During the past year, we've repeatedly urged enterprises to give Internet Explorer 6 the heave-ho and adopt the much more secure (and productivity-enhancing) IE8.

See, IE6 is a security nightmare. It continues to be the target of hacker exploits, in part because it's more vulnerable than IE8.

In fact, the latter has been shown to be the single best browser at blocking malware--better even than Firefox, which arguably has the better reputation when it comes to security.

That's why we were delighted to hear ZDNet tech writer Ed Bott come right out and say: It's time to stop using IE6. Specifically, "if your organization is still using Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, just stop. Stop it now."

Here's the part we like best:

Any IT professional who is still allowing IE6 to be used in a corporate setting is guilty of malpractice.

Amen, brother. Why the harsh words? Because security experts at Adobe, Google, and other major corporations are dealing with the fallout from targeted attacks, which, according to Microsoft, leveraged IE6 vulnerabilities.

Look, we understand that not every organization can afford to migrate to Windows 7 and/or Windows Server 2008 R2 (though you really have to ask if you can afford not to), but Internet Explorer 8 is free. It's all but guaranteed to lower your security costs and improve user productivity. (Need help? Here's info on deploying and managing IE8.)

Is your organization still using IE6? If so, why?

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