Microsoft is taking precaution measures to avoid a major scandal and announces the availability of an update for Internet Explorer 6. The company's representatives say that the update is not related to security, the only change suffered by the browser affecting the way in which some ActiveX controls are loaded.

"The update is labeled as 'non-security' given that it does not include any new updates that affect the security of IE," TechWeb quoted a company spokesman as saying.

This decision had been announced at the beginning of December, when it had become obvious that Microsoft lost the lawsuit filed by Eolas in 2003. The company was sued then under the allegation that their IE's plug-in architecture, ActiveX, infringed on Eolas' patent.

"After a forthcoming update, Microsoft Internet Explorer users will not be able to directly interact with Microsoft ActiveX controls loaded by the APPLET, EMBED, or OBJECT elements. Users will be able to interact with such controls after activating their user interfaces," said a post on the Microsot Developer's Network Web site," Microsoft said in December.

According to ZDNet, once the update is installed, the changes can influence the display of certain sites display. Microsoft recommends Web developers tweak their pages or consumers will have to make an extra click to get to some content, such as Macromedia Flash-based animations or media content.