14 DAY TRIAL // With Windows 8, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has reached version 10, being capable to provide users with a faster, modern experience on their computers.
Internet Explorer 9 can deliver similarly appealing performance capabilities, while Internet Explorer 8 is a pretty good choice too, although it’s growing old fast.
However, older flavors of the browser are clearly outdated, and users should get rid of them as fast as they can.
Microsoft has been long touting the death of IE6, a browser version that caused more problems than it solved, and it ran a variety of campaigns to determine users to upgrade to a newer browser.
Although not as old, Internet Explorer 7 appears set to suffer a similar faith, with users being urged to upgrade to a newer version as soon as possible.
In all fairness, the IE7 doesn’t have as many users as other flavors of the browser, but they still are out there, and web developers still have to spend a lot of time and effort to make their sites fit for them.
Kogan, an Australian online retailer, appears to have found a solution for this. Since the site automatically detects the browser version of its customers, it will also add a 6.8% tax to the bill of those who make purchases using Internet Explorer 7.
The move drew a lot of attention from people all around the web, many of which saluted the initiative. After all, as the company itself notes in a blog post, it’s rather difficult to develop for an old browser such as IE7.
“The way we've been able to keep our prices so low is by using technology to make our business efficient and streamlined. One of the things stopping that is our web team having to spend a lot of time making our new website look normal on IE7,” they say.
“This is an extremely old browser, so from today, anyone buying from the site who uses IE7 will be lumped with a 6.8% surcharge - that's 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market.”
All Australians who purchase products from this retailer and do so using Internet Explorer 7 can avoid the tax through upgrading to a newer flavor of the browser. Other options are available for them as well, but, if they want to stick with Microsoft, they can do so in a "modern" way.
Whether users will indeed be charged for making purchases through the older browser or not, it remains to be seen. What’s certain, however, is that the retailer got a lot of attention based on this announcement. Some suggest and that it might be only a PR initiative.
Microsoft says it has nothing to share on the matter, at least not for the time being. However, it might not be long before it too starts urging users to upgrade to newer flavors of IE and leave IE7 behind. Clearly, this might not be a bad idea after all.