Norwegian Websites Declare War On IE 6

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Norwegian Websites Declare War On IE 6

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 20, 2009 @09:32AM from the we-just-quit-testing-on-ie6 dept.

Eyvind A. Larre writes "A large and rapidly growing campaign to get users to stop using IE6 is being implemented throughout Europe. 'Leading the charge is Finn.no, an eBay-like site that is apparently the largest site for buying and selling goods in all of Norway (Finn is Norwegian for "Find"). Earlier this week, Finn.no posted a warning on its web page for visitors running IE 6. The banner, seen at right, urges them to ditch IE 6 and upgrade to Internet Explorer 7.' The campaign is now spreading like fire on Twitter (#IE6), and starting to become an amazing effort by big media companies to get rid of IE6! The campaign also hit Wired some hours ago."

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"Upgrade" to IE 7 by MrEricSir · 2009-02-20 09:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Is IE 7 really an improvement? If they're going to tell users to upgrade, why don't they encourage a standards-compliant browser?

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
1. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by f1vlad · 2009-02-20 09:37 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  IE8 is quite close to compliant. And IE7, yes, it is significant improvement.
  
  --
  o_O
2. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by gnick · 2009-02-20 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, it's a huge improvement over IE6. Tabs alone make it much nicer IMO. Of course, here at work, IE 6 is all that we're allowed to have installed without a signed exception from management and IT.
  Of course, it's still a pile of fetid dingo's kidneys compared to some of the competition. I'd rather see the sites encourage users to upgrade to FF, Opera, or even Safari or Chrome rather than just tie them to IE...
  
  --
  He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
3. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by bit+trollent · 2009-02-20 09:43 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Yes, from a web developer's point of view, IE 7 is a huge upgrade.
  There are still some differences between Firefox and IE 7, but they are much smaller than the horribly broken browser that is IE6.
  This isn't so much about the guy using the web browser as it is about the guy who has to write the html for it.
  By the way...
  I think whoever came up with HTML and CSS was smoking crack. There are so many inconsistencies and bizarre rules that it's impossible for me to believe that a sane person came up with all this.
  Whenever I see an inconsistency between how Firefox and IE do something, half the time I side with IE. I know standards matter, but how 'bout putting down the crack-pipe and putting your ego in check next time you come up with "standards" that millions of people have to deal with.
  I say this as somebody who writes high profile web applications that must look right in all major browsers (including IE6).
4. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 09:48 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If by "quite close", you mean "still the least standards-compliant browser available", you're right.
  Why not simply encourage them to download Firefox? Or Chrome? Or Opera? Or Safari? Or freakin' iCab, if they're on an old Mac?
  Upgrading to IE7 is just going to make them do the same again when IE8 comes around, and it's still going to force me to boot Windows just to test in IE. If I was in that position, I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
5. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by ZeroSerenity · 2009-02-20 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  Such as IE8? Would that suit your fancy?
  
  --
  For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
6. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by von_rick · 2009-02-20 09:51 · Score: 1
  
  I can see why companies would want to support browsers whose compatibility issues they are knowledgeable about. it now seems like the known issues in IE6 are way too many to keep their sites compatible with IE6.
  IE7 and FF(2 and 3) are quite a significant improvement over IE6. And then there are companies that build some web interfaces using Java and VB and mix up several technologies which makes their sites to malfunction regardless of which brower or OS you choose. The payroll system in our university has such a site.
  
  --
  Face your daemons!
7. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Rei · 2009-02-20 09:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Oh come on. Every time I have to make a webapp work across all browsers, 9 times out of ten, if a bit of code works perfectly fine in every browser but one, that one is IE. And IE7 is still chock full of problems. Random example (I could point to hundreds): As a home project, I'm in the middle of cross-platform debugging for a Google Maps-integrated electric vehicle simulator. If you design a vehicle in it (rather than just using a preset), you can submit it to me to consider for inclusion as a preset. It's emailed so I'm made aware of it right away and have a chance to scour over the numbers that they're providing to make sure it makes sense. The easiest way to do this is just with a mailto HREF that supplies a body. Fine, right?
  Well, IE (incl. 7) has a tiny GET limit, and this applies to mailtos as well. It only allows 2083 characters. By comparison, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc are for all practical purposes unbounded. 2083 characters is too small to hold all of the vehicle stats, such as the tables of how efficient the drivetrain and battery pack are under hundreds of different conditions. So, IE throws a cryptic error when it sees it. There are workarounds, of course, such as a web form that submits mail by CGI, but you know what? No. I'm getting sick of pandering to a lousy browser in project after project. I've in general decided to take the same approach that these sites are taking: disable any feature that IE has trouble with, and tell them to use a better browser if they want to have that feature available to them.
  
