Microsoft announced that changes are coming soon with IE that will effect how embed and object files are interpreted and some javascript and applets as well. Basically, if you have Flash files or any type of media files, there's a good chance you'll have to make changes to your code.

Sounds like a good time for me to migrate over to Safari.

All the changes are due to a law suit filed against M$ in which they were found in violation of patents relating to embeded media technologies.

It probably won't affect the end user but it could, as John mentioned, be a pain in the arse for developers.

That information is spot-on. This affects ActiveX controls, Java
programs, embedded movies like QuickTime movies (that are
embedded with the OBJECT or EMBED tags!).

More information on the why's and what to change (technically)
to make it work again can be found at this excellent page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/)

You can even download a modified version of IE6 there (if you
are running Windows XP SP1) to test out your new pages. This
IE version WILL NOT overwrite your current version and you can
use both side by side.

With that I'm moving this thread to the Web Delivery forum.

Microsoft said some time ago there will not be a new version for Mac. Safari is kind of it for Mac. Development of other browser is pretty much grinding to a halt.

Great... Hopefully I won't have to rewrite all my PHP code that I just spent weeks perfecting last year. Unfortunately I can't download the beta release for testing as I don't run XP on any of my machines.

Adrian, depending on exactly what the changes entail, I think it will affect lots of end users--when so many pages with video media load with a nag dialog after upgrading.

I noticed something kinda funny using IE under MacOS X the other day. I clicked on a link which led to a .asp file (which I think is Microsoft-speak for Active Server Pages or something). Anyway, Explorer chose to download the file to my desktop, and then MacOS X opened Apple System Profiler! I guess under MacOS X .asp is the extension for an Apple System Profiler file. Pretty amusing, I was expecting to see some sort of a movie ;-)

Not to be rude, but does this thread need to be stickied anymore? The changes to IE were made a long time ago.

actually, nothing was changed in internet explorer wrt this issue, until just a few weeks ago... and it wasn't caused by internet explorer, because it affects all browsers the same way... blame it on a company called eolas... google up the phrase "patent troll"...

what it means is that everyone who designs web sites may have to alter their code, per this writeup: http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=38506