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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."
Makes sense, IE6 is just atrocious, most people need to upgrade! Although it does sound a bit anti-Microsoft on Google's part, telling users to switch to another browser, and not offering a direct link to IE7, which anyone on IE6 should really get anyway.
Please provide link to linux version. LOL!
Everyone I know uses Firefox, but me (I use Chrome). IE is used by people who have little other choice, or don't really care to research their software. If you care, you've switched. I'd imagine IE is used mainly on computers where users have no options to install third party software (it's not their decision). Mind you, I'm not anti-Microsoft in the least.
There is one very big reason for Google to do this, and it's not what many Slashdotters think.
Anybody using Firefox or Chrome has Google as their default home. Anybody using IE has MSN as their default home.
This is a war over who gets to propagandize you with their ads and collect your personal information. There is no good/evil dichotomy here if that's what you're looking for.
Further, I'll end with a categorical statement in order to offend people: Anybody with strong feelings about which web browser is the best is probably spending too much time surfing the web, and is in fact suffering from an internet addiction. IE 7, Opera, and Firefox are all pretty similar from a normal end-user perspective.
if it was, google would drop 7 support and tell them to switch too.
the fact is that, IE6 is WAY outdated now, is not supported anymore, is a gift from heavens for anyone writing exploits, doesnt even support tabs.
excuse me pal, ie6 is early 2000s.
its like the tech world equivalent of saying "dont drop 1930 model cars, even if its 1980s".
Read radical news here
All the funding in the world can't fix the absolute train wreck Internet Explorer codebase.
After using the stinking pile of shit firsthand it became obvious why the Internet Explorer devs in forums like MSDN would flame anyone and everyone who dared complain about the massive security and other problems the basketcase of a browser suffers from. The codebase is such a mess that it will never be fixed without a completely from scratch rewrite. And why it took years to finally get just the major security problems somewhat under control.
When Firefox was a total memory leaker it was a good temporary alternative. Now that Firefox has finally gotten its memory problems up to a reasonable standard and better alternatives like Chrome out now, hopefully Internet Explorer will just go away and die.
I work for a Very Large Company. Unfortunately, this particular company has built quite a bit of business process around Microsoft's tattered and broken products. For starters, the client engineering group requires that you use a build of IE6. Without several security patches. Why? Because a lot of the web portal applications do not run on anything but IE6. Upgrade to IE7? Unsupported. Chances are, the app won't work, or won't display correctly. For most of the apps that have forms, upgrading to IE7 means you'll never see the 'Submit' button, either because it's not there, or was rendered off of the page (and there's no horizontal scroll). Worse, most of these rely on stupid IE6 javascript tricks that don't quite work right in Firefox or Chrome or Safari. Firefox is semi-usable for most things, though you will eventually hit a page that just won't "Work". Unfortuantely, this corps makes up a not-insignificant chunk of the population. It's groups like that that would need to take care of in-house breakware before an adoption of Firefox or Chrome can be taken seriously.
Informatus Technologicus
You also missed in your list a last class: software developers writing reasonably modern code whose applications run like the aforementioned drying paint in IE6 and would like corporates to use FF3 or Chrome because then end users will be pleased by the improvement in the way their pages load and run.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Maybe the web developer pie chart will shift.
I'm all for dropping IE6. It is now nothing more than a bane to web developers and the advancement of web pages in general. But to stop accommodating IE6 in your websites simply becomes someone else says to do so is naive. You should support whatever your site's visitors need.
For my wife's site, I can drop support for 800x600 since they comprise of less than 2% of my visitors, and falling (hurray!). Yes, I know fluid design can accommodate all, but sometimes needs necessitate static widths.
However, IE6 still accounts for ~20% of my visitors, so no matter what Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/etc. says, until that number drops well below 10%, I will still support it.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
For me, this isn't about IE in general. IE 6 is a large and costly inconvenience for both web application and web site developers. IE 6 doesn't work in exactly the same way as IE7 & IE8. A person doing web development not only has to make sure that an application or site works in the Mozilla based browsers and IE, but that it works in multiple versions of IE. IE 6 is typically the browser that breaks when new code is developed when that code works in all of the other browsers. Even other versions of IE. Organizations and people are hanging onto IE 6. It is past time for those with muscle to begin nudging people away from IE 6
Obviously, market share has nothing to do with it. Any business that is serious is going to just use Linux and develop all its software for Linux, right?
Dream on. Windows has what, 90% market share? Followed by OS X with maybe 7%. Linux is last with perhaps 3%. And if you just count end-user machines and not servers it is probably more like 92%, 7% and 1% for Linux.
Sure, maybe it will change in the future. But for now the reality is that Linux commands such an incredibly small number of end-user machines that it isn't worth paying attention to for packaged software development.
