Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/microsoft-decides-to-automatically-update-internet-explorer-for-everyone-20111215/

by ukdm • 15 years ago

626 171 15 years ago

geek.com

andrewheins• 15 years 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• 15 years 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.

SideburnsOfDoom3• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

hallelujah!!!

hendrik-xdest2• 15 years 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.

SideburnsOfDoom3• 15 years 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" ?

hucker• 15 years 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/

gldalmaso3• 15 years 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• 15 years 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)

jl6• 15 years ago

Large corporations run lots of browser-based applications. To upgrade these applications, or even to regression test them - even in virtual environments - costs money. Any money they spend on IT comes out of their profits, or is added onto their prices. Would you pay an extra 5 bucks to buy your car insurance from a company that has ditched IE6?

hendrik-xdest2• 15 years ago

There are quite a lot of companies that have applications that rely on IE6. I, personally, know of a few financial institutions that can't update. This might not be necessarily related to their systems not being able to work with a newer version, though. Some office drones are just incapable of doing there job if the color of a button changes. I kid you not.

Other companies have a long(!) cycle when evaluating new software releases. I have heard of an insurance provider that rolled out IE7 just this year.

tdoggette2• 15 years ago

I work for a local-government IT department in the DC area. We're on IE7, but we have automatic updates turned off.

At first, a few years ago, it was because there was one specific update that broke our Oracle software, so everything got turned off. Now, we keep them off because of inertia. We started pushing out selected security updates in the last few months because the security folks insisted.

Oddly, it's our policy to install the full set of updates (except IE8) to all machines that have issues. We also update our images with all the latest stuff from Microsoft Updates.

hsuresh• 15 years ago

Legacy applications. When you have invested on applications that sadly work only on IE6, then you have no choice but to block the updates. It would be great if windows can run different versions of IE on the same machine, or even at the same time.

melling2• 15 years 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• 15 years 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?

melling2• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

Is IE8 really that bad with regards to standards ? That's an honest question.

dspillett3• 15 years ago

Not a decade for XP and IE6, but certainly more than two years. Close to a decade for IE8 potentially though.

XPsp3 drops off extended support in April 2014 (see http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?ln=en-gb&c2=1173 for detail) at which point it will get no new security updates unless you are a company that can afford to pay for them to be done (and if you did need to try that, it would no doubt be very expensive).

It is highly unlikely that the large companies (who are the main bodies holding on to XP and IE6) will allow themselves to still be using XP or IE6 beyond that point.

Unfortunately IE8 will work on Vista and 7, so I can see some corporates upgrading to IE8 and no further for now. The lifecycle lookup chart at MS (http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectindex) doesn't list dates for IE7 or IE8. Assuming that IE8's support window is tied to Windows 7 the same way IE6 and XPsp3 were tied for support purposes (as W7 was delivered with IE8 installed), they'll be able to use IE8 under Windows 7 until 2020 (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=14482) if they are stupid enough to try.

Brajeshwar• 15 years ago

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

mmcconnell16182• 15 years 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• 15 years 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-...

hello_moto• 15 years ago

If Redmond insist to have this option, please make it super hard for users to do it :D

kmfrk• 15 years ago

Sounds reasonable and as something only power users would be aware of.

Updating using Windows Update is the biggest pain in the ass, and it's great to see a much more convenient solution.

dpark3• 15 years ago

The is a common claim, but has anyone actually researched this? Is there any evidence that this is still true? It's my understanding that most of the IE6 market share is in Asia, where many people are running pirated versions of XP.

miles_matthias2• 15 years ago

My experience has been that the US government is a big IE6 consumer as well.

waitwhat• 15 years ago

Pirated versions of XP are perfectly capable of running IE7/8.

The problem is that a few years ago Microsoft pushed Windows Genuine Advantage updates automatically via Windows Update (they might even have done this twice), with the result that all those pirated versions of XP turned off Windows Update forever and never installing anything from microsoft.com.

Oops.

davedx• 15 years ago

Do you have any research to backup your claim?

dhkl2• 15 years ago

I worked for a Mainland Chinese manufacturing company for a while, and they run all their desktops on Windows 2000. They have several applications that targets IE only, and will not run (properly) on other modern browsers such as Firefox or Chrome.