  --
  I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
8. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by f1vlad · 2009-02-20 09:56 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I guess if you do not give them Microsoft's option, the other side gets pissed off.
  In fact a while ago I've created a little script called killie6, when I posted on linkedin group to ask professional opinion about it, many declared it desceptive, violating user's choice, etc, etc.
  
  --
  o_O
9. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Hordeking · 2009-02-20 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  I get 100 mbit fiber for $65/mo in a small town in Iowa. WTF is taking the rest of you so long?
  I'd like to know what town you're in. Everywhere else in Iowa is practically 28.8k dialup.
  
  --
  Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
10. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Tubal-Cain · 2009-02-20 10:03 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  20/100 on the Acid3 is "close"?
  Webkit and Presto got 41/100 and 46/100 respectivly when Acid3 was released (now they both pass with flying colors).
  Unless all of IE's compliance improvements have been in areas not covered by Acid....
11. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by QuoteMstr · 2009-02-20 10:11 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I think whoever came up with HTML and CSS was smoking crack. There are so many inconsistencies and bizarre rules that it's impossible for me to believe that a sane person came up with all this.
  Browser implementation, web standards, and hell, even programming languages, APIs and file formats are more evolved than designed. Think of a community of bacteria growing on a petri dish competing for resources and occasionally swapping genes. You'll end up with organisms very different from the ones you started with, and they'll probably have some quirky mechanisms in them.
  Like in this culture, today's technology ecosystem is the cumulative result of lots of incremental changes that seemed like the right thing at the time. It's no surprise that we're dealing with the technology equivalent to such inexplicable evolution results as our retinas being wired backwards, the male urethra going right through the prostate (which is very prone to swelling), the birth canal being narrow enough to often cause the mother's death, or thymine (one of the components of DNA) being prone to forming dimers and corrupting the cell's machinery. Again, the decisions that seemed like the right thing at the time result in a system that's thoroughly confusing and that in retrospect appears insane.
12. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by idontgno · 2009-02-20 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  I'm guessing he's in Bettendorf. Although intentionally calling the Quad Cities "a small town" is a bit disingenuous. So I could be wrong.
  
  --
  Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
13. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by f1vlad · 2009-02-20 10:12 · Score: 1
  
  By all means, it isn't perfect at all. But don't you agree it's the best effort on their part to date? I would say so.
  
  --
  o_O
14. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by digitalunity · 2009-02-20 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  Well the problem here is that we couldn't start with HTML 4 or CSS.
  HTML has a lot of backwards compatibility, which is sometimes its own Achilles heel. I believe this is the same thing with Windows and I really hope software vendors join the club and start producing more Vista compatible software.
  
  --
  You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
15. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Tubal-Cain · 2009-02-20 10:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  But don't you agree it's the best effort on their part to date? I would say so.
  Yes, but "best effort" != "close"
  "closer", maybe.
16. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:19 · Score: 0
  
  In fact a while ago I've created a little script called killie6...
  I'm dense today. I read this and wondered what a 'killie' was.
17. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by diskis · 2009-02-20 10:30 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Well, you should stick to the HTML spec. GET requests should never cause an action, like sending that mail. POST requests are designed to allow actions. I don't know about the byte limit on POSTs, but I know you can upload files of several MB. Should be enough for an email.
  There is a reason for distinctions between GET and POST. A webcrawler for instance should be able to safely follow any link/form with a GET request. If you trigger mails with a GET request, you can easily get the googlebot to accidentally send you some email.
  Also, you may want to read up on the HTTP/1.1 RFC, which states that a GET request can be of unlimited length, but that clients and servers should beware as there is no guarantee that all software supports more than a 256 bytes long URI. This is one thing you shouldn't blame on Microsoft, as this limitation is fairly ancient, older than any copy of IE :)
18. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Low+Ranked+Craig · 2009-02-20 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  post.
  
