11 ms·

Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

626 points by ukdm 15y ago

hkarthik 15y ago
Finally. They should have done this a really long time ago.
Hikari 15y ago
great news but a little bit too late in my opinion.
andrewheins 15y ago
I applaud Microsoft for finally taking the step, but I wonder how much this will actually change the stats around browser market share. My understanding was that most IE6 users, even in the developing world, were admin-imposed. Either way, it's good to finally see them moving forward.
- reustle 15y ago
  Right, I had to support software at one point that required IE6, when IE8 had been released for some time. Maybe this will push those companies that continue to sell IE6~ only software to notice their time has run out.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 15y ago
    My experience at present is that only a very small number of corporates are still on IE6. IE7 is the new lowest denominator.
superyeah 15y ago
hallelujah!!!
hendrik-xdest 15y ago
And here I thought that all non-updated IE versions were installed in environments where Sysadmins blocked the updates (and will in the future). It would be interesting to see a number of how many installations this change could really target. Like, how many IE 6 to 8 are actually in the wild. Can't be that much, imho.
- hucker 15y ago
  The great majority of IE6 installations today are in China [1], and I presume that is a region where _personal_ installs of IE6 still are quite prevalent. Of course, these people could have updated if they wanted, and this change won't affect IE6, so it's still a great challenge to get people to modernize. [1] http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/
- SideburnsOfDoom 15y ago
  I thought so too, and it fits with what I've seen in large, charge-adverse companies. In fact, today I told a user that our site won't look its best or run quickly in IE7, which he's stuck with at $BigCo client site. In my current experience, there are very few IE6 installations left in these corporates. There are some IE7, and a whole lot of IE8. Should the headline read "Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone ... except most of them" ?
- gldalmaso 15y ago
  >> Sysadmins blocked the updates There's something about this that really bothers me, maybe someone can better clarify. Why are admins enforcing a policy that leaves the company target to just about every possible security hole that has been fixed in the past 20 years? Is there a valid reason for this that I'm unaware of?
  - tcskeptic 15y ago
    Define valid. The reason in the giant organization that I work in is broken internal applications. The number of internally deployed web apps that were targetted for IE6 and nothing else is truly astonishing. And the speed with which they get updated is astonishing as well. We finally deployed IE8 this year after almost 2 years of remediation effort. Which just kills me. (And of course because of thinking about security harkens back to the 1960s, we are a full year into exploring the deployment of Chrome or Firefox as a supplemental browser, but at present it is too risky)
melling 15y ago
It also means all IE9 users will get IE10. So by this time next year, 80-85% of users will be on a very modern html5 browser.
TheCoreh 15y ago
This is great news: It means IE8 won't be the next IE6. Of course there are a lot of users still restricted to Windows XP, but their market share is dropping fairly quickly. Of course there will always be large corporate environments where updates are much slower, but I would say these are under 10%, perhaps?
- melling 15y ago
  IE8 is the max for XP so until XP goes away it will be the new IE6, which is at 1% in the US. So, yes IE8 will have another decade.
  - wildmXranat 15y ago
    Is IE8 really that bad with regards to standards ? That's an honest question.
    - edvinasbartkus 15y ago
      Yes. That's an honest answer.
    - nextparadigms 15y ago
      In 5 years it will be compared to the other browsers, just like the others are much further ahead of IE6 now. IE6 used to be a good browser, too, when it launched.
      - rplnt 15y ago
        The problem isn't good/bad. Problem is that IE6 is nonstandard.
        wwweston 15y ago
        I'm not sure there was a browser that did standards better at the time of IE6's initial release. Maybe Opera. And in my opinion, the bigger problem with IE6 was that it was buggy -- both where it purportedly followed standards and where it had its own way of doing things, behavior often didn't match spec or had unexpected side effects. It took devs years of trying to figure out where all the bodies were buried before everybody understood how it worked.
Brajeshwar 15y ago
This is one hell of a bloody awesome news. I say the best ever for everyone on the Internet.
mmcconnell1618 15y ago
The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.
- necolas 15y ago
  Furthermore, apparently "future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading". Source: http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-start-automatic-upgrades-across-windows-xp-windows-vista-and-windows-7.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-...
  - hello_moto 15y ago
    If Redmond insist to have this option, please make it super hard for users to do it :D
    - gldalmaso 15y ago
      I don't think that it will be a big issue since the major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is inertia.
      - michael_dorfman 15y ago
        The major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is that they use proprietary applications which were written with IE6 in mind, and they see no good reason to spend money to upgrade these applications (if the vendor is even still interested in doing so) if it still works. So, as long as there is a way to opt out, I imagine there are a lot of corporate folks who will do so.
        obtu 15y ago
ajo11 15y ago
Santa is real!
apaprocki 15y ago
