In the hilarious 1990 movie “Crazy People”, Dudley Moore plays Emory Leeson, an advertising industry exec who is fed up with being, essentially, a professional liar. He has a mental breakdown and produces a whole series of marketing campaigns based upon (gasp!) telling the truth! Of course, he does it with humorous, dramatic flair. For instance, he pitches the dietary fiber supplement Metamucil with the tagline ”Use Metamucil. Or you’ll get cancer and die.” After an unexpected mixup (of course — there wouldn’t be much of a movie without some sort of conflict to kick-start the plot, right?) the “bogus” marketing campaigns actually go into production/distribution. And the stuff flies off the shelves!
This came to mind when researching the latest browser usage statistics. As of this day and age (June, 2010) Microsoft’s crappy-assed Internet Explorer 6 (aka IE 6) is still responsible for …get this… 25% of all web traffic! You’ve GOT to be kidding me! Not only is this browser nearly 9 years old now, but its replacements (IE 7, IE 8, and soon to be IE 9) have been out and shipping for 4 years! To add insult to injury, IE 6 has got to be the crappiest, most problematic, non-standards-compliant, security-hole-laden modern browser you can find!
Twenty Five Percent! 25%!!! Of all traffic! Oy.
Why? Well, in my opinion (and LOTS of anecdotal evidence) it’s because IE 6 came installed on Windows XP. Windows XP has been arguably the single most successful version of Microsoft Windows, with the largest installed base. As we all know, by far the largest portion of the installed base bypassed Windows Vista’s release and stuck with XP. The kicker is this: all of these IE 6 people have Automatic Updates turned off. Yes, that’s right. In every single instance where I’ve seen IE 6 installed, the computer did NOT have automatic updates enabled.
Of course, IE 7 was pushed down via Automatic Updates in 2006. Yes, FOUR YEARS AGO! But all these folks with Auto Updates turned off did not get it. So they continue to use this security-hole-laden, craptastic browser to this day. What’s potentially even MORE scary is that with Auto Updates off, they’ve missed up to NINE FRIGGIN’ YEARS of general Windows security updates as well! Hello, McFly?!!!
Then they wonder why they got hacked, or got a virus, or whatnot.
We still have 25% of all traffic using this old, outdated browser. Not only does it open up the end user to all sorts of malicious attacks, but it wreaks havoc with web developers trying to build modern web sites and yet still keep them backwards compatible with this browser. 25% is a big chunk of audience to ignore.
IE 6 is officially unsupported by Microsoft. It’s time to retire it once and for all. The old “beg, borrow, or steal” approach isn’t working. It’s time to step up our game and get more aggressive. I’m not too proud to whip up a dose of old-fashioned guilt. A nice passive-aggressive approach to guilting users into updating is a start.
Even better yet: let’s get Emory Leeson to launch a new campaign for us: ”Upgrade IE6, or your computer will get a virus and die!”
That has a certain Je ne sais pas…
