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The numbers are already out of date. Google just upgraded 160 million people to Chrome 12. Firefox will hopefully upgrade 200 million people to Firefox 5 this week. I've watch the numbers for the past couple of weeks and IE9 has caught IE7.

The web could really get a bump if we just nudge the remaining legacy browser users to upgrade. Why anyone would run IE6 or IE7 is beyond me.

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People still use Windows XP, and people still use old ActiveX software that was developed when IE6 ruled and Microsoft was still pursuing dominance through lock-in.

The real question is why Microsoft hasn't developed a way to install newer versions of IE on the older OS'. There must be a way to isolate the browser from the rest of the system, even if they have to wrap a VM around it.

MS wants to sell newer versions of Windows.

Some businesses use legacy software that depend on IE6 and therefore don't want to risk breaking them by upgrading.

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