[CS-FSLUG] IE6 in todays market place

[Josiah Ritchie]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 3:07 PM,  <davidm at hisfeet.net> wrote:
> Internet explorer 6 seems to be a thorn in the side of Google and Microsoft.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13639875
> In that article I noted tese two quotes, and I wondered why.
>
> "Microsoft's campaign to stop people using Internet Explorer 6 is one of
> the longest running upgrade efforts."
> "About 34% of Chinese net users are on IE6, as are 22.3% of South Koreans
> and 11.6% of Vietnamese people."
>
> The first thought was that "wine" (last time I looked) depends on IE6. I
> don't use wine, but many do.  But the second qoute (above) made me think
> that IE6 may still be viable for some older computers (and for that matter
> the whole of the ten year old windows OS) on smaller, older computers
> still in wide use in third world countries, or among poorer populations in
> wealthier places. (or course most or all of these installations will be
> pirated and/or completely unsupported)
>
> I followed the following link from that article to this interesting
> (biased) chart.
> http://www.theie6countdown.com/default.aspx

The other issue is that pirated MS software can't be updated. Is that
perhaps the reason so many Chinese users are on IE6? This is one
reason why I discourage people, especially our missionaries, from
buying software from the cart down the street. From what I understand
in Brazil it is expected that your software is pirated and this
actually makes it harder to share open source software. The initial
hook of "free" doesn't mean much.

JSR/