Judging by this screenshot taken by an IE6 user who was watching some videos on YouTube, it appears the Google company will be phasing out support for the browser shortly. I don’t have Internet Explorer 6 installed on my computer, so I can’t verify this first hand, but illogical it seems not and a simple Twitter search shows multiple people confirming the news. Heck, some are even downright ecstatic over the news.

The online video behemoth is pointing to ‘modern’ browsers like Google Chrome (twice on the same page even, unsurprisingly), Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 as alternatives.

With the impending move, YouTube follows in the footsteps of that other Web 2.0 poster child, Digg, which recently hinted at wanting to cut support for the browser too. Digg’s User Experience Architect Mark Trammell at the time wrote that the site is strongly considering removing essential features like digging and commenting for IE6 users. He explained that while IE6 users make up around 5% of site traffic, it only accounts for 1% of diggs, buries, and comments.

YouTube so far hasn’t officially communicated about the desire to drop support for IE6, but it’s conceivable that like Digg it would rather have its developers spend time optimizing the service for newer, better browsers than wasting man hours on the oft-despised Microsoft browser. We recently reported that Internet Explorer is losing market share to Firefox and Safari at a rapid pace.

Source: TechCrunch

Microsoft has announced plans to distribute their latest web browser Internet Explorer 8 to computers running previous installments of Internet Explorer via Automatic Updates. The final version of Internet Explorer 8 was already distributed that way to users still running a release candidate or beta version of the web browser.

The distribution will be started in the third week of April for users running Internet Explorer 6 or Internet Explorer 7 on the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The update will be a high priority update for Windows XP and Server 2003 while it will be rated important on Vista and Server 2008.

The rollout will commence gradually with no time frame given at this time. This does not mean however that Internet Explorer 8 will be installed on the computer system right away. Microsoft is giving users the choice to perform the installation, to delay or avoid it.

The majority of users will most likely perform the install of Internet Explorer 8 which is beneficial not only for them and the security of their computer system but also for web developers who usually dislike the older Internet Explorer editions.

Users, system administrator or companies who want to opt out can still install the Internet Explorer 8 Blocker tool. New Internet Explorer users might be interested in Internet Explorer 8 ad blocking.

Source: ghacks.net

Today Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser that offers the best solution for how people use the Web today. It can be downloaded in 25 languages at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 starting at noon EDT on March 19. Internet Explorer 8 is easier to use, faster and offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people’s increasing concerns about online safety. A new study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. shows that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78 percent are more likely to choose a Web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago.

“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers; cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.

Helps Protect People From Online Threats

The new study released today reinforces the importance of safety in browsing, indicating that 78 percent of people are more likely than they were two years ago to choose a browser that includes built-in protection against security threats without them having to go online to download additional programs or browser add-ons. It also showed that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online fraud and identity theft in today’s economic climate, and 37 percent are less likely to shop online because they would have to give their personal information.

Internet Explorer 8 offers the best security protections among leading browsers: a study released today by NSS Labs indicates that Internet Explorer 8 blocks two to four times as many malicious sites as other browsers on the market today.

Makes Common Online Tasks Faster and Easier

In addition to offering improved security and privacy protections, Internet Explorer 8 is one of the fastest browsers on the market today, beating other top browsers in page load time on almost 50 percent of the 25 top comScore Inc. Web sites.* It also helps people save time while using the Web with easy-to-use new features, including the following:

“We are excited about Internet Explorer 8 for several reasons, including its ability to provide our customers with updates to eBay products using Web Slices so they can keep track of their buying activity while surfing the web,” said Matt Ackley, vice president of Internet Marketing and Advertising at eBay.

“The new ESPN Web Slices on Internet Explorer 8 make it easy for sports fans to check on the latest news and sports videos in a new and exciting way,” said Jason Guenther, vice president of technology and product development at ESPN Digital Media. “We have a heritage of leveraging technology to deliver the best sports content to fans, and this is another example of our dedication to that.”

Available for Download

Internet Explorer 8 will be available for download at noon EDT in 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified and Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. More information and a download of Internet Explorer 8 (as of noon EDT on March 19) can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

Microsoft will showcase the final browser and outline benefits and opportunities for a variety of audiences on March 19 at Microsoft’s MIX09 conference for web designers and developers in Las Vegas.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

*comScore data based on December 2008

For more information about the research studies:

National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive study: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/windows/factsheets/BrowserSecurityFS.mspx

NSS Labs study: http://nsslabs.com

For more information about Internet Explorer 8 performance:

See the Internet Explorer 8 white paper

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx

Microsoft plans to make its Internet Explorer 8 browser available on Thursday, along with a company-commissioned report claiming IE8 is more secure against malware than rival browsers from Mozilla and Google.

