Posted on 05/02/2014 6:29:50 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Microsoft has issued a patch for a security vulnerability in Internet Explorer to all versions of Windows, including Windows XP, despite claiming it would release no more patches for the outdated operating system after 8 April 2014.
Earlier this week, both the UK and US governments advised citizens to consider using alternatives to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, after the company discovered a vulnerability that could allow hackers to gain access to users' computers and steal their data.
The vulnerability made headlines because it coincided with the end of support for Windows XP, meaning that anyone still running the 13-year-old operating system would not receive a patch, and the security hole would remain open.
However, Microsoft has now said in a blog post that it will release a patch for Internet Explorer on Windows XP after all. "Even though Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and is past the time we normally provide security updates, we’ve decided to provide an update for all versions of Windows XP (including embedded), today,"
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Why not? Seems only fair.
The US Government has a large number of PCs that run XP and paying MS to continue supporting XP until they upgrade all their PCs to a newer operating system. The patch for XP is paid for by US Taxpayers. MS does it because they want to thwart large scale hacking whenever possible, because there is no additional cost, because it results in good will and avoids bad press, and finally it reminds people one last time of the reason that they better upgrade.
IRS another Windows XP laggard, will pay Microsoft for patches
Hmmm. I may have to check that out. We briefly used Firefox during the IE downtime, and it did OK, so I may look at Waterfox to see what I think. Thanks!
The other browser suggested was “Pale Moon” which uses Mozilla’s open source code.
Waterfox is an ESR x64 release.
Cyberfox is x64 and corresponds to Mozilla’s rapid release cycle.
The just released CF version 28.0.1 is based on Firefox 29’s Australis framework.
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