Microsoft: To secure IE, upgrade to XP

[dixieflatline]

hxxp://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+secure+IE+for+XP+only/2100-1032_3-5378366.html

Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the operating system costs $199.

Is anyone still using IE anyway? I wonder how much longer people will just blindly pay microsoft before looking some alternatives? I wonder how long before microsoft decides it doesn't need to path ME or 2000 at all?

[primelord]

Is anyone still using IE anyway? I wonder how much longer people will just blindly pay microsoft before looking some alternatives? I wonder how long before microsoft decides it doesn't need to path ME or 2000 at all?
I don't think this is really much of a problem as it will probably force most people to Mozilla which is a good thing anyway. They will be better off for it.

As far as blindly paying Microsoft and not searching for alternatives I am guessing you are talking just about the OS here (since you don't pay for the browser). What alternatives do you want people to go to? I am all for Linux and the other *nix operating systems. I do Unix security administration for a living. I can tell you though that Linux is flat out not a viable alternative for many common home users.

For example my parents would never be able to handle a linux desktop. You can't play FOF in a linux environment without something like VMware which will just require you to have a copy of Windows anyway. Macs are fine I guess, but I would still rather have a PC than a Mac any day.

I agree the for a business they should be looking more into some of the alternatives as they are more cost effective, the applications are in many situations on par and compatible with Microsoft counterparts, and they would geenrally have a support staff to manage the machines. For home users and gamers though there really isn't a viable alternative at the moment.

[GrantDawg]

I don't think this is really much of a problem as it will probably force most people to Mozilla which is a good thing anyway. They will be better off for it.

Really? I found Mozilla to be a buggy piece of crap. I used it for a while, but got tired of it crashing for no reason (on top of not being able to cut and paste anything on this board) and went back to IE.

[primelord]

Really? I found Mozilla to be a buggy piece of crap. I used it for a while, but got tired of it crashing for no reason (on top of not being able to cut and paste anything on this board) and went back to IE.
The 0.9 branch of Firefox is much more stable than some of the older versions (although it does still occasionally crash on me). The being better off statement was in reference to the extreme number of security holes that are discovered in IE each year. Mozilla/Firefox is not imune to this problem either, but they have had a much better track record.

[Samdari]

You guys really underestimate the lack of savvy of the average computer user. Not only do some people actually still use IE, it is actually the browser of choice. As for what most people will do - the answer is keep using whatever version of IE they got for free with their OS and ignore any security warnings associated with it.

[Daimyo]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];LifeWin

Microsoft's stated support policy says that ME mainstream support (freely available patches) ended last December 31st and extended support (pay for patches) ends December 31st of this year. Despite this, Microsoft has continued to release severe security patches for ME this year basically as a courtesy to users. 2000 Professional mainstream support ends June 30th of next year, although extended support runs through 2010, although you have to imagine 2000 patches will still be available for years since so many companies still run a bunch of 2000 Server.

Do you seriously expect that Microsoft should support all it's products forever? You think they should still be providing patches for Windows 3.11 for Workgroups? :) ME was released nearly four years ago and 2000 about three and a half years ago. Microsoft takes a lot of crap, but it's incredibly rare for us to have any third party vendors provide support for more than one version behind (usually equates to about two years from release - and that's even with paying support contracts).

That said, i agree that IE is crap and the SP2 version is still far, far behind FireFox.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, and if this is any indication, the world is slowly starting to catch on to that:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

[dawgfan]

Heh, now that I'm no longer an MS employee as of the end of next month, I'll be excited to switch to a new browser.

[JeeberD]

Really? I found Mozilla to be a buggy piece of crap. I used it for a while, but got tired of it crashing for no reason (on top of not being able to cut and paste anything on this board) and went back to IE.

Were you using Firefox? I've had no troubles at all with it, and cutting and pasting work just fine...

[SoxWin]

Were you using Firefox? I've had no troubles at all with it, and cutting and pasting work just fine...

Agreed. And I'm one of the most computer illiterate people I know.

[GrantDawg]

Were you using Firefox? I've had no troubles at all with it, and cutting and pasting work just fine...
Yup. It tells me I have to change a setting that I cannot find.

[GrantDawg]

Agreed. And I'm one of the most computer illiterate people I know.
Sad thing is, I'm not. I'm far from a proffesional, but I'm not illiterate either. I looked for a fix, but cannot find it.

[sterlingice]

Were you using Firefox? I've had no troubles at all with it, and cutting and pasting work just fine...
I used to have that cut-and-paste problem in Mozilla. I forget what I did but I think it worked with shift+insert but not ctrl+v. That said, since going from Mozilla to Firefox, I haven't had the problem.

SI

[Danny]

90% of users still use IE. As for there being more security holes in IE than Mozilla, I doubt it. The difference is IE is what everyone is trying to attack. If 90% off users were using Mozilla, I would guarentee quite a few new security holes would be found and exploited.

