France Become Second European Country To Call For Stop On Internet Explorer

France has joined Germany into recommending that its citizens give up Internet Explorer 6 and move either to IE8 or another alternative. 

Earlier today we reported how the German government warned computer users across the country to abandon Internet Explorer because it was so vulnerable.

Now, The French Expertise Center for Governmental Treatment Response and Computer Attacks (CERTA) expressed its fears in a statement saying that "Pending a patch from the publisher, CERT recommends using an alternative browser."

Some observers have questioned whether the UK government shouldn't issue a similar statement from the Business, Innovation and Skills department headed by Lord Mandelson.

Microsoft itself recommends upgrading to IE8 from previous Internet Explorer iteration. The scale of the problem is monumental, especially in the public sector where Internet Explorer 6 still commands a significant following.

The Guardian reports that the Ministry of Defence has 300,000 desktops worldwide that comes with IE6 and that they don't have plans to upgrade anytime soon (ed : how could they when they face severe budget cuts).

In addition, Graham Cluley from security company Sophos, warned that if users aren't already familiar with other browsers, they may cause more problems than needed especially as some websites might now work with anything other than IE6.