Microsoft backs “Update your Parent’s Browser” day for Thanksgiving

By Tom Warren, on 24th Nov 11 10:15 pm with 43 Comments

Microsoft is backing the idea of an “Update your Parents’ Browser” day this coming Friday.

The day coincides with Black Friday and follows America’s thanksgiving day. The Atlantic has proposed the day and notes that “onn Friday, November 25, every old web browser must go.” Microsoft is backing the effort, urging people to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 if they’re on Windows XP or Internet Explorer 9 if they’re using Windows Vista or Windows 7.

“For many people, going home for the holidays is a step back in time,” said Microsoft’s Scott Armstrong in a blog post on Wednesday. “Not just because you may be returning to your childhood home, but because you might see IE6 or IE7 on your parents’ home PC.” Microsoft has also put together a top 10 of moments when people can update their parents’ browser this thanksgiving holiday.

10. When they’re manning the fire extinguisher dealing with the yearly deep-fried turkey accident.

9. When they’re telling your cousins “when I was your age” stories.

8. When they’re face down in the eggnog punch.

7. When they’re fighting over the right way to carve a turkey.

6. When your mom kicks you out of the kitchen for peeling potatoes “the wrong way.”

5. When they’re sent to the grocery store at 2PM on Thanksgiving Day for extra cranberries.

4. When they’re sitting at the Adult’s table (rally the other kids to help).

3. When they’re standing in a Black Friday line.

2. When they’re untangling Christmas lights.

And the number one time to update your parents’ browser is…

1. When they’re distracted by grilling you about when you’re going to get a real job, when you’re going to settle down, and when you’re going to give them grandchildren.

  • http://twitter.com/popul popular downward

    The question is,  Firefox or Chrome ?
    Ω

    Type your comment here.

    • Niko

      Chrome!

    • http://twitter.com/ds2600 William Bunce

      My major problem with Chrome is it’s become almost as resource intensive as Firefox was. I had 3 tabs, and 2 plugins enabled with 13 Chrome processes running! My coworker has experienced similar things. That said, I still use it specifically for those plugins that are not available in IE9.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      :O!

    • Trollsaresuchdullards

      I’ll let you know after I buy an extra 4GB of RAM so that I can run either of them.

    • Anonymous

      That list ain’t complete until the fat lady sings. Where’s Opera?

    • Guest

      Wake up. The fat lady not only sang, she died.

    • Guest

      Yeah so I guess Apple was dead in 1997. Wake up.

    • Guest

      @91f5008e44877c33b6cf062c97269117:disqus 

      Almost. 90 days from closing the door, at least according to the late el Jobso. And Opera ain’t Apple, but any stretch.

    • Anonymous

      if you have %5> market share you dont count

    • Seth_p

      Firefox.. f*&$ Google! I had 2.1GB diskspace occupied by Chrome since Google loves to keep every version in AppData.. alongside the memory footprint is exponential in some cases

    • OctalMan

      That’s exactly the reason why I stopped using Chrome..

    • SOFI not Chrome

      Firefox, Opera, Safari (on Mac), or IE9.

      Google have been deliberately ignoring implementing ECMAScript 5 (and MathML) so they lock you into using Flash (so you see their ads) and make people buy Androids because they can’t get certain content on WP or iOS. 

      They are creating their own Not Invented Here scripting language called Dart to _replace_ ECMAScript (an open standard) *alarm bells* so they can dictate the direction of the web and leave people with no choice. Same strategy they used for Android. Duplicate, Displace, Dictate.

      Google have said that they are contributing to ECMAScript but this is not true. They are focusing on ignoring ECMAScript so they can place Dart ahead and are telling developers to target Chrome and only Chrome, while standards-compliant browsers become disadvantaged because of Google extending their grip over the web. They are years behind Opera, Firefox and IE9 with implementing ECMAScript and in this time they instead are spending money and time developing Dart in secret (which isn’t an open thing to do). It gives them a time-to-market advantage as well. 

      Hypocrites.

    • Anonymous

      Chrome! firefox is ok but it pisses me off because the tab management is ugly the lack of a omnibar, crappy extension management. I could go on and on. Also if you CHOOSE to use IE you are a fucking retard!

    • OctalMan

      A retard?? Really man?? hahaha I always laugh at comment’s like these..

  • http://www.searingarrow.com AlienSix

    There is an underlying irony in this post

    • Gu

      Do you have an underlying irony in posting this?