[sterlingice]

90% of users still use IE. As for there being more security holes in IE than Mozilla, I doubt it. The difference is IE is what everyone is trying to attack. If 90% off users were using Mozilla, I would guarentee quite a few new security holes would be found and exploited.
I know it's splitting hairs, but most numbers have them at about 75% as Mozilla is enjoying a decent uptick since January. And I'm sure if more users were using Mozilla then it would be the target of more attacks.

However, if you're an individual user, why not use the one that's more secure and more standards compliant at the moment? That is, unless you get better performance out of IE.

SI

[Danny]

I know it's splitting hairs, but most numbers have them at about 75% as Mozilla is enjoying a decent uptick since January. And I'm sure if more users were using Mozilla then it would be the target of more attacks.

However, if you're an individual user, why not use the one that's more secure and more standards compliant at the moment? That is, unless you get better performance out of IE.
SI

I use Firefox 0.9 exclusively for personal browsing :). The 90% was from 6 months or so ago. Here are some recent findings http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm They have IE at anywhere from 83-92% except for the 5th source which has them at only 57%. Im going to throw that one out considering how far off it is from the other 4.

[Alf]

I am a newly semi-converted FireFox user. Still using IE at work for work browsing but using FireFow for non-work browsing.

[Honolulu_Blue]

90% of users still use IE. As for there being more security holes in IE than Mozilla, I doubt it. The difference is IE is what everyone is trying to attack. If 90% off users were using Mozilla, I would guarentee quite a few new security holes would be found and exploited.

I thinkthis right. In fact, it's probably closer to 95% of all users. There are really only a handful of people who even know what Mozilla or some of the other alternatives are. Hell, I consider myself somewhat tech savy and I use IE. It's easy. It's there. It works. I have no real issue with it.

[MJ4H]

I honestly dont know anyone on a personal level that uses IE :)
(That's partially because they trust me and I told them not to) :D

[MizzouRah]

hxxp://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+secure+IE+for+XP+only/2100-1032_3-5378366.html

Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the operating system costs $199.

Is anyone still using IE anyway? I wonder how much longer people will just blindly pay microsoft before looking some alternatives? I wonder how long before microsoft decides it doesn't need to path ME or 2000 at all?
Blindly pay? Don't you do that with games most of the time?? I don't understand what's so bad about upgrading to the latest OS?

IE works great for me, always has, always will.


Todd

[dixieflatline]

Blindly pay? Don't you do that with games most of the time?? I don't understand what's so bad about upgrading to the latest OS?

IE works great for me, always has, always will.

Yes it is blindly paying when people don't even check out other options before purchasing. Actually, I never buy a game when it first comes out. I wait until I have read enough good reviews and positive messages on this board. Thanks everyone BTW for all the good info about different games here. If a demo is available I also install that first to check things out. I know that that puts me in the minority though.

As for having everyone to upgrade XP there are a lot of people out there with slow systems that have small harddrives that work much better with the windows version that they are currently running. Windows XP itself takes up 1.5 GB. This may not be a big deal to you but I do know people that are still using laptops with 5 GB of space. Also, a lot of the home users are very scared of installing a new operating system on their computer and would rather be unsecure than upgrade.

And yes IE will work but there are so many nice features with mozilla/firefox/etc. Just the tabbed browsing, which I just used to check the system requirement, alone is worth using a different browser IMO.

Do you seriously expect that Microsoft should support all it's products forever? You think they should still be providing patches for Windows 3.11 for Workgroups?

You make a very good point here. If there was a flaw that needed patching in Windows ME alone that would be one thing but this patch was for IE. I can't imagine that it would have drained huge resources at mircosoft to port that patch to ME/2000 etc.

As far as blindly paying Microsoft and not searching for alternatives I am guessing you are talking just about the OS here (since you don't pay for the browser). What alternatives do you want people to go to? I am all for Linux and the other *nix operating systems. I do Unix security administration for a living. I can tell you though that Linux is flat out not a viable alternative for many common home users.

Yes your absolutely correct. It certainly would be nice if Linux was advanced enough for homeuse by common users. It's not there yet but it is improving and hopefully someday soon it will be a viable option. As for the games not working on linux that could end up being the last hurdle for linux. Even if their OS is better and cheaper than Windows if there isn't enough of the software that they want to run people still won't move over.

[MizzouRah]

Yes it is blindly paying when people don't even check out other options before purchasing. Actually, I never buy a game when it first comes out. I wait until I have read enough good reviews and positive messages on this board. Thanks everyone BTW for all the good info about different games here. If a demo is available I also install that first to check things out. I know that that puts me in the minority though.

This isn't a $25,000,00 car we're talking about here, it's an OS that's taken home PC's to greater hights. What other options should they look at, Linux? :) I know you were talking about IE, but if you have the lastest OS from MS, the latest version of IE is included, free.

As for having everyone to upgrade XP there are a lot of people out there with slow systems that have small harddrives that work much better with the windows version that they are currently running. Windows XP itself takes up 1.5 GB. This may not be a big deal to you but I do know people that are still using laptops with 5 GB of space. Also, a lot of the home users are very scared of installing a new operating system on their computer and would rather be unsecure than upgrade.