  --
  I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
19. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Hordeking · 2009-02-20 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  Quite disingenious. The whole of the quad cities is bigger than Des Moines. Small for me is 0~200. Regular is ~1000. 300,000 people is not a small town.
  
  --
  Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
20. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SharpFang · 2009-02-20 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  Look, if you try to compare a wooden club, an iron mace and a black powder rifle, you know which is the winner. Let's not talk about submachine guns here.
  
  --
  45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
21. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by McBeer · 2009-02-20 10:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  20/100 on the Acid3 is "close"?
  In a way yes. The acid tests are by no means comprehensive. Acid 2 focuses primarily on CSS and Acid 3 focuses on DOM/ECMAscript. A browser can completely tank acid 3 and still render most things just fine. (I use noscript and don't notice ill effects on most websites)
  Acid tests aside, IE7 is certainly not the best browser out there, but it is way the hell better then IE6 and probably an easier sell to those still on IE 6.
  
  --
  Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
22. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Rei · 2009-02-20 10:41 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  GET requests should never cause an action, like sending that mail. POST requests are designed to allow actions.
  Oh come on; that's the standard way of launching emails: <a href="mailto:address?subject=Subject&body=Body">Mail us</a>. It's not really a GET request; it never gets sent to a server. It's just a way to tell the browser, "bring up an email client". And any crawler that doesn't recognize mailto is an idiot. There's not even an "HTTP" in there.
  
  --
  I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
23. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Rei · 2009-02-20 10:45 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Maybe because it is a HTML (version 1?) standard for GET and the other browsers ignores it?
  No, it isn't. Even Microsoft admits as much.
  RFC 2616, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1," does not specify any requirement for URL length.
  It's their own made-up lousy limit.
  
  --
  I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
24. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by techno-vampire · 2009-02-20 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  300,000 people is not a small town.
  I grew up in Los Angeles. Anything under 1,000,000 people is small by my standards you insensitive clod!
  
  --
  Good, inexpensive web hosting
25. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Skim123 · 2009-02-20 10:51 · Score: 1
  
  It's all relative. If you grew up and lived most your life in New York City or Seoul or Tokyo or Mexico City, then 300,000 people spread out over an Iowa mile is indeed "small."
  
  --
  I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
26. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by circletimessquare · 2009-02-20 10:53 · Score: 1
  
  i also program for browsers, and i hate ie
  but your example sucks
  you should be doing posts, not gets, for large chunks of data
  no matter what ie's limits are
  get submissions really shouldn't be bigger than 256 characters
  for many reasons
  http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/methods.html
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
27. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:54 · Score: 0
  
  Insight: There are actually people who think this way.
  Crack usage has always been a serious problem. And yes, IE is right. You are also awesome.
  WhoTF modded this insightful?
28. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by sexconker · 2009-02-20 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  It's 2048 + some such for this and some such for that and etc.
  It's lousy, but it's not just made up.
29. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Mad+Merlin · 2009-02-20 11:01 · Score: 1
  
  It's a mixed bag, some things are better in IE7 than IE6, but IE7 also threw in a bunch of new problems. For example, if you use opacity on any element, IE7 permanently turns off cleartype for all of the text inside that element and permanently disables PNG alpha support for that element and all of its children. Both very irritating problems if you care about IE users.
  
  --
  Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
30. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by TheCouchPotatoFamine · 2009-02-20 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  that's why I love support and cherish openlaszlo and variants as the sane choice for non-semantic web applications of which there is large need. HTML+css is fine for publications and static searchable content (e.g. craigslist), and a barrier to entry for everything else. check it: http://openlaszlo.org/
  
  --
  CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
31. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 11:11 · Score: 0
  
  playonlinux 3.3.1 beatifully runs ie6 and ie7 at the same time, unlike windows i might add.
32. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by AvitarX · 2009-02-20 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  I was with a friend from New York (well as he told me, a small town on Long Island).
  Population was over 100k, the largest city in my state is under 100k. So I was amused.
  I didn't think of it as a big city or anything, but I certainly didn't think of it as a small town either.
  