Users will be able to download IE8 in 25 languages at 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday from Microsoft’s IE Web site and its online download center.

Microsoft has been preparing users for IE8 for a good year now, stressing performance improvements, better support for Internet technology standards, the addition of new features to help people keep track of most visited sites and favorite sources of information, and of course, security, as highlights of the new browser.

According to the report Microsoft released Thursday, based on research conducted by NSS Labs, IE8′s Release Candidate 1 was 69 percent effective at catching malware before it did damage to a user’s system. Mozilla Firefox 3.07 came in second with a 30 percent effectiveness rate, with Apple Safari’s 3 in third place with a 24-percent rate and Google’s Chrome 1.0.154 in fourth place with 16 percent effectiveness rate

NSS Labs said in the report that the data was collected from tests conducted in just over 12 days from Feb. 26 through March 10 in its labs in Austin, Texas. During the course of the test, the company said it monitored connectivity to ensure the browsers could access the live malware sites being tested, and performed 141 discrete tests. The margin of error of the tests was 3.76 percent, according to NSS Labs.

Amy Barzdukas, a senior director at Microsoft, acknowledged that it might be a conflict of interest for Microsoft to sponsor a report in which IE8 came out on top in terms of security. However, she encouraged people to “look closely at the results” before making a judgment call on the validity of the report.

IE8 will be included as part of the Windows 7 OS. However, for the first time since adding browser technology to its operating system, Microsoft will give users the ability to turn off IE8 as a feature in the system.

This decision was outlined in a blog posts on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. Microsoft is under pressure from an ongoing antitrust case in the European Union to give users more browser choice in Windows.

Source: PCWorld

While Windows 7 may be one potential “killer app” for Microsoft, another less frequently mentioned one is Internet Explorer 8.  The betas of IE 8 drew rave reviews, with many saying the browser was faster, more secure, and more intuitive than IE 7, as well as bringing numerous useful features like the new InPrivate Browsing privacy mode, which some took to colorfully calling “porn mode”.  Another really nice feature introduced in IE 8 is the use of color coding for tabs from the same site.

Now Microsoft has announced the release of IE 8 Release Candidate 1, marking the home stretch for the browser’s development.  The browser offered is likely to be virtually feature identical to the final release.

For corporate users and those who stick with Microsoft offerings, IE 8 RC1 will be a great addition. Quite similar to the betas, with some new features that are mostly minor speed ups and stability improvements, the RC1 version nonetheless marks a great improvement over IE 6 and IE 7.  One key improvement worth mentioning is a streamlining of the compatibility mode, which switches the browser to an older version of IE for sites that have trouble handling IE 8.  The switch is now done automatically based on a compiled list, though you can still manually switch as well.

owever, for those willing to try competitive browsers, Microsoft will have a tough sell.  Arguably, IE 8 is more full featured and faster than Firefox 3.  However, Firefox 3 has had months of advance to grow its market share and establish a base of dedicated users.  Further, Firefox 3 has the ability to easily outdo IE 8 when you bring the plethora of available add-ons to the table.

Other browsers also will give IE 8 a run for its money.  Opera is a strong candidate with its light, highly compatible, and very quick PC browser.  Some will also pick Chrome, despite its bugs, for love of all things Google.  And IE 8 will experience a mixture of direct and indirect competition of Safari, found mainly on Macs, but also installed on some PCs.

Ultimately, IE 8 is assured a strong market share thanks to Microsoft’s name recognition and permeation into the corporate world.  Microsoft would have to release a terribly flawed browser to not hold such a position, and fortunately it looks like the opposite is true — it’s releasing a really good one.

However, as Mozilla surely has Firefox 4 in the works, and other developers continue to hone their offerings, even this solid product will face a tough uphill battle to regain market share and prevent greater losses.  It also faces the catch-22 that if it does succeed in regaining some ground, it may lead to greater antitrust fines from the EU.  The EU, which has shown itself to be unafraid to fine Microsoft billions of dollars, is in the process of trying to fine Microsoft for alleged anticompetitive bundling practices with Internet Explorer, despite the fact that IE is at its lowest market share in years.

Source: Daily Tech

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