One thing I've noticed is another niche that doesn't quite fit into the "corporation blocking updates" bucket. VMs. I've used a few services at work that run on auto-started VM images and IE8 is installed on those images. It isn't that someone is blocking updates necessarily, it is just that it takes a human to actually go and update the main VM image and update the browser on it. This seems to make it persist longer than it should because VMs are either updated on some long time horizon or there is not a push to proactively change it if the current situation "just works".
- akie 15y ago
  I see your point, but wouldn't that concern vanish the moment IE updates silently, in the background, without the user even noticing? If that would be the case, they would start out with an outdated IE, but be automatically updated to the most recent version as soon as they connect to the internet.
  - apaprocki 15y ago
    Well usually the VM images are completely locked down because they are throwaway. Every time one starts up, it starts up from the master and the master has the original IE8. So even if the VM did allow updates, it would silently create a new problem.. a potentially massive amount of waste as all the random VM images are always downloading/updating IE whenever they start up.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Good news, but XP users still won't be able to upgrade past IE8.
- nkassis 15y ago
  Maybe Microsoft could enable an auto update to XP to a limited Win 7 OS :)
- antinitro 15y ago
  I honestly can't see the reasoning behind this.
  - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
    They want people to buy a newer version of Windows.
    - lallysingh 15y ago
      And more subtly, the "support windows, support office" mentality that forces each team to link arm-in-arm with other team. Everyone slow is sped up, everyone fast is slowed down. Btw, running that forward, everyone fast learns to slow down, and the slow ones aren't pulled ahead as much.
    - jjcm 15y ago
      Or more accurately, it's not financially viable for a company to support a 10 year old OS.
      - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
        And yet Firefox and Chrome have no problem releasing modern browsers that work on XP.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    IE9 implements too much of its modern HTML5 and security features using Windows 7. DirectX 10, which it uses for hardware accelerated graphics, text and video does not run on XP. XP is eons behind the times in security features. It's not just a marketing decision, at some point if they wanted to do these things they had to say "this version of IE will not run on our 10 year old OS."
dmbaggett 15y ago
Great! Now they just need to switch their entire browser codebase over to Webkit and sanity will be restored to the web.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  Wrong. An all-Webkit web would be just as bad as an all-IE web. IE and Mozilla serve to keep WebKit honest. Plus, there's no sense in condemning them based on IE6 when IE9 has come so far.
  - dmbaggett 15y ago
    In what way, since IE5.5 and XHR, has IE driven innovation in browsers? Serious question.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      For one thing, they were the first major browser to properly separate the run-time for pages in different tabs. They were months ahead of Chrome, and Firefox and Opera still haven't caught up several years later.
    - ootachi 15y ago
      They were the first to ship hardware acceleration, and they are still the only browser to ship hardware accelerated SVG.
    - 7952 15y ago
      They made a lot of mistakes.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
I'm not a fan, and I don't understand the gushing. As developers, I suppose folks are glad to reduce their support matrix? But as users, creators of highly customized workstations and rabid fans of particular development environments, doesn't it bother anybody but me, that the browser choice has been hijacked? Sure, its just stupid Windows users, they don't care. Is that it? Every IE UI is different, and they seem to be spiralling down is usability. I'm particular about optimizing my own time and changing UI to suit Microsoft's agenda is definitely going to piss me off.
- CaveTech 15y ago
  You can opt out of it, but it will be enabled by default. I'm sure it's not meant to target technical users, but simply those who do not know any better. Old browser versions have been a detriment to web development for years. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
- scott_s 15y ago
  Sure, its just stupid Windows users, they don't care. Is that it? Chrome follows the same model, which is what I use, and I prefer it. So, I think it's a good idea, and not because Windows users are "stupid."
- gldalmaso 15y ago
  >> As developers, I suppose folks are glad to reduce their support matrix? Not just the number of elements that we have to support, but the sheer amount of time spent in trying to emulate and workaround severe limitations of previous versions, which easily added up to a significant portion of development time. >> that the browser choice has been hijacked? To me the browser choice should be between brands not builds. When you choose to keep an out-of-date version around, you are actively halting the innovation pace for the web.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  If you run Windows, you accept what you get. The same if you run Mac. If you want to customize it you run Linux, simple as that. There are prices and trade-of for all platforms. I run on them all I accept that Windows is a walled garden. I should not expect my things to stay as they are.
jrwn 15y ago
So is this separate from the normal updates and installs regardless of your update preferences or is it part of the normal updates?
dazbradbury 15y ago
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but this has just made my christmas and new year. If this has a genuine impact, and means people are running IE8 in the worst case, then I will be a very a happy dev. Patiently waits to see browser usage trends once this rolls out...
ma2rten 15y ago
Finally! I have been waiting for this news for a very long time. I wish Microsoft would also push something like Chrome Tab to those users who opt out of the update, so a website can set some special http header/meta tag and then the website gets rendered with lasted version of the rendering engine.
