Recent research reveals that 40% of internet users are surfing on outdated browsers. This causes much concern since most malwares are created to target browsers. If you don’t remember when you last updated your Firefox or IE, then you could be one of those who are at risk!

A recent study organized by Google, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and IBM have discovered that only 59.9% of internet users are using the latest patched version of their preferred browser – that leaves 40.1% who are either on an older version or on the latest version but without the proper up to date, well… update.

With the help of Google’s enormous user information database, which was gathered from January of last year ‘til the end of last month, analysts were able to find out how often regular internet users like us apply browser patches (if ever we do). All browser patch versions were considered (unnecessary minor updates and major astronomical ones), along with the date when new patches were released – allowing them to know if even after a recent upgrade was released, if people actually installed them or not. Data was grouped according to the specific type of browser: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla’s Firefox 2, Apple’s Safari 3, Opera’s Opera 9, and Others.

Here is what they found out:

Out of the gigantuous number of users (totaling to 1,408 billion), 78.3% were using IE7, while 16.1 used Firefox 2. Safari had 3.4, and Opera had 0.8. The rest was divided into the smaller less popular browsers.

IE7 is the most used internet browser in the world, and it also happens to be the oldest of the bunch (released on October 18, 2006) – BUT, still only 52.5 percent of the people browsing with IE were actually using IE7. Most of the other 47.5 percent are assumed to be using IE6 at the very least. This is despite Microsoft’s efforts of spoon-feeding the public with the IE7. This is where most of the discrepancy was found. No wonder IE7 is the target of most malware!

Firefox and Opera users were most “advanced” so to speak – with 92.2% of Mozilla Firefox fanboys (like yours truly) already on Firefox 2; while 90.1% of Opera geeks are already working with the Opera 9. Apple’s Safari 3 has 70.2% usage out of all Safari users.

Although most are using the latest version of their preferred internet browsers, still a lot of them are not updated with the latest released patch. For example, out of all the Firefox 2 users, only 83.3% are updated “at full potential” (again, like yours truly) – still a huge number are using outdated Firefox 2’s. For Safari, it’s more than double – 34.7% of all Safari 3 users are not on the most secure version (probably because they don’t feel the need for such being that they are on “secure Macs”). For Opera, it’s 43.9% (who uses Opera on their PC?). And last and definitely, truly the least, Internet Explorer 7: IE7 users are the most outdated of all – 52.4% of them are browsing with the less secure version of the software – that equals to 1.1 billion users worldwide!

So what caused this huge discrepancy? How come Firefox users are more likely to be updated and working on secure machines compared to those billions who are using IE7?

The researchers suggest that auto-updating is the best way to do it. Firefox and Opera are commended for using this method; however the researchers said that “Firefox’s auto-update was found to be way more effective than Opera’s manual update download reminder strategy.” The group further suggests that the auto-update feature be included in all browsers.

Actually, IE7 is currently offered as an auto-update, bundled with each monthly set of Microsoft security patches. But still a number of people tend to disregard the upgrade and continue to use the less secure IE 6. Firefox’s one-click auto-update feature is not bundled with anything else (it is what it is), and perhaps that’s how Microsoft should have done it.

Instead of lolling around and trying to be nice to its users by asking first if they want to upgrade, why not just shove it up there? Because they need it. Please pardon my language if you find it offensive, but force-feeding isn’t such a bad thing if it’s for the better.