In a post on the company’s official Windows 10 blog, Senior Editor Mehedi Hassan says that one final patch for the browser versions will deliver what they call an “End of Life” notification, which will encourage users to switch to Internet Explorer 11 as soon as possible.
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Microsoft stated that IE 11 has better security patches, is faster and supports the latest and widely preferred web standards by developers and users alike.
The Internet Explorer versions that will no longer receive updates, including vital security patches are IE 8, IE 9, and IE 10. That makes sense: Owners of Windows 8.1 devices can upgrade directly to Windows 10, while Windows 8 users cannot.
According to Netmarketshare, which carries statistics for technological companies, approximately 20 percent of the people who use a desktop web browser are navigating with Internet Explorer 8, 9 or 10.
Microsoft rolled out a fix but security issues continued to snowball, leading to Internet Explorer’s severe image problem. Examples include IE9 on Vista SP2 or Server 2008 SP2, and IE7 on Windows Embedded for Point of Service. It was a compulsory upgrade for all Windows 8 users. Support for Windows 8.1 will end until January 10, 2023 and users can upgrade to it for free. Edge was part of Microsoft’s attempt to revamp its browser, in a project originally codenamed “Spartan”. Microsoft’s policy when a Service Pack is released is to support the old version and the new version in parallel for at least 24 months and then force the use of the new version. To receive security updates, users will need to install the Windows 8.1 update first.
Microsoft also ended general support for Windows 8. Users are being officially forced to update to Internet Explorer 11 or Edge before today.
“It’s a cruel reality, but in an age of continual cyber-threats, there are no excuses for not carrying out browser updates”, said Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy for Tripwire. But if deployment must be done manually, there is also a planning toolkit available to find and upgrade older browser installations.
Microsoft has revealed that in December, users spent 11 billion hours using Windows 10.
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Older versions of Internet Explorer date from before the age of organized cybercrime, cyberterrorism and online extortion, and are seen as particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
