A day immediately after Microsoft rolled out a refresh of Net Explorer (IE) 7 that no lengthier demands Windows Genuine Validation (WGA) checks, industry watchers are speculating regarding why the company did so.The IE group, for its component, will say nothing far more than what it posted on October four towards the IE Crew Blog:“Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users”In other words: Microsoft was worried that “pirates” might not be protected by all the security goodness the enterprise has added to IE,
Office Professional Plus 2007 Serial, so it decided to remove piracy checks from the IE 7 download process.Not surprisingly, there are other theories regarding why Microsoft removed WGA from the browser. Perhaps Microsoft decided that WGA was enough of a deterrent to result in IE 7 failing to gain marketshare as fast as the organization would like. From Ars Technica:“The move (to release an IE seven refresh sans WGA) is remarkable because it is the first time that Microsoft has removed WGA checks from a product in order to increase the attractiveness of that product. It;s difficult to see this as any but an attempt to get as many users as possible to install IE7, even those who have pirated Windows.”According to data from the market researchers at Net Applications,
Office 2007 Activation, IE 6.X currently has 42.75 percent of the worldwide browser market. IE 7 has 34.6 percent. Firefox 2.0 has 13.seven percent. Both IE 7 and Firefox 2 share is growing, Net Applications says (though given Firefox;s smaller user base,
Office Ultimate 2007 Activation Key, Firefox is growing much more quickly).I think Microsoft;s move to decouple WGA from IE7 as aimed less at attracting the “pirated software” crowd — as large as that contingent may be. Instead, I think Microsoft realizes that it is losing browser share to Firefox (and,
Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Activation, a lesser extent,
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional cl��gen, other competitors) primarily among far more technical users. These kinds of users are much more likely to be among those who are anti-WGA, I;d wager, equating repeated authentication checks with DRM.[Poll=14]Other reasons you think Microsoft might have pulled the WGA plug on IE seven? Do you expect the company to cut WGA from other products, too? If so, which ones?(Microsoft Internet Explorer seven. Image by kk+. CC 2.0)