Internet Explorer 6 Must Die

From time to time I like to blow off some steam from my semi-red(dish)-haired (Now grey but dyed.) head. This is one such occasion; and what better to take out my moanings of condemnation and displeasure on than my old friend Internet Explorer 6?

As you may know; I’m totally against Microsoft’s old and dysfunctional browser, Internet Explorer 6. Two out of five of my visitors running Windows are using IE6; so if you’re viewing this blog in IE6 right now, your viewing experience is, to say the least, limited. I once pulled up this blog on an ancient computer in a hospital I visited in Bournemouth, UK, which was running IE6: It didn’t even look like a blog in all honesty, let alone my blog. – OK, it was during 2008, when this blog had a strange theme and hadn’t been otherwise enhanced much at all, but nevertheless it looked like the blog had been attacked with a sledgehammer, and then thrown back on the screen.

Now this computer had probably never been updated since it arrived in the hospital: It had a sticker on it saying that it was built to run Windows 98, and was being used to run a prosthetic imaging program, slowly. – However it was internet connected; so while the consultant was out of the room I browsed with it while I waited.

In my opinion, computers as old as this simply shouldn’t be running, and I’m extremely surprised that any still are. Nevertheless this is indeed the case. Some of the computers in used at college when I was studying electronics in 2005/6 were so old that the case had been modded to hold a network interface card so that they could connect to the internet! (Joke – But they were ancient; AGP slots, 16MB graphics, etc.) (Yes, I’m talking early Pentium 1 or older.) – Somehow they’d managed to get them to run XP.

(Actually I once installed XP on a comp with a P1 processor, 256 MB PC133 RAM, and 16MB graphics: It did actually run, although slowly and badly. I ended up wiping the disc and putting it just outside my front door at night until somebody eventually stole it. (Good riddance.))

So there are old computers around; but that’s no excuse for running IE6.

It’s getting near that point in the lunar phase where I am likely to get disgruntled easily; and so, bearing this in mind, let’s proceed: -

Some users don’t even realise that they’re running IE6.

I’m not being funny here; but a lot of non-computer-savvy users are running an “old faithful” machine that’s had XP installed on it forever. They don’t know about the essentiality of Microsoft updates, neither do they care, and have the updates turned off. Why? Well they somehow think that the more that they have on their hard-drive, the slower their machine will run. – Therefore they’ve uninstalled such “unnecessary” programs as anti-virus, firewall, etc, and are very prudent about keeping as little on their 4GB HDD as possible. – Yet still their machine is ten-times slower than it was when it was new. – Any ideas why?

These people mentioned above are still, seemingly obviously, running IE6, just as it came with XP from the offing. It works, kind of, between crashes, so why fix it? They don’t know or care that it’s IE6 anyway. It works, even though they get voices and screens full of spammy adverts appearing unexpectedly all the time.

- And it’s much the same scenario with most of those still running Windows 9x: Why pay for a new operating system when the existing one works fine anyway, when all the screens from the malware have been cancelled out that is. I still see it today: Yes, today I saw a user in China who visited this blog was using Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 4! Does the phrase “malware nursery” spring to anyone’s mind?

We’re going off topic somewhat here: The thing is that IE6 is the default browser that ships with Windows XP. people who install XP generally don’t seem to worry so long as it works. Yes many XP users have already upgraded their browser, but many more haven’t bothered. I’ve used XP since 2002. When IE7 came out I upgraded, and again when IE8 RTM was out. After upgrading to IE7 I started using FireFox as my main browser. Many never even bothered whatsoever.

I’ve also seen people running Server 2003 using IE6 too: Probably the same goes for them.

Before we proceed further; let’s take a look at a few adverts: -

Corporate environments

One of this biggest offenders for not updating computers are corporate environments: At college I commented that the IT department were useless as none of the computers had been updated since they had XP installed. I was told that the computers wouldn’t work properly on the college’s massive LAN if they were updated; which was a lie, as I’d updated mine a week ago, as well as installed a firewall with which I could block the tutor from spying on what I was doing on my computer.

I was told that the college’s server had a software firewall installed, and that it acted as a hardware firewall, in addition to which they had a corporate contract with Sophos to update all their antivirus programs on each individual computer regularly.

Whilst the latter was true, and also the former to some extent, it still didn’t make the network secure: All it would take is for a single piece of malware to get in and suddenly the entire network is a massive crapware – incubator and distribution – network. I think someone, whether purposefully or unknowingly, brought a nasty in on a USB stick once (Not me.) which was why the internet was unavailable for a week afterwards.

Corporate environments tend to have IT departments who assume that they’re gods; despite the fact that most of them don’t have a clue; regardless of their training or qualifications. – Add to this the British worker’s attitude of “Do as little as possible for as much as possible”, and you’ll normally find that there’s glaring insecurities in most corporate networks.

IE6 remains there as IE6 works and is inconvenient to upgrade on all machines; corporate licence or not; because the IT department want to charge a fortune for doing it, while Management want to cut costs.

When Vista with IE7 came along; not many people upgraded, because Vista at the time was a heap of merde’. (In fact my blog’s statistics show that the three most popular browsers are, in this order, sadly: Internet Explorer 6, FireFox 3, Internet Explorer 7. IE8 is a little further down at No5.) – But here comes Windows 7: It’s good, it’s well-thought-out, it’s functional, and there’s nothing hidden about it this time. – So buy it. If your computer can’t run it then renew your computer. – And if you can; run the 64-bit version and help kill off RAM-restricted 32-bit computing along with IE6.

Reasons to be cheerful. – Temporarily: -

- But there is one legitimate reason in my mind for using IE6. – One only; and that’s only the case until October 22nd 2009: The user is using Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 won’t run IE7 or 8, so there’s a slither of an excuse for using it until Windows 7 is officially launched. – After which people should take their old computers offline in my opinion, anything that won’t run Vista or 7 should be disconnected from the internet and used as a stand-alone machine. Cost is really no longer much of an obstacle. – Stop drinking, smoking, taking drugs, gambling, whatever, and buy a new computer. (A decent computer is a million times more important.) – I’ve already showed you recently, in the article entitled “Build a Decent Budget PC for £225GBP”, how you can build your own well-specced machine for a couple of nicker plus.

“But I can’t…” Rubbish; “can’t” means “can’t be bothered to learn how”.

Yes you can build it yourself: As a child; did you ever fit Lego bricks together? Then you can build a computer: It’s an adult version of Lego, with wires, data, and electricity added to make it a bit more difficult than a Lego set.

To borrow a phrase from an online associate; if you run IE6 after October 2009, then you lose at life. – End of story. If you’re running it now then stop doing so and update your computer, or scrap it and buy/build another one + buy Windows 7 when it RTMs. If you don’t know whether you’re running it or not, then if you’re using XP, (Or Windows 9x – Which you shouldn’t be doing: You’re a security risk to yourself and all other internet users.) and haven’t updated your browser since installation, then you probably are. – Get it sorted.

- And so the novel ends here: Pressure between my ears has equalised with the air-pressure inside this room, and I’m happy again. Please keep me a happy bunny by not using Internet Explorer 6. By not doing so you’ll have a better browsing experience, and I won’t get so frustrated at seeing so much IE6 usage either. My suggestion is, whatever version of Internet Explorer you’re using, if running Windows, whether or not you’re aware what version it is, simply install FireFox and use that instead for browsing. If you don’t like FireFox then use Opera or Safari.

At the top of the page there are some browser logos, just under the words “This blog does not fully support Internet Explorer 6 or earlier. If you are using IE6, please download a decent browser. Click on a browser logo below: –“. If you hover over a logo it’ll identify itself to you. If you click it then you can download the respective browser and use it in place of IE6.

I’ll be nice, charitable even: I’ll bring the logos down here so that you IE6 users can click on them and get a decent browser. – Aren’t I kind? : -

There you are: Now you can browse the net with a decent browser and enjoy your experience. – Also I don’t want to see you browse onto this site using IE6 again. In fact, if I can find a piece of fully-reliable IE6 php detection software that never gives a false-positive, then I’m thinking of banning IE6 from this blog altogether in 2010. – I don’t care: IE6 will die; even if it means that I have to to lose some traffic in order to help put it in the grave once and for all.

That’s all.

And now; another advert: -