Microsoft unloads monster-sized can of bug spray on Internet Explorer, again True to form, Microsoft has released its latest batch of monthly security fixes, although as expected, September's Patch Tuesday update is a relatively light one. As Redmond warned us, the only critical patches this time around are included in a big roll-up of fixes for Internet Explorer, which addresses one publicly disclosed …
"only critical patches this time around are included in a big roll-up of fixes for Internet Explorer"
I note that Google Chrome is still way ahead of current IE versions in terms of number of disclosed vulnerabilities.
"Given last month's snafu, how long do we give it before applying the patches?"
Until you have tested them? Last months font 'snafu' effected less than 0.01% of PCs by the way.
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... Why is MS still releasing patches for IE6? Or any other version older than IE9?
I know, I know, "legacy systems compatibility blah blah", but that's what compatibility settings are for. Any IE version since 6 is capable of impersonating 6 for the purposes of accessing a site that can only be used that way, while still accessing other, presumably not so trustworthy, sites in its full glory.
And given that even WinXP, which is no longer supported at all, is capable of running IE9, I really don't see any reason for patching any version older than that.
Do you think new recruits at MS are given the job of patching older versions of IE as a sort of training exercise, before they're turned loose on anything more interesting...?
> ... Why is MS still releasing patches for IE6?
Server 2003 is still in support (until April 2014 IIRC), and shipped with IE6. Hence it gets patching because Microsoft's policy is currently to support all IE versions that work on a supported OS version.
However, as of Jan 2016, that will change (as announced recently), with only the latest compatible IE supported on each OS.
It would be interesting to see the number of monthly patches* going down as time passes. Even moreso if the patches supplied became increasingly trivial as their numbers declined. Neither to be, I guess.
Yes, I know, MS has a lot of crap out there... Stunning that they've managed to razzle-dazzle people so deeply that there are still 'enough' people jonesing for IE6 functionality that it's necessary for MS to do something other than Kevorkianising it.
*bug fixes, really--no point calling them updates, if you're honest; "updates", in the context of the monthly business, is just marketing, a transparent attempt to distract from the apparently endless need to correct the company's past bad practices; what was 'bad' (bugs) becomes 'good (ooh, nice! updates)'. So Microsoftian. Shudder.
Why does IE have so many bugs? Why cant they fix it?
IE is a complex software, bugs are pretty much inevitable. You can ask the same questions about Firefox, Chrome and pretty much every software ever devised.
If you have a method for finding all bugs in software please tell us.
Perhaps the next update to IE should just uninstall it.
Why?
On the mobile front, Apple has Safari. Android has Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Only about 3% of the world's mobile users - the weirdos - use IE because it is part of the package for Windows phones.
On the desktop front, using IE is entirely optional. IE's market share has been dwindling since the dark ages of the early 2000s - when IE was the de facto hegemonic standard.
Remember those dark days of the Internet when you had to install Real Player to view most of the online content, and 'Best viewed on Internet Explorer' banners plastered websites? Yeah.
The reason why IE still has a tangible market share now is because some legacy web apps from corporations have been coded to play nice with IE during those dark ages, and the corporations are too lazy/poor to port them over to other browsers.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is your gateway to download a better browser. Nothing more.
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