It looks like recently Germany and now France have warned their own citizen's against using Internet Explorer in all it's iterations. I'm not really an IE user and I tend to go with Firefox, just cause it seems to leave less of a footprint, but I thought it was a bit odd that two governments would put out this warning when it's the vulnerabilities with IE6 not IE 7 or 8 that brought the security issue to the forefront (see story here.
It's obviously the Government's job to look out for its citizens, but there have been lots of security issues with the internet (really?) and why single out one exploit on an older version of a Microsoft web browser? Granted, some researchers think it's possible newer versions IE could be susceptible as well (researchers, or tech news journalists?), but still it seems poor form to set an example of internet security by outright saying "Don't use this product until it's patched" to millions. Security is a risk of the internet and I can think of lots issues in the past and lots of stupid risks people take daily (porn sites, Facebook, animal costume fetish sites) that could use more of a public service announcement than this.
Perhaps this is the governments of France and Germany's way of putting the pressure on Microsoft for putting a high priority on an IE6 exploit getting patched. Maybe these governments find it to be cheaper to have MS patch things as opposed to upgrading to IE8 or maybe they are worried about the security of their current systems of offices and government employees? Is this Microsoft's responsibility? I think releasing improved browsers is enough of a fix. If it is MS's responsibility, does that make what these governments are doing a good or negative thing?
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