Slashdot Mirror
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.
IE6 has been a curse on web developers for 8 years. Thats like 80 human years. It must die a swift death.
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.
At my previous job (fairly large company) they've standardized on Win2k on the clients. In fact they're still running it. Guess what browser is included? The client is heavily modified so rolling out a new one isn't an easy task.
From what I've heard they're little above 1 year in planning to switch to Vista, but since there are quite a lot of migration issues I don't see that coming soon. I'd say it's atleast 6 months away, probably more. The company uses some very specific programs written by people that might not be with the company anymore, and all those need to work for business to continue as usual.
So they will continue to surf the interweb with IE6 for quite a while. Other browsers can be installed but that is unsupported and might result in a call from the security department on why you use unauthorized software on your machine. You probably don't want that. And none of the internal applications work with anything but IE6 (IE7 is being tested with the vista change) anyway.
Large organizations are fun.
But you shouldn't read gmail from work anyway so that's not a big problem. As long as most other sites still work. Or perhaps they should use an "external browser" and one "internal" one. Hehe.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
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
That's right Microsoft, you heard me well.
As long as there are no addons like adblock possible i'll be sticking to firefox...
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
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.
Google is becoming a company that we should all be worried about, but they are playing a predictable games. MS grew because it offered the cheapest product on the block that more or less worked. Google is doing the same thing. The problem is that MS is now that inefficient behemoth with a business model that assumes a cut of every PC sales and aftermarket revenue. This is an environment where all Google needs to survive is a fraction of penny from every hit.
Google now offers cheaper products than Microsoft, read free to the user, and few people seem to worry about the opportunity costs in terms of privacy and all that. This is in the same way that no one worry about the issue with MS in terms of being assumed a pirate rather than a paying customer.
Beyond all this, why would any sane person with a competing product want to have anything to do with MS. MS could come up with an update to IE tomorrow that would break google apps. We all know that MS has the motive, and the will to break other peoples software is well documented. This justifies asking people to move away from IE because the day that MS does break Google is the day that google will lose a lot of good will. People will blame Google and not MS.
Not supporting IE is a gutsy move. It shows that Google is willing to play hardball. It shows that google is no longer the feel good get along with everyone company, but a company that is willing to dominate and create monopolies. Good for those that want a competitor to MS. Bad for those of us that want a quality product delivered by a company that treats the end user as a customer, not just a proxy to earn third party money.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"and is in fact suffering from an internet addiction. "
Internet Addiction users probably also suffer from sex addiction, money addiction and food addiction.
I personally suffer from addictophobia, so let me assure everyone that internet addiction is real. So all of you stop snickering out there. In fact, if you're reading slashdot, you're probably an internet addict. Here are the symptoms:
1) Constantly have a browser window up in your computer
2) Check your email more than once a day
3) Know browser shortcut keys. You know what cntl-D does, alt (or apple) backspace does, how to quit your browser without using the mouse.
4) Understand the importance of metatags
5) Knows how to spell URL
6) Users Ad Block Plus
This is a serious addiction.
Next week, we'll be covering work addiction (a tragic state where most of your waking hours are spent at a business doing stuff that some person tells you), water addiction (heart breaking... you require water every time your mouth gets dry. You end up in a condition known as "thirsty").
Finally, we'll be covering sleep addiction. Some of those addicts are known to spend 1/3 of their day in a completely motionless catatonic state. Tears are staining my browser as I type.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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
Everything using that hellhole of I rendering engine called Trident should be shot, quartered, fed to dogs, burned, buried, dug up, defiled, burned again, and spread to all four quadrants of the galaxy wherever there are evil aliens to extinguish. In that order.
I wish, users would experience the horrors that Trident puts us trough themselves. But for this, every major site would have to code to the standard and ignore all quirks and bugs in it. I bet, if the top 10 sites on the net would put a message on their front page, to make it clear, that the bugs that the users see, come from their Browser being a load of crap, IE would be gone in hours.
But they seem to like more, to rant all day long, that their users don't switch. Idiots.
I, for one, have sworn, never to write Trident workarounds again. Ever! Even if I am shot, quartered, fed to dogs, burned, buried, dug up, defiled, burned again, and spread to all four quadrants of the galaxy while still being alive in some way.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Protect yourself from typos in MS Word! Use LaTex!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine