IE 8 is Microsoft’s champion in browser wars

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - – Microsoft is touting freshly-launched Internet Explorer 8 as its champion in the competitive Web browser arena, urging holdouts to upgrade from earlier versions of the software.

IE 8 has been catching on since its release five months ago, but Microsoft is hoping to leave behind aging IE 6 as well as much-maligned Vista after Windows 7 operating system launches in October.

Despite being released nine years ago, IE 6 still claims 27.2 percent of the browser market, according to figures released in July by Net Applications.

“The reason to still be on IE 6 at this point is lack of awareness, or the ‘good-enough’ problem that people are satisfied with what they are using,” said Amy Barzdukas, general manager of IE and consumer security at Microsoft.

“Particularly in this economy, it is difficult to be cavalier and just say update to IE 8.”

Schools, hospitals and other cash-strapped operations could be daunted by the cost of upgrading computer systems to new software.

IE 6 also tends to be used with pirated versions of Windows XP operating system because newer software is better designed to expose illegitimate copies, according to Barzdukas.

Microsoft reports seeing more XP use in emerging economies such as Brazil and India where piracy rates are higher than in the United States.

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