Citrus Skies

IE7 to be distributed via Automatic Updates

27 July 2006

The IE Blog reports that the eagerly awaited Internet Explorer 7 is to be distributed via Windows’ Automatic Updates service, when it is released towards the end of the year.

Part of me thinks this is a great idea. Lets get as many Internet Explorer users as possible onto the latest browser as quickly as possible. No more headaches with having to deal with people who haven’t upgraded their browser in five years and are still using ye olde bug-ridden, CSS-mangling version.

If only it were that simple. The Automatic Update service is only available to Windows XP users, so anyone still on Windows 2000 or Windows ME will have to (be relied on to) download the new browser manually. Additionally, Microsoft is also offering a free “Blocker Toolkit” to help individuals and organisations who, for some reason, do not wish to upgrade. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, others its simply bureaucratic red tape and company policies that were churned out long before the original dot com bubble burst.

However, on the other hand, maybe its better that not everyone upgrades at once. With what will be a large percentage of the web browsing population switching to a new browser at the same time, who knows what chaos will result? How many bugs will have slipped through the net? How many sites will break in the new rendering engine? How many web designers and developers will be flooded with phone calls about sites they created that no longer work?

That’s why the other part of me thinks it might be a good idea to find out what date IE7 will be released and spend that day in bed with my phone switched off.

Article Tags: browser, ie7, windows, internet explorer