  --
  Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
33. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 11:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  permanently
  You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does.
34. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  If suggesting Firefox for Windows users doesn't "force you to boot Windows" just to test in Firefox, you're not really testing properly, are you?
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
35. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by diskis · 2009-02-20 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  >Well, IE (incl. 7) has a tiny GET limit, and this applies to mailtos as well. It only allows 2083 characters.
  Ah, I see. So you were talking about only mailto's. Silly me, thought I read something about GET in your mail. Especially when it's in another paragraph than where you mention mailto's
36. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 11:30 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  20/100 on the Acid3 is "close"?
  Acid3 isn't exactly a measure of overall compliance. For example, a couple of Acid3 tests involve SVG, but even though Webkit and Presto score 100/100 on the test, there are huge pieces of SVG that I want to use that neither browser has even implemented yet.
  
  Webkit and Presto got 41/100 and 46/100 respectivly when Acid3 was released (now they both pass with flying colors).
  Well, the test involves flying colors, so that's no surprise!
  
  Unless all of IE's compliance improvements have been in areas not covered by Acid....
  Considering some of the obscure crap in the "Acid" tests, it would not surprise me in the least. I've thrown perfectly valid webpages at Acid-passing browsers, and seen it screw them up horribly.
  Do I care that Acid3 tests UTF-16? Even if a browser didn't support UTF-16 at all, it would be trivial to work around (just send some other encoding). I'd be a little surprised to see a web server actually sending UTF-16. But there's a whole bunch of stuff in the CSS specs that's really useful, difficult (or impossible) to work around, and not in any Acid test.
  It's a shame that the Acid tests draw developer effort away from more important bugs that us web developers really care about. Good lesson, though: if you want developers to care about a bug, don't bother filing a bug report. Just make a colorful animation with a 0-100 score to shame them. They'll ignore real bugs that other users filed years ago in their bug db, just to get the darned thing up to 100/100.
37. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by MortenMW · 2009-02-20 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  I have actually heard the Finn.no developers explain this. It's because the average IE6 user belives that the browser and the internet is the same thing. These users don't care about different browsers and will not download some other sort of internets.
38. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Fjandr · 2009-02-20 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  That depends entirely on what your objective is. There are many times I'd take a club or mace before a black powder rifle or submachine gun. :)
39. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  Would you care to point to the part of RFC2616 that details this restriction?
  Or do you mean, Microsoft didn't just pluck the number out of thin air, they got it by adding together some numbers they had, um, plucked out of thin air?
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
40. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  And you may want to read up on the difference between a URL and a GET request.
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
41. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by lgw · 2009-02-20 11:37 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It's a shame that the Acid tests draw developer effort away from more important bugs that us web developers really care about. Good lesson, though: if you want developers to care about a bug, don't bother filing a bug report. Just make a colorful animation with a 0-100 score to shame them. They'll ignore real bugs that other users filed years ago in their bug db, just to get the darned thing up to 100/100.
  There's a lot of thruth in this. One of the big problems with coding against a standard is "how do you know when you pass?" Coloful animation or no, a third party providing testing services for any standard is a wonderful thing, provides a metric that's easy to market, and of course distracts from the "real" standard. That's why standards committees rarely provide such tests: no matter what the standard says, the test will be taken as normative in preference to the standard.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
42. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by dvice_null · 2009-02-20 11:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If we measure "better" in percents of all features (not just those in the ACID tests), then:
  Browser: ......... IE6 ..| IE7 ..| FF2
  HTML / XHTML . 73% ..| 73% ..| 90%
  CSS 2.1 .......... 51% ..| 56% ..| 92%
  CSS 3 changes . 10% ..| 13% ..| 24%
  DOM ............... 50% ..| 51% ..| 79%
  ECMAScript .... 99% ..| 99% ..| 100%
  http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-summary?IE6=on&IE7=on&FX2=on&uas=CUSTOM
43. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by daffmeister · 2009-02-20 11:42 · Score: 1
  
  That's a mailto: which is not even pointing at the same server (it will go to an smtp server, not the http server).
  That might still be a limitation of IE6, but get your GETs and POSTs and mailto's straight.
44. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2009-02-20 11:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  In understand your complaints about ie. But seriously, email is not what you should be doing there. Ajax post to a back end that analyzed the data and determined if it was worthy for you to review, then if you really need to be notified by email, email it to you. Its not that tough, and a more elegant way of doing it.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
45. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 11:58 · Score: 1
  
