14 DAY TRIAL // Breaking news: Saxo Bank, a large Danish investments banks, has decided to drop Internet Explorer 6 support for its platforms and encourage all clients to switch to Google Chrome.
Feeling the irony here? Internet Explorer 6 is a browser that Microsoft killed a long time ago, so it's a bit surprising to see such a large bank actually using it until today for its online services, which, by the way, were supposed to be completely secure for all clients, no matter the browser.
But in an announcement made today with much fanfare, Saxo Bank says that Internet Explorer 6 no longer works with its online services, including WebTrader and WebConnect, so customers need to either switch to a newer browser or pick Google Chrome instead.
Google Chrome has always been promoted as a potential replacement for those on Windows XP and other unsupported platforms, as it provides reduced system footprint and works with the majority of operating systems on the market.
As far as Windows XP is concerned, Google Chrome will continue to support it until mid-2015, while the majority of anti-virus solutions on the market will do the same for at least one more year.
The change coming into effect on November 14
The statement published on the official website of Saxo Bank this morning reveals that all clients must update their browsers to a newer Internet Explorer version or switch to Google Chrome by the end of next week, otherwise the said services would no longer work.
“From 14th November 2014, it will no longer be possible to access the Saxo Bank’s trading platforms including WebTrader and WebConnect platform from IE6 browsers. For the best experience, we recommend that IE6 users switch to the Google Chrome browser which is available from Google free-of charge,” the statement reads.
Of course, there's still a lot of time to deploy another browser, but it's more shocking that the bank still has users running Internet Explorer 6 on their computers.
At this point, Net Applications data shows that Internet Explorer 6 still has a 3.3 percent market share in the desktop browser market, with China currently number one when it comes to usage of this old browser. 2.36 percent of the Chinese are still using IE6 to browse the web, while Japan and India come next with less than 1 percent scores.
Microsoft itself is trying to eradicate Internet Explorer 6, so Saxo Bank's decision to drop support for the browser definitely helps.