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Google Tells Users To Drop IE6

Kelly writes "Google is now urging Gmail users to drop Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) in favor of Firefox or Chrome. Google recently removed Firefox from the Google Pack bundle, replaced it with Chrome, then added a direct download link for Chrome on Google and YouTube. Google's decision to list IE6 as an unsupported Gmail browser does not affect just consumers: Tens of thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses that run Google Apps hosted services may dump IE6 as well. What's especially interesting is the fact that Mozilla is picking up two out of three browser users that Microsoft surrenders."

11 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unlike Firefox, IE7 doesn't support Win2k.

  2. Re:Makes sense by Trashman · · Score: 5, Informative

    FYI, Chrome is unsupported on Win2k as well.

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  3. Re:Makes sense by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Informative
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  4. Re:Advertiser versus advertiser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ad servers? What is this, 1996?

    Seriously, many sites don't even host ad banners in directories like /ads/ anymore since it's too easy for people to block that, and most also use innocent-sounding generic filenames for ads now. Adblock still works fine since you can use CSS selectors, though, so if a site puts ads in a <div class="adcolumnwrapper"> or so. (This also works for many text ads, BTW.)

    If you think you can block ads by slapping some server name in your hosts file, though, you'll be in for a rude awakening. I'm not saying that NOONE does that anymore, but you'll only get less ads that way, not none - and not even substantially less, for that matter.

  5. Re:Makes sense by jonbryce · · Score: 3, Informative

    It also added things like plug & play - no more typing the IRQ numbers of your peripherals and expansion cards before they work.

  6. Re:Makes sense by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lots of software is Leopard-only because Leopard added a bunch of new libraries. Microsoft doesn't tend to add new libraries (except DX10 -- and people screamed bloody murder when it added that), which is why so little software is Vista-only.

    Huh? There is a lot of new libraries and APIs in Vista apart from DX10. A new audio stack, new printing subsystem (both have support for legacy APIs, of course, but also totally new APIs enabling new features), kernel transaction manager, etc.

  7. Re:Makes sense by recoiledsnake · · Score: 3, Informative

    Uhmm, the kicker is, I'm *STILL* running Win2k. And not only that, but I've got drivers from within the last year running on it for both my PCIe Radeon HD3650, and my Logitech Driving Force Pro. Nevermind that Realtek supports most of their chipset hardware all the way back to either Win9x or DOS, depending.

    And the kicker of all this? Basically any game that doesn't require Windows Live and/or have a hardcoded check for XP will run and play fine on it.

    WinXP for all intents and purposes was a rebadge of 2k with some additional eyecandy and a FEW interface changes. But the majority of said interface changes don't affect 90 percent of the applications out there.

    Forced obsolescence is fine if there's a reason, but if your 10 year old OS has everything that a modern app needs to support it, there's no reason to upgrade. (Nevermind that 2k is the last windows version without that annoying Windows Activation stuff, and in fact is the reason I spent 300 bucks on it well after WinXP was out.)

    Keep telling yourself that. But there are actually a lot of enhancements . And no, those are not UI enhancements(which there are a ton, like wireless stuff in xp sp2). Those are just kernel enhancements.

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  8. Re:Brand of... by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Informative

    Protect yourself from typos in MS Word! Use LaTex!

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  9. Re:Another step that makes sense by neuromanc3r · · Score: 3, Informative

    whatever IE's engine is called

    Trident

  10. Re:Makes sense by petermgreen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Among other things win2k brought WDM to the NT line. WDM added support for plug and play and allowed hardware vendors to develop a single driver for both 98/ME and 2K (and XP and for the most part vista too).

    And decent directx support (afaict NT 4 had some support for directx but it was pretty crappy).

    And USB support (afaict there was some third party stuff for NT 4 but few devices worked with it)

    2K combined many of the important features of the 9x line (plug and play, wide hardware support, directx) with the stability and ability to handle large numbers of apps open at once.

    2K to XP was a fairly minor change and that means if you are supporting XP then unless you use some really exotic apis your app or driver will most likely work just as well under 2K.

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  11. Re:Makes sense by Andrew_T366 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just as a side note...if you use Windows 95, there's no reason to have Internet Explorer (5.x or otherwise) installed at all.