What I have found is that the IT guys in China compile many "recovery disk" with a pirated copy of Windows that people use to reinstall their OS. A lot of these disks are XP-based, but more people are running Window 7 now.

Lastly, several Chinese companies have developed their own version of browsers. I haven't really looked into what kind of rendering engine they run, but they appear to be some kind of rebranded IE. Does anyone have the scoop on this?

mmcconnell16182• 15 years ago

http://www.ie6countdown.com/ has a good breakdown of the percentage of IE6 users around the world. Indeed, China leads the pack in the largest percentage of IE6 users.

This survey from 2007 (I know it's old now) showed 55.2% of corporations used IE6. I'm pretty sure it is one of the sources of the "big companies use IE6" claim. http://www.dailytech.com/Firefox+Makes+Big+Gains+In+Business...

And here's a newer poll showing 29% of respondents use IE6 at work with "no end in sight" http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/03/it-poll-do-yo...

matan_a• 15 years ago

I've seen first hand that even a large "fortune top 10 places to work" silicon-valley company forces IE6 on their staff. You don't have to look very far.

I did see Chrome installed as well so that might be their solution :)

maaku• 15 years ago

I do some limited IT support for a large (140,000 employees), multi-national defense company. Everything is IE6, and IE6-only. If I use IE9 to access our internal apps, it complains I have an unsupported browser.

I know our competition works the same way, as does pretty much the whole government services sector. That's a few million employees in the U.S. alone.

veidr2• 15 years ago

Big corporate is such a weird space.

On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be).

On the other hand, I doubt that consumer adoption driving sites to drop support for IE6 will have any substantial impact on what megacorps decide to deploy.

One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser.

While I personally think that's insane -- if you are that specific (not to mention antiquated) with your browser requirements, why don't you just code a native app? -- I've also never developed software with a team larger than five, and certainly don't know the nitty-gritty details about spreading the work over a dozen countries and hundreds of developers, the vast majority being low-cost Chinese and Indian coders. So I'm not judging (or at least I'm trying not to).

But my point is that Big Corporate just wants their freaky "web-based" apps to run predictably for the projected 6-year deployment timeframe and does not give one flying fuck about whether their staff can access the new hip and way-superior version of <ANY OTHER WEB APP ON EARTH>. Unless said had real business value to large enterprise, but then, if it did... it would probably support MSIE6.

So while this news is welcome, it's still unlikely that the computing capabilities of the typical large-company locked-down employee PC are going to become awesome, or even good. Even MSIE8, while way better than 6, still isn't something you jump for joy having to develop for.

This matters less and less, though, as the percentage of people who have a way more capable browser in in their pocket increases. So I think that it is starting to make a lot more sense to give up on corporate machines and dead-end legacy browsers, and instead spend that effort on scaling your app's interface to smaller form factors.

(Disclaimer: that's what I think, but not what I actually do. I work on web-based software for medium-sized businesses, so I don't have to worry much about what browser users happen to have. In this context, you can have requirements, and I tend to just say, 'In order to decrease development costs, the system requires the Google Chrome browser. But don't worry: it's free, secure, cross-platform, and has become the dominant web technology standard.' That last part is a bit of customer-reassurance hyperbole, but so far, no problems. (And of course the same code typically works fine on Safari if there's an iOS requirement.))

ArbitraryLimits2• 15 years ago

Just curious, what makes you think the "enterprise" market is less lucrative than it used to be?

commandar2• 15 years ago

>One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser.

This happens all the time at the hospital I work at. I'm constantly flummoxed by how behind the times software vendors consistently are. We're still stuck on XP for the foreseeable future because some of our vendors are still pushing updates that are totally incompatible with NT6 with no timeline for when it might work.

They've had half a decade to fix their software, and they just aren't doing it. I understand that Enterprise moves slowly, but you eventually reach a point of absurdity, as well.

mdc• 15 years ago

>why don't you just code a native app?

It sounds like that's exactly what they did,

They just hosted most of the code on a server. It's kind of like the "native" iOS apps that just use a webview component to display a web app. Sticking with IE6 just means you have all the hassle of a native app (like needing to make sure IE6 gets installed and stays installed on every machine) with none of the benefits.

ams61102• 15 years ago

While I personally think that's insane -- if you are that specific (not to mention antiquated) with your browser requirements, why don't you just code a native app?

