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Nicely editied title on this one, the title of the actual article "Why IE7 Will Fail" is a bit strong I feel. All versions of Internet Explorer have had security issues, but that hasn't stopped IE being top of the pile with Windows users (and therefore the majority of internet users). IE7 is coming to every XP machine via windows update sometime before Xmas, and most users will not know or care enough to switch even if there is a "major security flaw" within the first week, as predicted in this article...

No, I don't think IE7 will be coming to every XP machine. As long as they continue to treat all unlicensed machines as unsuitable for IE7 then that will put a percentage cramp into the adoption of the browser. The question is, now many of those XP users are using a pirated version, version installed on a Mac as a second OS, VMWare, etc. Is it 5%, 10%, or way way more?

One sure sign that adoption and usage isn't going the way Microsoft wants it to is that they will enable everyone to install it whether their copy of Windows has a "Genuine Advantage" or not.

"...hasn't stopped IE being top of the pile with Windows user".

This is an easy thing to do when the majority of users don't even realize there is an alternative, and these same users think that the browser itself IS "the internets". IE typically wins by default b/c it has an unfair advantage. In my eyes, a win by default (at least in this case), is no win at all.

The biggest hurdle for IE 7's success is not security, it is site compatibility combined with IE 7's "push" distribution. If I get IE 7 pushed to my desktop and a site I need to access doesn't work with IE 7, I may feel forced to find another browser for which the site will work. Admitedly, if a site doesn't work with IE 7, it probably won't work with FireFox et al, but the user will become more aware of alternatives, might try installing them, and if the browser works for the sites they need, may adopt the alternative browser as their primary browser. That fact alone may erode IE's market share more than any security issue ever has.

All browsers have security problems, most of them (for all browsers) related to their users acting irresponsibly.

There's no reason things shouldn't work in IE7 that worked in IE6 (though they may look a bit different due to the stricter CSS rendering which is in line with changes in the W3 standard since IE6 was released).

If IE7 fails (which is highly unlikely) it will be purely because large companies may not install it on their systems, and religious zealots who are making up an ever larger percentage of server admins may out of pure spite start blocking requests to corporate websites coming from IE7 users.

And the writer of that article is very clearly one of those religious zealots, basking in his own ineffible knowledge (for which he doesn't list a source) that IE7 will have major security problems as released despite being in testing for over a year (something he dismisses, stating (again without any source) that Microsoft ignores their testers).