  Um, the only place he mentioned GET is in the sentence you just quoted, and he mentions mailto in the same sentence.
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
46. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  That's a mailto: which is not even pointing at the same server (it will go to an smtp server, not the http server).
  Are you under the impression that mailto: is to SMTP as http: is to HTTP?
  Hint: a mailto URL doesn't "go to" any server at all (unless you count the part of your local operating system which handles URL dispatch as a server).
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
47. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Tubal-Cain · 2009-02-20 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  It's a shame that the Acid tests draw developer effort away from more important bugs that us web developers really care about. Good lesson, though: if you want developers to care about a bug, don't bother filing a bug report. Just make a colorful animation with a 0-100 score to shame them. They'll ignore real bugs that other users filed years ago in their bug db, just to get the darned thing up to 100/100.
  Are there any tests that cover a larger feature set? Pretty animations not necessary, of course...
  Also, Mozilla doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get that last 6-7%.
48. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by greenguy · 2009-02-20 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  I think whoever came up with HTML and CSS was smoking crack.
  Hey! It was not a person smoking crack!
  It was a committee.
  
  --
  What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
49. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by sexconker · 2009-02-20 12:21 · Score: 1
  
  Would you care to point to the part of RFC2616 that details anything about the length?
  The limitation in IE is based on stuff that isn't plucked out of thin air anymore than the limitations of other browsers.
  The limit of 2083 isn't some random number, either. It's 2048 + some room for other crap. The max path length is 2048, I believe.
  Just because other browsers use something larger doesn't change the fact that the spec doesn't dictate the length, and thus this will always be a potential problem, or, at the very least, something where someone at some point will have to decide a limit "randomly".
  The shitty part is that they don't raise the limit. Seems like an easy thing to fix. I believe IE8 uses the same restriction.
50. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:26 · Score: 0
  
  Upgrading to IE7 is just going to make them do the same again when IE8 comes around, and it's still going to force me to boot Windows just to test in IE.
  I use wine for IE testing in Linux. A quick install script can be found here.
51. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by ignavus · 2009-02-20 12:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I guess you have never heard of a Microsoft-only shop, or of business users who (a) often cannot control what is on their work PCs and (b) make up a large proportion of PC users.
  I help run a site for government (and some non-government) users in various agencies. About 80% of my users (by page hit) are IE6 and another 14% are IE7. Firefox is mainly used by non-government clients of my website.
  The government users have no say over their desktop configuration. And if you have never had to deal with the IT section of a large government agency you don't know the obstacles and bureaucracy (and random malfunctions) to simple things like "Just use Firefox" or "Update to the latest version of IE". These are projects that can take *years* to accomplish.
  Sometimes entire state governments can be locked down into a single "solution" - most likely a Microsoft-only one. Then it is IE all the way, and version upgrades will take ages to filter through.
  There is no "simply".
  
  --
  I am anarch of all I survey.
52. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Joe+U · 2009-02-20 12:41 · Score: 1
  
  I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox.
  The banner can include a note not to hire you for anything that actually makes money.
  Discouraging users with big annoying banners is stupid, actively blocking them based on their browser is outright moronic.
53. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by easyTree · 2009-02-20 12:55 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder why no 'ethical' haX0r has yet written a virus which cleanly and safely removes all trace of IE from a machine then pops up a box to ask if you'd prefer firefox or opera (or <other browser>)*
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
54. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Seth+Kriticos · 2009-02-20 13:06 · Score: 1
  
  I think whoever came up with HTML and CSS was smoking crack. There are so many inconsistencies and bizarre rules that it's impossible for me to believe that a sane person came up with all this.
  Crack, well, nearly missed it: it was a committee.
55. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by siDDis · 2009-02-20 13:11 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Im a web developer and I find almost nothing that works better in IE 7 than IE 6. Javascript is still the same thing, no support for for each loops nor iterators, the setAttribute() function is still useless, dynamic CSS only works correctly with the element.style.cssText attribute and a lot of other IMPORTANT improvements in Javascript is still missing.
  I always have to spend more time supporting IE, and supporting both of them at the same time is a piece of cake, because they're hardly any different. Most of the CSS issues gets solved by using Javascript. However that margin/padding bug is still freakin me out.
  This ANTI IE campaign is still utter bullshit as long IE 7 is a suggested upgrade, IE7 is basically a minor patch to IE 6 and a new skin.
56. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 13:41 · Score: 0
  
  These are projects that can take *years* to accomplish.
  There is no "simply".
  Your comment is wrong. When things break the "experts" suddenly figure out "simply"
57. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by f1vlad · 2009-02-20 13:54 · Score: 1
  
  I am a web developer as well and I have been frustrated by some things in ie6. When jQuery and some other libraries help me avoid having to create individual forks for ie6 when it comes to front end scripting, layout is a big nightmare in ie6. 7.0 is much better when it comes to css at least; not idea, not good, but better.
  I have been thinking about timing, too. And from your stand point, I guess this campaign is a failure. Because they probably should have started it after IE8 has become final release.
  But personally, I still think it's a good effort.
  
