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Internet Users Not Updating Browser
Jackson writes "Security researchers from ETH Zurich, Google, and IBM Internet Security Systems have shown that more than 600 million Internet users don't use the latest version of their browser. The researchers' paper, shows that as of June 2008, only 59.1 percent of Internet users worldwide use the latest major version of their preferred web browser.
Suggestions have also been made to inform users that their browser is out of date."
I wonder how many of those are IE6, which a lot of people use because they CAN'T upgrade to IE7.
And as an above commenter pointed out, I highly doubt they factored in that some OS's can't actually run the latest version of their browser.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Windows 9x users cannot use the latest version of Firefox either.
They can still upgrade to Opera, which supports down to Windows 95.
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
Which is like 1-2% of the users. Our website gets about 10k hits per week, and maybe 1% of them are Win2k/98. We actually see more Mac users now. Most of it is just people who are using IE6 or 7 and click off the annoying update popup they get. Heck I use Opera and I was a couple versions behind until 9.5 came out (and I haven't upgraded to 9.51). I haven't had any spyware/etc. issues since the IE5 days, so I'm not exactly in a hurry.
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Neither can Vista users.
Both Firefox and Thunderbird refuse to update automatically under certain conditions (not running under Admin all the time as one of those conditions). Fixing it is more or less a PITA, too. I haven't done it yet, so I can hardly expect, for instance, my grandmother to do it.
While Firefox 3 chose to abandon Windows 95 compatibility, Firefox 2 is still being patched and maintained.
Unlike the IE6 users of Windows 95, who no longer get MS patches.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Who in their right mind have a computer online with Windows 95/98 or ME on it?
Someone whose business applications only run on Windows 95/98 or ME, and either there is no upgraded version of it (maybe the vendor went out of business) or the upgrade doesn't convert the old data, or doesn't have a feature being used, or otherwise isn't workable.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Not upgrading to IE7 because you don't "use" it is dangerous. Because, as you mentioned, IE is closely integrated into the operating system, its components can be used by other applications regardless of whether you click the blue 'E' icon or not. Any Windows application that has the ability to handle HTML content is likely to use some IE components. So if IE is not fully up to date, these other applications can put you at risk.
So, for example, vulnerabilities that only affect IE6 may affect other applications that use the relevant IE components for HTML rendering (think email, IM, etc.). Such as:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/923508
Or, even better... A recent Safari for Windows vulnerability:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/127185
Safari, a "stand-alone" web browser, is actually at a higher risk on systems with IE6 as opposed to IE7.
As with any software on your computer, you should upgrade it whether you *think* you use it or not.
If using a different Web browser to access a server causes it to crash, you have more serious things to worry about, like finding another vendor that doesn't write software that takes down your server when it's accessed in a perfectly reasonable manner.
[insert witty comment here]
And I'm pretty sure FF3 still works on Windows 2000 which just barely beats out Linux in popularity.
FF3 works in Windows 2000. I installed it last month on an older computer, and it is used daily as the default browser.
General Electric (at least in Europe, can't speak for other territories) only supports IE6 on their client pc's. IE7 breaks many internal web pages and if found on a user's computer, is uninstalled immediately. Stupid policy? Horrible web page design? Sure. But with 300,000+ worldwide employees, all stuck on an older version of Internet Explorer with no upgrade path or timeline in sight, I don't see this changing anytime soon. And GE (particularly under Jack Welch) has always struck me as a fairly nimble company compared to others it's size. I wonder how many other mega-corporations are similarly locked into older versions of web browsers and how much they contribute to the overall percentage of non-updated persons.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.