Mass migration to Mozilla and Opera begins as government warn against IE
By
Kshitij Sobti |
Updated on 20-Jan-2010
With the revelation that exploits in Internet Explorer were behind attacks Google and Adobe among other companies recently, governments of Germany, France and Australia have issued warning to their citizens against using Internet Explorer as their browser. This has lead to an exodus as people from these countries scamper to do what they should have a long time ago, get a better browser.
As the exodus begins, Mozilla and Opera have both seen a surge in the number of people downloading their browsers. Internet Explorer 6 is still stuck in a majority of computers in companies, where the antiquated browser is required to run some of the organizations intranet applications. For many people IE6 is a forced choice as they don’t have privileges to install applications.
Hopefully this will shock the the organizations into making a change for the better. If not to a better browser then at-least the the latest version of Internet Explorer.
Opera’s download numbers doubled as the security warning was issued in Germany, and Firefox saw a boost in numbers as high as 300,000 over and above their usual from these countries.
Even as Microsoft releases an out of schedule security patch for the issue, the speculation will not ensue so easily. Plugging a hole doesn’t mean another one wont be punched in any time soon.
So for any people out there still using Internet Explorer 6, it is highly advisable you upgrade atleast to IE8 if not a different browser. For those who are forced to use it in a work environment, our sympathies.