MS can't keep putting time and effort into 98 or ME, it's just not feasable when better technology is here. This won't make some people happy, but upgrade. With the prices for pc parts at an all time low, upgrade your HD or other pc components to make it compatible with Windows XP. If you just can't live without Windows 98 or just stubborn when it comes to Microsoft, fine... just don't gripe when they quit supporting ancient code.

And yes IE will work but there are so many nice features with mozilla/firefox/etc. Just the tabbed browsing, which I just used to check the system requirement, alone is worth using a different browser IMO.

I believe you, but IE has been just fine for my tastes. I've never had an issue, so why change?


Todd

[sterlingice]

This isn't a $25,000,00 car we're talking about here, it's an OS that's taken home PC's to greater hights. What other options should they look at, Linux? :) I know you were talking about IE, but if you have the lastest OS from MS, the latest version of IE is included, free.
I have to take issue with this mentality of "they give us the web browser for free so why not force people to upgrade".

Isn't this what a bunch of us were crying foul about 5 years ago? Back when Microsoft was leveraging their monopoly to distribute IE free, wasn't this the kind of thing we were bemoaning? Say what you will about the quality of Netscape, but it did spur innovation because there was competition. Instead, they gave IE away for free so they could drive Netscape out of the market.

So, now, what we predicted has come to pass. Microsoft hasn't put out a significant IE upgrade in 3 years and hasn't even maintained their software. And people are forced to pay for what was free before (maintenance for web browswer) now that they have a virtual monopoly. Contrary to all of their claims, the browser was never an integral part of the OS, just another possible money maker as it is now.

So, no, I don't have any sympathy at all for Microsoft. They knew exactly what they were doing driving out their major competition in the browser market. As the monopoly holder, they have a responsibility to be a benevolent monopoly that is good for consumers or be broken up. So, after leveraging their OS monopoly to gain one in browsers, they are now using their browsers to get one in OS's. There should be more of an outrcy about this not less. They played dirty and they should be called on it.

SI

[dixieflatline]

MS can't keep putting time and effort into 98 or ME, it's just not feasable when better technology is here. This won't make some people happy, but upgrade. With the prices for pc parts at an all time low, upgrade your HD or other pc components to make it compatible with Windows XP. If you just can't live without Windows 98 or just stubborn when it comes to Microsoft, fine... just don't gripe when they quit supporting ancient code.

I understand that this is old code that we are talking about and it would certainly be easier if everyone spent the money and upgraded to XP. This isn' t the world we live in though. Microsoft has had lot's of trouble getting people to install updates much less buy and install a new operating system. This will cause lots of computers to be vunerable that don't have to be. If there was a flaw in the code for just ME or 98 or whatever then I understand not patching it. But this is a bug in IE and I just don't believe that it would cost microsoft much in time or money porting the patch to their other operating systems.

[MizzouRah]

I have to take issue with this mentality of "they give us the web browser for free so why not force people to upgrade".

Isn't this what a bunch of us were crying foul about 5 years ago? Back when Microsoft was leveraging their monopoly to distribute IE free, wasn't this the kind of thing we were bemoaning? Say what you will about the quality of Netscape, but it did spur innovation because there was competition. Instead, they gave IE away for free so they could drive Netscape out of the market.

So, now, what we predicted has come to pass. Microsoft hasn't put out a significant IE upgrade in 3 years and hasn't even maintained their software. And people are forced to pay for what was free before (maintenance for web browswer) now that they have a virtual monopoly. Contrary to all of their claims, the browser was never an integral part of the OS, just another possible money maker as it is now.

So, no, I don't have any sympathy at all for Microsoft. They knew exactly what they were doing driving out their major competition in the browser market. As the monopoly holder, they have a responsibility to be a benevolent monopoly that is good for consumers or be broken up. So, after leveraging their OS monopoly to gain one in browsers, they are now using their browsers to get one in OS's. There should be more of an outrcy about this not less. They played dirty and they should be called on it.

SI
You make excellent points, but I guess since I'm in the "IT" world, stuff like this just doesn't impact my life. I hated Netscape, so IE has always been quite fine for myself. I always upgrade to the latest OS, and have been lucky enough to upgrade my PC at times, as well.

I know people are pissed who have older systems, but there's probably more reason MS is doing this instead of the typical response, "MS is the devil".

:)


Todd

[MizzouRah]

I understand that this is old code that we are talking about and it would certainly be easier if everyone spent the money and upgraded to XP. This isn' t the world we live in though. Microsoft has had lot's of trouble getting people to install updates much less buy and install a new operating system. This will cause lots of computers to be vunerable that don't have to be. If there was a flaw in the code for just ME or 98 or whatever then I understand not patching it. But this is a bug in IE and I just don't believe that it would cost microsoft much in time or money porting the patch to their other operating systems.
True, but maybe it's just not feasable to support the older OS code? I could be wrong, maybe MS is doing something they shouldn't be.

I know they've made it easier for everyday people by updating the automatic updates, etc...


Todd