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IE6 SP1 Will Be Last Standalone Version

Posted by michael on from the end-of-an-era dept.

mokiejovis writes "Program manager Brian Countryman stated that "as part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation." See the Microsoft TechNet article." Several of the people submitting this story have come up with elaborate theories about why: killing competition, etc. etc. I think the truth is just that Microsoft intends to integrate DRM very tightly with their OS and browser, and they're aren't going to try to backport that to, say, Win98, so they just aren't going to release new versions of their browser for old, DRM-less operating systems. In the future server-side browser detection may be more about detecting whether the browser supports the DRM your "web service" uses than what version of Javascript or CSS the browser supports.

6 of 723 comments (clear)

  1. Browser detection by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the future server-side browser detection may be more about detecting whether the browser supports the DRM your "web service" uses than what version of Javascript or CSS the browser supports.

    Browser detection has always been about identifying what capabilities the browser supports, or what bugs need to be worked around. Otherwise you wind up with sites that don't work in some browsers, and everybody bitches at you for not supporting them. The key is to not redirect to a page recommending that the user download IE or Netscape, since that really pisses people off.

    I don't plan on producing DRM-protected content, so I don't plan on detecting browser support for it.

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    1. Re:Browser detection by MrLint · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Here is the ironic part, i wonder how long its goign to take a whiz kid to lockout IE byt its its own DRM agaisnt it.

      But think about the larger consequences here. Think about sitesyouwont be able to print.. or copy text out of or look at the source for.

  2. No more bugs in IE! Yea! by Thomas+Wendell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.

    That's a pretty funny statement. The service packs are bug releases, hence they contain required changes that were not originally planned. How can Microsoft claim this is the last one that will be needed? Does this mean Microsoft will just abandon all of their users still running older versions of Windows?

    I suggest this is just laying the groundwork for FUD to force users to pay Microsoft to "upgrade" their OS in order to replace the latest IE security vulnerability with a whole new set of problems, vulnerabilities, incompatibilities and restrictions.

  3. Mozilla beware!! by pardasaniman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tying a browser to hardware can be really bad for us mozilla men. Online Banking will jump on it real fast. Secure communication will later require IE for authentication. This would put us at a huge disadvantage. I had a thought: Would it be possible to run a "Virtual Palladium" (software driven)? It'd involve running parts of the software in a virtualization machine like bochs. Microsoft patented the hardware not any software.

  4. *blinks* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And AOL just gave how much away for the rights to use this for the next 7 years???

  5. Browser testing? by vitaflo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a web designer, this worries me. How am I supposed to test my sites from here on out? Before it was as easy as loading up said site into IE 6 or IE 5 or what have you and seeing if the layout was as it should be. What now?

    Not that I need a version number, but I would like to know how they're going to dole out any updates to Javascript, CSS, and the like. I sure hope it doesn't become small updates like "CSS Update 12-2-04". The goood thing about browsers up until this point, new features were released all at once in slow updgrade cycles, which meant you were testing at a stationary, not a moving, target. I'm curious to know how this will be handled from now on.

    And yes, yes I know, "code to standards", which is the way it *should* be, but in practice, there's the reality that not all browsers output the way you need them to (especially IE).