Anyone who has had to deal with the sorry state of their parent’s PC or a stubborn IT department’s refusal to get with ter program and update a browser may soon be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Microsoft is changing the way its Windows Update works so that it will be able to silently update your software in the background, just like Chrome and Firefox do already.
Now more than a decade old, Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of many web developer’s lives. Buggy, insecure, seemingly at war with web standards and still installed on a depressing 8.4 percent of PCs by Microsoft’s own figures. Now though, Redmond really is doing all it can to kill it.
From January, that figure may start to change as Microsoft rolls out its new IE update policy. Users will need to have opted in to automatic updates via Windows Update, but when they do they will find that Internet Explorer no longer needs a manual download or even an update confirmation – everything will happen in the background, without any fuss. In other words, with any luck, you’ll find Internet Explorer 8 in its place – and some blessed tabs.
Now, enterprise customers will still be able to opt out of the autoupdate process so that businesses who have invested in software that requires an ancient version of IE can still chug along as before – but just an FYI, if you’re in the IT department at one of these businesses, it deserves to be insolvent. Home users who opt in should be assured of the very latest security patches and support for the newset web technology.
Will an auto-updating IE convince you to drop Firefox and Chrome, or have you switched for good? Let us know in the comments.
[source: Ars Technica]