They pretty much have. They are probably using VBScript for event handling and depending on various IE6 behaviors that are no longer supported in current versions of IE and never were available on other browsers. They've written a "native" app for the IE 5/6 platform.

dhughes• 15 years ago

Yeah we use IE6 (on four year old laptops no less!) because there are applications that we Techs use that the company won't replace and the applications can only be used in IE6 apparently.

Waiting for five or ten minutes for a failed Adobe Flash update to try and load (fails since I am not a desktop admin) each time I reboot or power on and then a full two minutes for Outlook to start is not fun thing to do every day.

No thanks to our outsourced IT to a three letter company.

protomyth• 15 years ago

Educational institutions using certain testing software from a textbook publishers will probably block updates also. The problem is that, like a lot of enterprise software, the testing sites are fairly fragile and don't react well to changes in browsers. After getting into a situation where students couldn't take tests do to an update, most system admins curse at the sky and then block updates until given the go ahead. It sucks, but the book publishers make poor software.

// ok - just to head off all the switch testing, books, etc. comments - none of those are options. certification testing sites are kinda non-negotiable

bradwestness2• 15 years ago

There are also things like JAWS screen readers and other add-ons that educational institutions MUST use to comply with ADA regulations which, surprise, generally depend on specific versions of IE to function (though personally the ones we use at my work are at least compatible with IE 8).

There's not really a very good alternative to this-- Firefox has a history of breaking it's extension model with every major version, and Chrome is still in relative infancy (though I personally use it every day), so I think it's understandable that "enterprise" software companies haven't rushed to ditch IE for them.

bdunbar• 15 years ago

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.

It won't, if my experience is anything to go by.

I believe most of the 'IE6 only' apps are not 'on the internet' but in-house only applications.

Ours certainly are.

ajo11• 15 years ago

Santa is real!

hkarthik2• 15 years ago

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

Hikari• 15 years ago

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

apaprocki2• 15 years 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• 15 years 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.

apaprocki2• 15 years 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.

RyanMcGreal3• 15 years ago

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

nkassis• 15 years ago

Maybe Microsoft could enable an auto update to XP to a limited Win 7 OS :)

antinitro• 15 years ago

I honestly can't see the reasoning behind this.

RyanMcGreal3• 15 years ago

They want people to buy a newer version of Windows.

dangrossman2• 15 years 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."

pbhjpbhj• 15 years ago

Yes they can: Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari ...

eli2• 15 years ago

Neat, how do those handle legacy activex sites.

dmbaggett2• 15 years ago

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

ConstantineXVI• 15 years 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.

dmbaggett2• 15 years ago

In what way, since IE5.5 and XHR, has IE driven innovation in browsers? Serious question.

JoeAltmaier• 15 years 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• 15 years 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• 15 years 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."

gldalmaso3• 15 years 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.

tomjen32• 15 years 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.

AndyKelley• 15 years ago

What? I'm calling you out. Sure, you can customize your OS if you run Linux. You can also customize your OS if you run Windows or Mac, and it's not more difficult. More to the point, you can install an alternate browser or even an alternate version of IE if you so choose.

mehwoot• 15 years ago

Pushing updates is on par for chrome and firefox as well. What specific ways is IE's usability "spiralling down"? I quite like the improvements made from 6 up to 9.

jrwn• 15 years 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• 15 years 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• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

That sounds bee-yoo-tee-ful.

muchonada• 15 years ago

<= Happy

obtu2• 15 years ago

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

BonoboBoner• 15 years 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_matthias2• 15 years 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

Maybe IE10 and up. Maybe.

ward• 15 years ago

Seems like a bit of a stretch to require jQuery for a snippet like that.

dhkl2• 15 years 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.

yuhong3• 15 years ago

Indeed, Flash became popular especially during the IE6 stagnation.

eli2• 15 years 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.

tomjen32• 15 years 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• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

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

olaf• 15 years ago

Welcome to the 21st century.

noblethrasher• 15 years ago

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

bgarbiak• 15 years 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-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.

robbrown4512• 15 years 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• 15 years 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.

robbrown4512• 15 years 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• 15 years 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• 15 years 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_2• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

Out of professional curiosity, I'd like to ask: do you work in the UK?

dr_2• 15 years ago

No, the US

zeeed• 15 years 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.

hkarthik2• 15 years 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• 15 years ago

Web designers around the world rejoice.

Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

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