IE 7 arriving by Christmas

[dutter]

Ready for IE 7? It'll be an Automatic Update for XP later this year.

Not ready yet? Read on.

[Lynn Robson]

Among my circle of friends I know several who are already using Firefox as their primary browser.
I say Primary as there are still a few glitches with it such as the awful PDF loading which forces the use of another browser, unless you know better.....
Now then, if IE7 becomes an auto-update I know for a fact that the several hundred thousand? users of an illegal copy of XP will find it impossible to update due to the XP Verification Programme installed as an update.
Can't see any other alternative for them other than to continue using IE6 or move to another browser.
Firefox 2 is heralded as coming shortly and if they can fix the deficencies of 1.5 then they should see a large swathe of interest from disenchanted IE7 update blocked users.
Actually it's the installation of this Verification checker that will have a pretty big impact, given sufficient time, on the use of any Windows programme, XP, Vista or anything else that makes the use of illegal copies very difficult or indeed impossible.
Don't know where this will lead however until another very similar operating system evolves that can use existing software already in the users ownership.