So far, I think none of Google's actions contradicted my personal opinion on their intentions with Chrome. I still believe their main objective is to force the use of web standards by evenly distributing the browser marketing between Gecko, WebKit and... whatever IE's engine is called. From this point of view, it makes sense that they are still funding Mozilla and chose an engine supported by default on Macs.
And no, they don't want standardization because of some altruistic ideals. It's just easier to develop web applications that way. And getting rid of the anomaly called IE6, which behaves differently from 7 and 8 to the point of being considered a different engine, is a very logical next step.
Well said! http://www.stopie6.org/ http://savethedevelopers.org/
o_O
I will never understand why companies will spend so much time, money, rewriting code, testing, and training to migrate from one version of MS software to another and then use the excuse that they can't switch to Open Source because of the cost of migrating.
It's your type of thinking that caused Netscape to fail.
True, it had a terrible codebase. This was from trying to add features at a rapid pace in order to compete with IE at the time of the browser wars.
However, at some point a genius like the parent AC came along and decided that the entire codebase had to be rewritten.
This left them in the dust, with IE claiming nearly 100% marketshare.
What they should have done was rewrite code a bit at a time. The code could slowly improve, and they would still remain competitive. This is the course that has been chosen for Firefox.
A positive movement in the force am I feeling... but lurking in the shadows the Sith are... Surprises I sense in IE8... dark times ahead...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
And you are so eager to 'correct' someone that you didn't think you're comment through at all (or proof-read for grammar). It is IE7 that is not supported on Win2k, IE6 works fine (well, as fine as it does anywhere. ;) ). So you are wrong on your basic point. However, what I think you are trying to say is that IE7 doesn't work on Win2k and that this is somehow in contradiction to what I said. It isn't, though I invite you to explain how. Google is telling people to stop using IE6 and move to either Firefox or Chrome (which also isn't supported on Win2k, as it happens). Notable as a glaring omission is Google's rival's browser IE7. Google are using their influence in one area (ad-supported email accounts) to promote their products in a different market (browsers) at cost to their rival's product. That's anti-trust.
Please don't accuse me of knee-jerk responses. My post is more accurate than yours and reasoned through well-enough, I hope.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
"What's especially interesting is the fact that Mozilla is picking up two out of three browser users that Microsoft surrenders."
I realize this was written with the intent of saying, "What a great victory for our hero, Mozilla!"
But let's look at the numbers...
Browser share for November 2008 per w3schools:
IE7: 26.6%
IE6: 20%
Chrome: 3.1%
Firefox: 44.2%
Mozilla: 0.4%
Safari: 2.7%
Opera: 2.3%
So, non Microsoft leaves us with 53.4% of the market... Meaning Firefox already commands 80%+ of the non Microsoft share.
Gaining two out of every three - 67% of users quitting Microsoft - when it already has 80%+ of the non Microsoft share - implies its popularity is dropping not gaining amongst non Microsoft users.
Safari's stayed pretty constant for the last few months - as has Firefox, crawling up at a very slow rate. Chrome jumped from 0 to 3% pretty much immediately but has then barely moved in three months. Opera has actually gained proportionally the quickest (2% to 2.3% is a 15% improvement for them in three months).
So, I realize it was intended as a "Yay Firefox" claim - but, if you look deeper at the numbers - less of the new Anti-MS crowd are adopting it than have in the past.
Google are using their influence in one area (ad-supported email accounts) to promote their products in a different market (browsers) at cost to their rival's product. That's anti-trust.
No, it's not quite anti-trust, because Google doesn't have a monopoly in the "ad-supported email accounts" market, which is the requirement. Using your influence (really, market share) in one market to promote a product in another market is not in itself illegal.
A timely example of this (and a car analogy to boot) would be auto-makers who also have finance divisions that write car loans for their buyers. The particular car company is at an advantage, because they can lower the price of their cars to induce people to take out loans with them (or the other way around -- lower the loan rates to induce consumers to buy more cars). The practice is not illegal, because no one car company has a monopoly in the market, and a consumer can take their dollars (and/or their credit) to another automaker.
Similarly, users of Googlemail who want to continue using IE6 also have choices. They can switch to Hotmail, or Yahoo, or an e-mail service provided by their ISP, or they can roll their own server and use Outlook or Thunderbird or what-have-you.
The leverage google has, to make users switch from IE6 to another browser isn't that gmail is the only choice, but that it is (or is perceived by many to be) the best choice. Google is banking on the fact that loyal users of Gmail will give up their chosen browser, at whatever expense, and switch to Chrome (preferably) or Firefox.
There's nothing illegal about producing a superior product, and using that quality to force other, inferior competitors out of the market. It's the very essence of the free market, and even a lefty like me recognizes that this mechanism works well to increase the quality of the goods in the market (all other factors being equal).
And last of all, people need to remember that Microsoft, not Google is the convicted monopolist. It's a perfectly reasonable conclusion that Google is making a play to break the Microsoft monopoly on browsers, and if Google is doing what the DoJ won't do, then I say, hooray for Google (for now).
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.