  --
  o_O
58. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by mikael_j · 2009-02-20 13:55 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If you think IE8 is anywhere near standards-compliant then you need a serious reality check, it's not quite as horrible as IE6 and IE7 but it's still fucking painful to work with. I recently created a website just for shits and giggles, completely standards-compliant, worked perfectly in Safari/WebKit and Opera, needed some minor tweaking in Firefox, barely rendered in the IE8 beta (and it looked nothing like it was supposed to look like), produced a "blank" page in IE7 and IE6 asked me if I wanted to download it (application/xhtml+xml).
  I wish all these incompetent web developers would defending IE, IE8 is still a complete failure when it comes to standards compliance but lots of people who have no idea what they're talking about are hailing it as an awesome browser because it's not completely and totally broken in every conceivable way. It's like saying "My 2009 Ford is awesome, it only randomly explodes every 200 miles or so instead of every 10 miles like my 2008 ford...".
  /Mikael
  
  --
  Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
59. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by miro+f · 2009-02-20 14:02 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  You have to remember that even if you use Firefox, there are plenty of vulnerabilities in ie that can affect you just by the fact that it is installed, even if you don't actually use it to surf the web.
  Even if you use firefox/opera/whatever, you should still upgrade IE
  
  --
  being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
60. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by saltydogdesign · 2009-02-20 14:10 · Score: 1
  
  Some of us are in a position where we have to support IE of some sort -- forcing everyone to make the same choices we do is just not an option. If that's where you are, though, better to support one crappy browser than two.
  
  --
  // This is not a sig.
61. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Gregg+Alan · 2009-02-20 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  No, you missed the post way up higher.
  
  --
  Here before all but 8486 of you.
62. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by f1vlad · 2009-02-20 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Have you checked latest IE8 build? I did not create web site for shits and giggles, I've created a number of serious websites which I had to test on IE8, starting with very first release candidate, and of course, which I had to create separate stylesheets for like so:
  
  <!--[if gte IE 8]>
  And I have to submit to you that amount of fixes needed for IE8 is minimal and that is a huge improvement considering it's IE, and that makes me happy as developer. Microsoft was kind enough to create a readiness toolkit as well :) And no I am not IE user and I am not Windows user. I am just being realistic. What you expect Microsoft to release a browser that will be compatible with Firefox or Safari?
  Have you looked at Developer Tool on IE8? That thing is tremendous help for developers.
  On one Russian podcast radio-t, there was interview with IE8 architect who submitted that IE8 is the most compliant browser on the market. That is why things look broken on some sites, and that is because Firefox is being considered a benchmark when it fact it isn't. Because it itself is not 100% compliant. Entire interview is available for download, it's in Russian.
  And please note, I haven't gone and checked how close this architect is to the truth about compliance, I am marely relaying to you what I heard.
  I am still happy for IE8 and that will be a better world when all IE6 and IE7 users will move on to IE8, if their OS (Windows 95...2000) allows it of course.
  
  --
  o_O
63. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 14:32 · Score: 1
  
  Fairfield.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
64. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 14:36 · Score: 1
  
  About 80% of my users (by page hit) are IE6 and another 14% are IE7. Firefox is mainly used by non-government clients of my website.
  Do you suppose that if you offered some encouragement to upgrade, that might change?
  
