This is the one thing which always mystified me about MS and IE. Why do they continually dead end their browser to a specific OS release?
I can't imagine someone in their marketing department actually thought by doing so would get people to upgrade their OS so they could have a more up to date browser.
The newer versions use features that didn't exist in older Windows. Features which are core components to how the new browsers work, both in terms of rendering and security. Someone made the decision that having these features was more important than backwards compatibility; it wasn't a marketing decision made after-the-fact. If there were no marketing department, IE10 still would not be able to run in Windows XP.
IE10 and Windows 8 are even stronger on the security points. Think of PC security as somewhat akin to vaccination. It only works for everyone when enough people are immunized. Herd immunity, it's called. Your sticking with objectively less secure browsers on objectively less secure platforms hurts us all. It's not something Microsoft should be encouraging, not just from a business or marketing standpoint, but a moral one as well.
Oh, and IE10 is objectively faster than Firefox too, thanks to the integration with DirectX 10 which is already compositing everything else on the screen in Windows 7 and 8.
Haha, I use a modern Linux 95% of the time these days, but keep an old box around for testing. I run a very tight ship and that box has never been owned (except for the one morning in ~2004 when the dcom exploit hit). Your implication that I'm a security threat is amusing.
The nice technologies the article mentions are operating system level and don't "have to" be tied to the browser. They are using fancy terms to describe security features from the 80's (on more professional systems). "Browsers can't write to the OS to install rootkits"... wow.
MS decided not to backport to further corporate goals, fine. But, the idea that IE has to be part of the OS was debunked a decade ago.
I can't imagine someone in their marketing department actually thought by doing so would get people to upgrade their OS so they could have a more up to date browser.