- mintplant 15y ago
  That sounds bee-yoo-tee-ful.
muchonada 15y ago
<= Happy
obtu 15y ago
Great that they abandoned the “intranet apps still depend on IE6” talking point. XP still won't move past IE8, however.
BonoboBoner 15y ago
"You’ll simply be bumped to the most current version available for your version of Windows (IE9 on Vista and Windows 7, IE8 on Windows XP)." I was so hoping for IE9 on XP as part of this process...
miles_matthias 15y ago
This is slightly making me think about adding a specific version of IE to my Crap Browser Notifier: https://github.com/milesmatthias/Crap-Browser-Notifier https://github.com/milesmatthias/Crap-Browser-Notifier Maybe IE10 and up. Maybe.
- ward 15y ago
  Seems like a bit of a stretch to require jQuery for a snippet like that.
dhkl 15y ago
Perhaps one of the reason why people are still capable of getting an acceptable Internet experience from IE 6 and 7 is because Flash 10 (and 11 for IE 7) supports them. Thank goodness that there is a strong traction behind HTML5 stack, and the industry as a whole is less reliant on Flash to deliver good UX. Without Flash, the capability of these older browsers will be reduced, and I'm sure they will get abandoned at an even higher rate.
- yuhong 15y ago
  Indeed, Flash became popular especially during the IE6 stagnation.
- eli 15y ago
  No, people using ie6 are getting a crap experience. Seriously, fire up a vm and click around for a while. The only people still using it are unable to upgrade for some reason besides laziness and inertia.
tomjen3 15y ago
No they don't. You can still opt out. Of course if you do that, we may end up pushing Chrome Frame on you, through an exploit (I would, if it wasn't illegal). Fuck MS for forcing us to deal with their crap.
nbclark 15y ago
Honestly, it is about time that they did this. I worked ont he IE team for a few years, and could never understand (aside from the enterprise argument) why users were not being auto-upgraded. "Hey here's a great new security model to replace the insecure previous version...but no rush on upgrading..."
WayneDB 15y ago
I wonder if it will keep replacing the shortcuts that I've removed.
olaf 15y ago
Welcome to the 21st century.
noblethrasher 15y ago
Interestingly (or perhaps ironically), this probably means that the IE chrome won't get updated lest it alarm the users.
bgarbiak 15y ago
It's a great change not because of IE6 (which, most likely, won't be affected at all) but because of future versions of Internet Explorer. These are now supposed to be released annually, which could be a curse for developers if there was no automatic upgrade mechanism (see: http://paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-the-new-ie6/ http://paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-th...). Today's decision of Microsoft means it will be a blessing. Basically, all of client side web-technologies will iterate a lot faster and in 2-3 years the vast majority of users will sport the newest version of a browser by default.
robbrown451 15y ago
What I don't understand is why doesn't Microsoft provide an upgrade that actually allows IE6 (and possibly other versions) to run as they did, on a site specific basis. This way corporations that need some IE6 only app can run them forever, but their employees can still use the rest of the web unhampered by this. Having it possible to run multiple "virtual browsers" within a single browser would also thrill web developers who want to test their sites on all the browsers without having to have multiple machines. Yes it would be a bit bloated, but the default install would probably be the one that just ran the latest version.
- Legion 15y ago
  I would just like to see a standalone version of IE6, everything wrapped up in one binary, so that the silly, completely unnecessary one-or-the-other choice wouldn't exist.
  - robbrown451 15y ago
    True, that would help too, but it makes it challenging in a setting where people need to be able to email url's (possibly to the internal application) and the like. If it was specific to a domain or page, it would be a bit more seamless.
  - skeptical 15y ago
    Such neatness is contrary to Microsoft philosophy, but hey, I see microsoft making wise thought through moves more and more often. Maybe they will slowly become an interesting company again. They're still enjoying the aftermath of the great brainwash of the 90s. But to be fair, there have always been interesting things coming from microsoft. So we'll see.
shapeshed 15y ago
still seeing 20% IE6 usage in my Corporate clients in the UK. I have spoken with IT administrators and they give the reason of internal tools needing IE6 to run. Some kind of backwards compatibility might help but until hardware is upgraded and there is an OS upgrade from XP IE6 will be around for a while IMHO.
dr_ 15y ago
Unfortunately our hospital EMR software, which I access from my office, does not work on IE9. I had to downgrade to IE8 to get it working.
- arctangent 15y ago
  Out of professional curiosity, I'd like to ask: do you work in the UK?
  - dr_ 15y ago
    No, the US
zeeed 15y ago
Microsoft once more does a fully automated update? What could POSSIBLY go wrong?! On the same note, it literally pisses me off how companies decide to intervene with my software installation. Allowing an "opt-out" is worth as much as Google allowing me to opt out of mapping my access point by renaming it. We are observing a notable shift where personal(!) computers and devices are being turned into consumer devices that we have no control over. Not to speak about the privacy related side effects. Please, please, please let there soon be a pro-version of Linux on the desktop before the support cycle of Snow Leopard runs out.
hkarthik 15y ago
The more I see Microsoft bend over backwards for big corps to retard the web, the more I think that maybe big corps should just stay off the web. Perhaps staying on proprietary, native platforms that don't change as often is their best course in the future.
kgc 15y ago
Web designers around the world rejoice.