  The government users have no say over their desktop configuration.
  And yet, if every single user is complaining because a particular website doesn't work, and it's clear that it doesn't work because they're on an old version of IE, I suspect it would have some effect.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
65. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 14:37 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps not, but the number of bugs which exist in Firefox only on a single OS are quite a lot smaller than the number of bugs which exist in completely different browsers.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
66. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 14:42 · Score: 1
  
  I'm aware. However, unlike Firefox, IE wasn't really written to be cross-platform. I don't really trust the Wine'd version to be similar enough to the Windows version -- fonts alone could make it look wildly different.
  Fortunately, I don't have to boot it often -- it tends to just work, and the things that don't seem to be relatively constant. But the few times a week I do test in IE, I'd rather it be a correct IE.
  Besides which, while installing IE on Linux may be legal, installing it without a Windows license almost certainly is not. If I've got a Windows license anyway, I may as well use it.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
67. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 14:44 · Score: 1
  
  The banner can include a note not to hire you for anything that actually makes money.
  Two things:
  First, if you've hired me, it's up to you. If you want it to work in IE, I'll make it work in IE. Of course, it means I'd likely accept a job where I don't need that over a job where I do.
  Second, I do make specialty apps in markets where people would gladly install a downloadable exe. Being forced to download Firefox isn't any worse -- in fact, it's better, because they might find they actually prefer it.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
68. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by foxylad · 2009-02-20 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  Agree with your point, but assuming you are using Linux, the IEs4Linux package is excellent for testing IE5-7. The only thing I've had to use a Windows machine for was a javascript window opener that didn't work under Linux, but did under Windows - otherwise rendering, CSS, and javascript seem to be faithfully reproduced.
  http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page
  
  --
  Do as you would be done to.
69. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by CraniumDesigns · 2009-02-20 15:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, like Opera, especially since it's Norway, the home of Opera. :)
70. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by obscuro · 2009-02-20 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  a little script called killie6
  You rock! I can imagine so many terrible scenarios happening to nice people from that but you still rock.
  
  --
  Every rule has more than one consequence.
71. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by poopie · 2009-02-20 15:38 · Score: 1
  
  I guess you have never heard of a Microsoft-only shop
  Even Microsoft isn't a Microsoft-only shop.
72. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by LordAlced · 2009-02-20 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  Me too, but that's because I plan on becoming a member of the Society of Creative Anachronisms. But, really, long or great swords are weapons of choice for a paladin like me.
  
  --
  Error: this custom sig failed to load. Please update your user preferences. If this message still appears, please contac
73. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Handover+Phist · 2009-02-20 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  If I was in that position, I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox.
  And if you had a cashflow through that site, a significant amount would be lost for an unforseeable amount of time. Also, present and potential customers would be lost.Try explaining that to the pointy haired one. Norway, the home of Black Metal, is an incredibly defiant and individual culture, and I'm quite proud to have a large amount of norwegian blood flowing through me. It also means that my 'superiors' have a hard time taking my sometimes abrasive attitude. From experience I know that the upper ups don't give shit one about browsers, they care about sales, and will fuck the entire planet over if it means another copper in the coffer.
  I feel a Troll mod coming on....
74. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by mrbcs · 2009-02-20 16:12 · Score: 1
  
  Because, Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has locked internet exploder so deep into the os, that if you actually do remove it, you cripple the os.
  Nice eh? I watched the bastards sneak that in from win 95a to win 95c. Win 95c "WAS" windows 98 first edition but at that point syou could still remove ie without issue. Now, it's almost impossible. Leave it, delete the big blue "e" and use something else.
  
  --
  I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
75. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Joe+U · 2009-02-20 16:20 · Score: 1
  
  Second, I do make specialty apps in markets where people would gladly install a downloadable exe
  So, corporate America is out.
  
  Being forced to download Firefox isn't any worse -- in fact, it's better, because they might find they actually prefer it.
  So, again corporate America is out. And that's not even going into details on what a POS hackfest that Firefox currently is. (40 known severe vulnerabilities in 2008)
76. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by eihab · 2009-02-20 16:35 · Score: 1
  
  Check RFC3986 (Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)):
  
  URI producers should use names that conform to the DNS syntax, even when use of DNS is not immediately apparent, and should limit these names to no more than 255 characters in length.
  "mailto:" is not the best way to achieve what you're trying to do. Consider people in internet cafe`s with no access to their email, or a visitor who strictly uses webmail.
  Just my 2 cents.
  
  --
  If you can't mod them join them.
77. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Mozk · 2009-02-20 16:44 · Score: 1
  
  VirtualBox
  Just install an nLited version of Windows 2000 in it. I have a 1.6 GHz Athlon XP with 512 MB RAM and it takes 15–35 seconds to boot. Use Windows XP if you need to use IE7.
  
