I don’t upgrade my browser or my operating system every week like the Microsoft Windows Update web site apparently wants me to.  Sure, I check for security fixes now and then, but I like my system to remain stable, and I just don’t trust updating any piece of software so often.  So it’s no surprise that I hadn’t heard of Microsoft’s “new” browser, the MSN Explorer that they launched last fall.  That’s their new “consumer” browser.  The new “Business Edition,” not released yet, is the NetDocs Explorer that is in beta with Microsoft Partners and will be released with .NET.  There’s also IE 6.0, which will ship with Whistler and may not be available any other way.  Gads.  Testing my web apps against the different versions of Netscape and IE is bad enough already.

On a related note, here’s a line from the most recent version of Microsoft’s browser license:

“You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of software and components you are utilizing and may provide upgrades to such software that will be automatically downloaded to your computer. Microsoft may also automatically upload performance and usage information for the purpose of evaluating the OS Components and the associated services…”

 Sorry, guys.  This is just too much.  Will somebody please get Linux finished?