626 points by ukdm 15y ago

hkarthik 15y ago

Finally. They should have done this a really long time ago.

Hikari 15y ago

great news but a little bit too late in my opinion.

andrewheins 15y ago

I applaud Microsoft for finally taking the step, but I wonder how much this will actually change the stats around browser market share. My understanding was that most IE6 users, even in the developing world, were admin-imposed. Either way, it's good to finally see them moving forward.

reustle 15y ago
Right, I had to support software at one point that required IE6, when IE8 had been released for some time. Maybe this will push those companies that continue to sell IE6~ only software to notice their time has run out.
- SideburnsOfDoom 15y ago
  My experience at present is that only a very small number of corporates are still on IE6. IE7 is the new lowest denominator.

superyeah 15y ago

hallelujah!!!

hendrik-xdest 15y ago

And here I thought that all non-updated IE versions were installed in environments where Sysadmins blocked the updates (and will in the future). It would be interesting to see a number of how many installations this change could really target. Like, how many IE 6 to 8 are actually in the wild. Can't be that much, imho.

hucker 15y ago
The great majority of IE6 installations today are in China [1], and I presume that is a region where _personal_ installs of IE6 still are quite prevalent. Of course, these people could have updated if they wanted, and this change won't affect IE6, so it's still a great challenge to get people to modernize. [1] http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/
SideburnsOfDoom 15y ago
I thought so too, and it fits with what I've seen in large, charge-adverse companies. In fact, today I told a user that our site won't look its best or run quickly in IE7, which he's stuck with at $BigCo client site. In my current experience, there are very few IE6 installations left in these corporates. There are some IE7, and a whole lot of IE8. Should the headline read "Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone ... except most of them" ?
gldalmaso 15y ago
>> Sysadmins blocked the updates There's something about this that really bothers me, maybe someone can better clarify. Why are admins enforcing a policy that leaves the company target to just about every possible security hole that has been fixed in the past 20 years? Is there a valid reason for this that I'm unaware of?
- tcskeptic 15y ago
  Define valid. The reason in the giant organization that I work in is broken internal applications. The number of internally deployed web apps that were targetted for IE6 and nothing else is truly astonishing. And the speed with which they get updated is astonishing as well. We finally deployed IE8 this year after almost 2 years of remediation effort. Which just kills me. (And of course because of thinking about security harkens back to the 1960s, we are a full year into exploring the deployment of Chrome or Firefox as a supplemental browser, but at present it is too risky)

melling 15y ago

It also means all IE9 users will get IE10. So by this time next year, 80-85% of users will be on a very modern html5 browser.

TheCoreh 15y ago

This is great news: It means IE8 won't be the next IE6. Of course there are a lot of users still restricted to Windows XP, but their market share is dropping fairly quickly. Of course there will always be large corporate environments where updates are much slower, but I would say these are under 10%, perhaps?

melling 15y ago
IE8 is the max for XP so until XP goes away it will be the new IE6, which is at 1% in the US. So, yes IE8 will have another decade.
- wildmXranat 15y ago
  Is IE8 really that bad with regards to standards ? That's an honest question.
  - edvinasbartkus 15y ago
    Yes. That's an honest answer.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    In 5 years it will be compared to the other browsers, just like the others are much further ahead of IE6 now. IE6 used to be a good browser, too, when it launched.
    - rplnt 15y ago
      The problem isn't good/bad. Problem is that IE6 is nonstandard.
      - wwweston 15y ago
        I'm not sure there was a browser that did standards better at the time of IE6's initial release. Maybe Opera. And in my opinion, the bigger problem with IE6 was that it was buggy -- both where it purportedly followed standards and where it had its own way of doing things, behavior often didn't match spec or had unexpected side effects. It took devs years of trying to figure out where all the bodies were buried before everybody understood how it worked.

Brajeshwar 15y ago

This is one hell of a bloody awesome news. I say the best ever for everyone on the Internet.

mmcconnell1618 15y ago

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

necolas 15y ago
Furthermore, apparently "future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading". Source: http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-start-automatic-upgrades-across-windows-xp-windows-vista-and-windows-7.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-...
- hello_moto 15y ago
  If Redmond insist to have this option, please make it super hard for users to do it :D
  - gldalmaso 15y ago
    I don't think that it will be a big issue since the major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is inertia.
    - michael_dorfman 15y ago
      The major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is that they use proprietary applications which were written with IE6 in mind, and they see no good reason to spend money to upgrade these applications (if the vendor is even still interested in doing so) if it still works. So, as long as there is a way to opt out, I imagine there are a lot of corporate folks who will do so.
      - obtu 15y ago

ajo11 15y ago

Santa is real!

apaprocki 15y ago

One thing I've noticed is another niche that doesn't quite fit into the "corporation blocking updates" bucket. VMs. I've used a few services at work that run on auto-started VM images and IE8 is installed on those images. It isn't that someone is blocking updates necessarily, it is just that it takes a human to actually go and update the main VM image and update the browser on it. This seems to make it persist longer than it should because VMs are either updated on some long time horizon or there is not a push to proactively change it if the current situation "just works".

akie 15y ago
I see your point, but wouldn't that concern vanish the moment IE updates silently, in the background, without the user even noticing? If that would be the case, they would start out with an outdated IE, but be automatically updated to the most recent version as soon as they connect to the internet.
- apaprocki 15y ago
  Well usually the VM images are completely locked down because they are throwaway. Every time one starts up, it starts up from the master and the master has the original IE8. So even if the VM did allow updates, it would silently create a new problem.. a potentially massive amount of waste as all the random VM images are always downloading/updating IE whenever they start up.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

Good news, but XP users still won't be able to upgrade past IE8.

nkassis 15y ago
Maybe Microsoft could enable an auto update to XP to a limited Win 7 OS :)
antinitro 15y ago
I honestly can't see the reasoning behind this.
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  They want people to buy a newer version of Windows.
  - lallysingh 15y ago
    And more subtly, the "support windows, support office" mentality that forces each team to link arm-in-arm with other team. Everyone slow is sped up, everyone fast is slowed down. Btw, running that forward, everyone fast learns to slow down, and the slow ones aren't pulled ahead as much.
  - jjcm 15y ago
    Or more accurately, it's not financially viable for a company to support a 10 year old OS.
    - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
      And yet Firefox and Chrome have no problem releasing modern browsers that work on XP.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  IE9 implements too much of its modern HTML5 and security features using Windows 7. DirectX 10, which it uses for hardware accelerated graphics, text and video does not run on XP. XP is eons behind the times in security features. It's not just a marketing decision, at some point if they wanted to do these things they had to say "this version of IE will not run on our 10 year old OS."

