Microsoft Killing Off Old Versions of Internet Explorer

It looks like Microsoft is finally putting their foot down. Your old, unpatched browser is not going to cut it anymore, they want you to update and they are going to cut off updates to older versions to make sure that you do.

Internet Explorer

Now don’t freak out right away, you have until January of 2016 to get your software up to date. After that point only the most current version of Internet Explorer that is available for Windows will receive patches. The biggest reason for this change from Microsoft is mainly security. Over the years we have seen how vulnerable computers can be because of out-of-date browsers. In their official blog post, Microsoft notes that malware resistance jumped from 69% in IE8 all the way to 99% in IE11.

We have also seen Microsoft put in a lot more work creating a better browsing experience, this started with IE9. Microsoft also has a shorter release cycle for new versions of IE, no more waiting three to five years for a new version of the browser.

ie6-too-many-toolbars

We all remember going on a relatives PC and seeing what you see in the image above. It looks like Microsoft is learning a valuable lesson from IE6, which many people are still using to this day, especially in the corporate world.

It seems as if Microsoft has already committed to a product lifecycle for Vista and IE9 as they will be ok with user’s running that combination until April of 2017. I think this idea of keeping a shorter upgrade cycle for Internet Explorer is a good thing and has a lot to do with reminding people that the end is coming in they need to start thinking about moving to a more current operating system.

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