germany. I'm sure that security patch support from Microsoft is greatly appreciated by those still using Windows XP.

Back on topic, upgrading IE to version 8 makes great sense for consumers still using Windows XP, even if they use an alternate browser. And in the enterprise, knowledgeable Windows admins can lock down both IE6 (if it is still required) and Windows XP Pro with limited accounts and various group policy settings.
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Good point, @willyampz
ScorpioBlue 23rd Nov
And it will continue to be supported until 2014.

And who's fault is that? wink

silence...
@willyampz Ignorant implies they don't know any better, or don't have the knowledge or information. Therefore, that's EXACTLY why you should. If you know someone who is still running 6 strictly because they don't know any better (or are "ignorant", i.e. computer illiterate), why would you not help them out. If they did know better, and still chose to stay on IE6, then that's "stupid", not ignorant.
"While I???m sure that quite as lot of this is enterprise usage, I???m fairly sure that IE6 is lurking on a lot of home machines ??? the sorts of machines that your parents or grandparents might be using."

They're already upgraded happy.

"You won???t be able to upgrade the system to IE9 (because it won???t install on XP) so you???re going to have to look elsewhere."

There's still an IE upgrade, though - IE8. While Firefox or Chrome is ideal on XP, sometimes it's easier to convince them to upgrade IE.

That being said, most of my relatives are on Win7 now. So IE9 is not a problem happy.

It looks like the biggest concern is China :/.
@CobraA1: Plenty of enterprise/business customers still use IE6, many use IE7 too.
IE8 STINKS.
In its wisdom, Microsoft has changed the interface, took away options, made the thing take over half the screen with useless stuff.
IE9 is better, I have to admit, but no option for XP.
So, as far as XP is concerned, it's IE6 for applications and Chrome for general browsing.

So what's the big cry over IE6?
My users employ it to access ONE SINGLE WEB APP. Period.
If the applicartion gets broken into by hackers, it does not matter which browser you use to access it. Your info's been compromised already.

The machines I support running XP/IE6 will keep on doing that until they break apart and can't be fixed any longer.
P.S. And the apps are doing just fine, thank you. No need to pay for a Win7 version upgrade. When is enough enough?
@radu.m: You "support" end-users computers and leave them on IE6! And you call yourself IT literate?

Plenty of reasons, because IE6 is as popular as it is holding back the progress of the web, it's totally insecure, has no anti-phishing features, lacking in lots of features (it really doesn't "just work", just like XP), has no support for HTML5 (holding the web back again). I could go on.

Of course it matters what browser you use. IE9 and Chrome both sandbox tabs, IE7-IE9 on Vista/Win7 run in Protected Mode (sandbox the browser in general). Both helping to prevent malware/hackers from getting out of the browser into the system in general.

I do hope you've at least tested that web app with IE8 (or IE9). You may find it works fine or only needs slight alteration.

I'm willing to bet they're on IE6 still because you've not bothered to do this. It's easier just to "assume" it won't work. You see this approach time and time again.

There are plenty of real world reasons to upgrade to Windows 7 (your job would be easier for starters) but as you've clearly not got a clue, I won't bother explaining them to you.
@radu.m I think the IE9 UI sucks about as much as IE8 did (IMO only). IE9 32bit may be faster than previous versions, and more compliant, but it's still about the worst looking, least options for customizing UI of all the other top browsers. I agree with the poster above though that said they should upgrade to IE8 even they use an alternate browser. There's not much reason not to.
The UK is even higher, eek. China is just abysmal. That won't change whilst the Chinese government does nothing to stop the rampant Chinese piracy.

Website developers should be doing more, actively blocking IE6 from their sites. Even Google.com/.co.uk still works with IE6. Why on earth aren't Google blocking it?

You should be recommending people install IE8 or IE9 first and then looking at an alternative. Plenty of people have IE6 installed who use another browser, that's no good either. Windows Update at the very least has to rely on that.

The enterprise build of Chrome doesn't auto-update. Firefox 4+ auto-updates nicely too.
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Not just XP...
wright_is 24th Nov
There are still computers out there running Windows 9x and Windows 2000...

I know, I have to support a bunch of them!
@wright_is I still have one active Win98 PC, and found that K-Meleon 1.5.4 works fine on it as a browser, as well as ClamWin as an AV. Win2k makes for a killer lightweight VM (I can create a full Win2k VirtualBox VM with Guest Additions that's more compact than any other OS, including even compact Linux distros), and Firefox through 8.01 still supports it.
@JustCallMeBC Win98 and Win2k? I hope you're using a non-Admin account on Win2000. And with no more security updates since 2006 and 2010, respectively, I'd also have them locked down tighter than a drum with SSM:

http://download.cnet.com/System-Safety-Monitor-Free-Edition/3000-2098_4-10556556.html

Note that it is (or, rather, was) supported on Windows 98/Me/2000/XP.
@Rabid Howler Monkey A lot of people treat a computer as a white good. They buy a new one, when the old one stops working.

One of my gf's sisters upgraded 2 years ago, from a 200Mhz Pentium II with Win98SE to a Q6600 with Vista, because the old machine couldn't handle the latest eBay makeover. The 98SE machine was given to a friend, who was running Windows 95 on a P90!
@Rabid Howler Monkey There are simpler solutions for locking down Win2k (and better than what you can do with Win7), and for my (experimental) app, the 2Gb Win2k VM is reloaded clean for each use.
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I was glad when one of my foreigner bosses announced 2 weeks ago that IE6 will not be supported anymore.

...that's after I edited an RDLC file that wouldn't show Images on it. IE8 FTW for me there ehehe!

that's one way to help the cause. stop developing IE6 compliant apps! grin
Doesn't Firefox "update itself nicely" too? Mine always has. Only asking since I noticed 2 separate plugs for Chrome based on it's updating capability, when I've never known Firefox not to update itself too. There may be other reasons why people prefer Chrome over Firefox, but updating shouldn't be one of those reasons (unless I'm missing something, which in all honestly, is highly possible :P).
IE in any version is irrelevant -- as long as you can use it to download another browser, you're good. If a website still needs IE in this day and age, it means that the website and the company behind it have problems. If you absolutely feel compelled to upgrade from IE6 (assuming you have XP), go to IE7, but not IE8 -- if you have to do a repair install, having IE8 completely mucks up Windows activation afterwards, requiring a very geeky fix. IE7 is good enough, especially since you won't (or shouldn't) be using it much.
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Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer
theo_durcan Updated - 24th Nov
Is that simple
I work for Google's largest corporate customer, but the SSLVPN we are rolling out is just one of a number of apps that either will not run, period, or not run correctly on anything except Internet Explorer. Our corporate standard is IE 8, although I occasionally run into IE 6, and there is at least one application used at our plants that will not run on any version later than 7.
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RE: Your Thanksgiving mission - Help eradicate Internet Explorer 6!
LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222 28th Nov
I do my part. Whenever I encounter a PC with IE6 on it I'll upgrade it to IE8 or 9, depending on which version of Microsoft Windows they are running.

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