dmbaggett 15y ago

Great! Now they just need to switch their entire browser codebase over to Webkit and sanity will be restored to the web.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
Wrong. An all-Webkit web would be just as bad as an all-IE web. IE and Mozilla serve to keep WebKit honest. Plus, there's no sense in condemning them based on IE6 when IE9 has come so far.
- dmbaggett 15y ago
  In what way, since IE5.5 and XHR, has IE driven innovation in browsers? Serious question.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    For one thing, they were the first major browser to properly separate the run-time for pages in different tabs. They were months ahead of Chrome, and Firefox and Opera still haven't caught up several years later.
  - ootachi 15y ago
    They were the first to ship hardware acceleration, and they are still the only browser to ship hardware accelerated SVG.
  - 7952 15y ago
    They made a lot of mistakes.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

I'm not a fan, and I don't understand the gushing. As developers, I suppose folks are glad to reduce their support matrix? But as users, creators of highly customized workstations and rabid fans of particular development environments, doesn't it bother anybody but me, that the browser choice has been hijacked? Sure, its just stupid Windows users, they don't care. Is that it? Every IE UI is different, and they seem to be spiralling down is usability. I'm particular about optimizing my own time and changing UI to suit Microsoft's agenda is definitely going to piss me off.

CaveTech 15y ago
You can opt out of it, but it will be enabled by default. I'm sure it's not meant to target technical users, but simply those who do not know any better. Old browser versions have been a detriment to web development for years. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
scott_s 15y ago
Sure, its just stupid Windows users, they don't care. Is that it? Chrome follows the same model, which is what I use, and I prefer it. So, I think it's a good idea, and not because Windows users are "stupid."
gldalmaso 15y ago
>> As developers, I suppose folks are glad to reduce their support matrix? Not just the number of elements that we have to support, but the sheer amount of time spent in trying to emulate and workaround severe limitations of previous versions, which easily added up to a significant portion of development time. >> that the browser choice has been hijacked? To me the browser choice should be between brands not builds. When you choose to keep an out-of-date version around, you are actively halting the innovation pace for the web.
tomjen3 15y ago
If you run Windows, you accept what you get. The same if you run Mac. If you want to customize it you run Linux, simple as that. There are prices and trade-of for all platforms. I run on them all I accept that Windows is a walled garden. I should not expect my things to stay as they are.

jrwn 15y ago

So is this separate from the normal updates and installs regardless of your update preferences or is it part of the normal updates?

dazbradbury 15y ago

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but this has just made my christmas and new year. If this has a genuine impact, and means people are running IE8 in the worst case, then I will be a very a happy dev. Patiently waits to see browser usage trends once this rolls out...

ma2rten 15y ago

Finally! I have been waiting for this news for a very long time. I wish Microsoft would also push something like Chrome Tab to those users who opt out of the update, so a website can set some special http header/meta tag and then the website gets rendered with lasted version of the rendering engine.

mintplant 15y ago
That sounds bee-yoo-tee-ful.

muchonada 15y ago

<= Happy

obtu 15y ago

Great that they abandoned the “intranet apps still depend on IE6” talking point. XP still won't move past IE8, however.

BonoboBoner 15y ago

"You’ll simply be bumped to the most current version available for your version of Windows (IE9 on Vista and Windows 7, IE8 on Windows XP)." I was so hoping for IE9 on XP as part of this process...

miles_matthias 15y ago

This is slightly making me think about adding a specific version of IE to my Crap Browser Notifier: https://github.com/milesmatthias/Crap-Browser-Notifier https://github.com/milesmatthias/Crap-Browser-Notifier Maybe IE10 and up. Maybe.

ward 15y ago
Seems like a bit of a stretch to require jQuery for a snippet like that.