  • http://www.callumpy.co.uk Callumpy

    My parents use chrome, fuck ie.

    • Abc

      You need to get a life. It’s just browser.

    • http://www.callumpy.co.uk Callumpy

      Troll? My comment is on a post about a browser…

    • Guest

      But they also spawned you. So perhaps not the best endorsement.

    • OctalMan

      lol

  • http://www.ratdiary.com spragued

    I agree, Chrome. I’d like Google to keep an eye on my parent’s activities when I’m not around. ;-)

  • McJagger

    Lol the other day I uploaded a file to Rapidshare for my friend, he tried to download it in Firefox, he was raging so hard when the page didn’t load, and when he opened it in IE it worked straight off the bat. He later updated Firefox only to find the page still didn’t load.

    • Banks

      lol the other day i was working on my website i am building, and when everything i coded worked in safari, chrome, firefox and opera, i opened ie for the final test, and what do you know, half the visual elements were in the wrong place, and then i opened ie8 on an old laptop since a huge amount of people still use that large turd, and even more was broken.

      the best day for any web dev, is the day when people move away from the garbage known as ie.

    • http://thounsell.co.uk/ Thomas Hounsell

      You’re obviously not the most standards-compliant web developer – IE8 is good for up to XHTML 1.1 and CSS2.1, IE9 for HTML5 and CSS3 (at least the finalised parts). If it’s showing wrong within those boundaries, then it’s you that’s wrong. Most commonly, I find it’s prejudiced developers like yourself who assume IE is as crap as it was five years ago and apply the same old tired fixes that rely on bugs that no longer exist.

    • Test1ngi23

      XHTML 1.1? LOL! You mean HTML served as “text/html” becuase that’s not real XHTML. IE only began supporting “application/xhtml+xml” with IE9. Do some reasearch.

    • http://thounsell.co.uk/ Thomas Hounsell

      You make a fair point, but the simple fact is IE would parse the XHTML correctly, even if it didn’t accept the correct content type.

    • Guest

      So your point is that you can’t code worth shit? Why is that a surprise?

    • Guest

      I desing websites like http://www.onesixty.be. And I have to agree with Banks.
      Safari and Internet Explorer are both garbage browsers.
      Firefox handles HTML like the best. Decodes our code like we ask it to.

    • Anonymous

      @Guest it is funny because your onesixty.be sight runs better in IE 9 and runs like crap in Firefox for me.

    • Anonymous

      no his point is microsoft cant code for shit! OSX & Chrome FTW

    • Guest

      @5imo:disqus 

      iTards are so fkn hilarious.

    • Anonymous

      by your logic then the problem is not Internet Explorer, considering that Internet Explorer had 90 of the market and is still has the majority in market share then you problem is that you first program for those browsers that are in the minority and then complain about your code not being compatible. This is like creating a new type of battery and them not fitting in 50% of the products that use it today. Perhaps the old battery does not have all the new innovation but it is the most common people use, this is the first thing to consider from a programmer/engineering perspective. I’ve seen hundreds of pages that are compatible on all browser even if it takes a bit more work to do so. So stop bitching, it’s your job. 

  • Gu

    The day I start appreciating Internet Explorer is when they remove the grey bands between the window and the actual site. If you maximize Firefox the site goes until the last edgy pixel of the screen.

    • Guest

      Huh?

    • Seth_p

      I don’t see a gray band? You using older IE? hmm

    • SatoMew

      They fixed it in IE9. But if you visit a site that loads in Quirks mode, IE7 or IE8 standards modes, you’ll still see them because the websites aren’t either up-to-date to detect IE9 and load a standards-compliant page (which more than likely the web developers didn’t even create) or the sites aren’t being maintained anymore.

  • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

    My parents use Firefox 7, I think. They won’t move to IE9, I’ve tried persuading them… :-(

    • Test1ngi23

      Maybe your parents should be upgrading your browser.

    • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

      IE9 is the best browser out there! Why would I move browser? I’ve used Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even Opera before, but I’ve always come back to IE9. Subject: [winrumors] Re: Microsoft backs “Update your Parent’s Browser” day for Thanksgiving

    • Guest

      Don’t mind him. Test1ngi23 dummy just hasn’t gotten over being fired from MS yet, even though it was a decade ago. LOL.  

  • Iamsam_arg

    It’s nice to see that Microsoft have a sense of humour. And it is actually a good way to kill some of the older, less secure browsers. I’ve really gotta get around to getting my folks the latest version of Safari.