Australia the guinea pig in Internet Explorer upgrade pilot

Stephen Withers
Friday, 16 December 2011 07:36

Business IT - Technology

Microsoft is preparing a scheme to automatically push the latest version of Internet Explorer to users' systems. This can be seen as Microsoft following in Google's footsteps, as part of the thinking behind Chrome was to ensure people stay on the current version.

Microsoft has announced that it will pilot a new upgrading model for Internet Explorer next month. Windows 7, Vista and XP users in Australia and Brazil who have turned on automatic updating in Windows Update will be automatically kept up to date with the latest version of the browser.

"Our goal is to make sure that Windows customers have the most up-to-date and safest browsing experience possible, with the best protections against malicious software such as malware," said Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's general manager, Internet Explorer business and marketing.

"For consumers, the safety benefits are one of the key reasons that the industry has been moving towards automatic updates as the norm. This is increasingly important since the biggest online threat these days is socially engineered malware, which typically targets outdated software like Web browsers."

Apart from disabling automatic updates completely, there are two ways of opting out of the process.

Firstly, users who have previously declined the installation of Internet Explorer 8 or 9 will not receive automatic updates. Future versions of Internet Explorer will provide the option to opt out of automatic upgrading.

What's the other? Find out on page 2.