dhkl 15y ago

Perhaps one of the reason why people are still capable of getting an acceptable Internet experience from IE 6 and 7 is because Flash 10 (and 11 for IE 7) supports them. Thank goodness that there is a strong traction behind HTML5 stack, and the industry as a whole is less reliant on Flash to deliver good UX. Without Flash, the capability of these older browsers will be reduced, and I'm sure they will get abandoned at an even higher rate.

yuhong 15y ago
Indeed, Flash became popular especially during the IE6 stagnation.
eli 15y ago
No, people using ie6 are getting a crap experience. Seriously, fire up a vm and click around for a while. The only people still using it are unable to upgrade for some reason besides laziness and inertia.

tomjen3 15y ago

No they don't. You can still opt out. Of course if you do that, we may end up pushing Chrome Frame on you, through an exploit (I would, if it wasn't illegal). Fuck MS for forcing us to deal with their crap.

nbclark 15y ago

Honestly, it is about time that they did this. I worked ont he IE team for a few years, and could never understand (aside from the enterprise argument) why users were not being auto-upgraded. "Hey here's a great new security model to replace the insecure previous version...but no rush on upgrading..."

WayneDB 15y ago

I wonder if it will keep replacing the shortcuts that I've removed.

olaf 15y ago

Welcome to the 21st century.

noblethrasher 15y ago

Interestingly (or perhaps ironically), this probably means that the IE chrome won't get updated lest it alarm the users.

bgarbiak 15y ago

It's a great change not because of IE6 (which, most likely, won't be affected at all) but because of future versions of Internet Explorer. These are now supposed to be released annually, which could be a curse for developers if there was no automatic upgrade mechanism (see: http://paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-the-new-ie6/ http://paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-th...). Today's decision of Microsoft means it will be a blessing. Basically, all of client side web-technologies will iterate a lot faster and in 2-3 years the vast majority of users will sport the newest version of a browser by default.

robbrown451 15y ago

What I don't understand is why doesn't Microsoft provide an upgrade that actually allows IE6 (and possibly other versions) to run as they did, on a site specific basis. This way corporations that need some IE6 only app can run them forever, but their employees can still use the rest of the web unhampered by this. Having it possible to run multiple "virtual browsers" within a single browser would also thrill web developers who want to test their sites on all the browsers without having to have multiple machines. Yes it would be a bit bloated, but the default install would probably be the one that just ran the latest version.

Legion 15y ago
I would just like to see a standalone version of IE6, everything wrapped up in one binary, so that the silly, completely unnecessary one-or-the-other choice wouldn't exist.
- robbrown451 15y ago
  True, that would help too, but it makes it challenging in a setting where people need to be able to email url's (possibly to the internal application) and the like. If it was specific to a domain or page, it would be a bit more seamless.
- skeptical 15y ago
  Such neatness is contrary to Microsoft philosophy, but hey, I see microsoft making wise thought through moves more and more often. Maybe they will slowly become an interesting company again. They're still enjoying the aftermath of the great brainwash of the 90s. But to be fair, there have always been interesting things coming from microsoft. So we'll see.

shapeshed 15y ago

still seeing 20% IE6 usage in my Corporate clients in the UK. I have spoken with IT administrators and they give the reason of internal tools needing IE6 to run. Some kind of backwards compatibility might help but until hardware is upgraded and there is an OS upgrade from XP IE6 will be around for a while IMHO.

dr_ 15y ago

Unfortunately our hospital EMR software, which I access from my office, does not work on IE9. I had to downgrade to IE8 to get it working.

arctangent 15y ago
Out of professional curiosity, I'd like to ask: do you work in the UK?
- dr_ 15y ago
  No, the US

zeeed 15y ago

Microsoft once more does a fully automated update? What could POSSIBLY go wrong?! On the same note, it literally pisses me off how companies decide to intervene with my software installation. Allowing an "opt-out" is worth as much as Google allowing me to opt out of mapping my access point by renaming it. We are observing a notable shift where personal(!) computers and devices are being turned into consumer devices that we have no control over. Not to speak about the privacy related side effects. Please, please, please let there soon be a pro-version of Linux on the desktop before the support cycle of Snow Leopard runs out.

hkarthik 15y ago

The more I see Microsoft bend over backwards for big corps to retard the web, the more I think that maybe big corps should just stay off the web. Perhaps staying on proprietary, native platforms that don't change as often is their best course in the future.

kgc 15y ago

Web designers around the world rejoice.