KillIE6
Sep 15

KillIE6


SourceForge.net: killie6: Is this unethical?

Killie6 is a website plug-in to achieve nothing short of tricking your website visitor into downloading a more recent version of Internet Explorer. This plug-in activates only on Internet Explorer 6.

It pops a fake Information Bar at the top of the screen, trying to impersonate Windows itself, I suppose, and prompts the user to download IE7. The wording is true enough:

To help protect your security, you must immediately download latest [sic] version of Internet Explorer. Click here to proceed.

It’s not lying, I guess.

by Deane   September 15, 2008 3:57 PM    |   Follow Gadgetopia on Twitter   |  Tags:  IE6

Comments

by Benjamin,   September 23, 2008 3:04 PM  

Worth considering for a designer's/developer's sanity. It's very much like: http://savethedevelopers.org/

Just more sneaky.

by Vlad,   March 23, 2009 6:23 PM  

Hey, I wrote that 'killie6' plugin. It's actually project hosted on SourceForge. But not officially endorsed or anything. Quite recently sourceforge actually began using it on their site, after I altered it a little bit to not be so deceptive.

All in all I agree that it is unethical, that is why it is not used in the state it is appearing on screenshot — with Microsoft style armor icon.

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