January 13 is the last day for business and individual users to move off older versions of the Internet Explorer web browser, before Microsoft pulls the plug on support including security patches.
The deadline this week comes 18 months after Microsoft warned that it would cease to support Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10, giving users time to upgrade.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a bit of a brand identity issue on its hands. Because of decisions made many, many years ago, Internet Explorer 6 has left a sour taste in the mouths of developers and consumers. Even some of the older iterations like IE7 and 8 are still loathed by consumers but later iterations like IE10 and 11 have fared much better in terms of providing a positive web browsing experience.
Microsoft developers have fortified Internet Explorer with new protections designed to prevent a type of attack commonly used to surreptitiously install malware on end-user computers.
SocialChorus, an "advocate marketing" company, has been offering to pay bloggers for promoting Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington posted to his Uncrunched blog on June 17 a note he received inviting him to blog about IE for pay.
Microsoft officials are distancing themselves from the paid-promotional campaign. An Microsoft spokesperson sent the following statement when asked about the SocialChorus invitation:
Microsoft said Thursday it plans eventually to patch a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 that it's known about for seven months, but it didn't say when.
A security research group within Hewlett-Packard called the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) released details of the flaw on Wednesday after giving Microsoft months to address it. The group withholds details of vulnerabilities to prevent tipping off hackers but eventually publicizes its findings even if a flaw isn't fixed.
Microsoft launched a program for hackers and tech gurus to tune in and earn some big bucks by helping out the Internet Explorer team with hunting down security vulnerabilities. The reward was stated to be up to $11,000 per bug. Today, Katie Moussouris, Senior Security Strategist at Microsoft, has announced on TechNet that over $28,000 has been given away to community members who have worked with the company.
Attack code that exploits a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been publicly released.
Four months after Microsoft released Internet Explorer 10 with and for Windows 8, Redmond has finally released a version of the company's newest browser for Windows 7 users in 95 other languages too. More than 700 million people now have access to the company's most up-to-date browser.
November saw Firefox climb back up above 20 percent, Internet Explorer grow further still, and Chrome apparently suffer a surprisingly sharp drop.
Internet Explorer was up 0.63 points at 54.76 percent, its highest level since October 2011. Firefox was up 0.45 points to 20.44 percent, all but erasing the last six month's losses. Chrome, surprisingly, was down a whopping 1.31 points to 17.24 percent, its lowest level since September 2011.