  --
  No existe.
78. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Rei · 2009-02-20 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  The part of a mailto URI that's equivalent to the DNS is the email adddress, and yes, it is no more than 255 characters. Your link doesn't state that *entire URIs* should be no more than 255 characters.
  This isn't a feedback form. It's a series of complex configuration details that you're not just going to write on a whim (if it was written on a whim, I wouldn't accept it as a preset). The various drivetrain stats may have several hundred entries each. You're not going to do this in a net cafe. And if you use only webmail, you can just copy it. It's not worth coding what basically amounts to an indirect email form which not only takes more work, but provides another thing that could break, raises issues of popup blockers, and so on. It's something that is going to be used only rarely, but when it is used, the person using it is going to have the motive to make sure it works. If it does prove to be a problem, I'll switch to a serverside form, but at this point, that doesn't pass scrutiny on a cost-benefit analysis.
  
  --
  I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
79. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by palegray.net · 2009-02-20 18:26 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If I was in that position, I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox.
  Spoken like a man who doesn't earn a significant portion of his annual income from web-based enterprises.
  
  --
  512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
80. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 18:32 · Score: 1
  
  I actually did, for awhile. And yes, we did support IE -- I think we stuck with IE7, though.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
81. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 18:33 · Score: 0
  
  Because it's stupid to try to force those on people. If they are using IE6, then they probably like IE. Simply asking them to upgrade to IE7 is the most logical and considerate thing to do, not try to cram some "alternate" browser down their throats.
  I know it might be difficult for you to grasp with your apparently closed and naive worldview, but some people actually prefer IE over the other browsers.
82. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-20 18:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If they are using IE6, then they probably like IE.
  If they are using IE6, they probably don't know anything about alternate browsers, or browsers in general.
  
  Simply asking them to upgrade to IE7 is the most logical and considerate thing to do,
  Or we could ask them to be logical and considerate of us.
  
  some people actually prefer IE over the other browsers.
  I know, I have met such people.
  I've also met people who prefer Vista. And I've met people who actually like Clippy.
  Trust me, you are not the majority.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
83. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Mystra_x64 · 2009-02-20 19:31 · Score: 1
  
  XHTML in IE*: 0%
  Fixed that for you. It knows only HTML. No XHTML, sorry.
  
  --
  Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on /.
84. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by AliasMarlowe · 2009-02-20 19:36 · Score: 1
  
  But don't you agree it's the best effort on their part to date?
  Irrelevant. A best effort is not ipso facto a good effort. The scores of IE7 and other browsers on ACID3 and other tests for W3C standards compliance indicate what sort of result IE7 achieved. If that's the best MS could do, it's not exactly good.
  
  --
  Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
85. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Joce640k · 2009-02-20 19:54 · Score: 1
  
  Who cares about Acid3?
  It only tests things that most web sites will never need.
  
  --
  No sig today...
86. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 20:22 · Score: 1
  
  Or we could ask them to be logical and considerate of us.
  Haven't you heard the expression "the customer is always right?"
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
87. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by eihab · 2009-02-20 20:25 · Score: 1
  
  The RFC probably isn't specific enough (like all web standards are anyway) and it probably is a bad implementation on Microsoft's part.
  However, if the issue really doesn't "pass scrutiny on a cost-benefit analysis" for you to implement a back-end solution then why are we having this discussion?
  If visitors of your site are savvy enough to copy and paste text to use their webmail, they're probably savvy enough to read a nice capitalized and red block of text saying "IE6 is broken, use a better browser, have a nice day".
  There's a lot of things that IE6 can and should be beat up for, from PNG support to broken CSS and crazy quirks mode and even high blood pressure for some developers. But this is such a corner case that it's really not worth getting yourself worked up about it.
  
  --
  If you can't mod them join them.
88. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by ChameleonDave · 2009-02-20 20:40 · Score: 1
  
  It's all relative. If you grew up and lived most your life in New York City or Seoul or Tokyo or Mexico City, then 300,000 people spread out over an Iowa mile is indeed "small."
  Small, yes (to a Londoner like me). But a "small town"? Once you add a specific noun, you have something to compare it with. It's no longer all just relative to your experience. Is a polymer a small molecule, because it is smaller than (say) my body? Surely it ought to be compared to something like dihydrogen.
  A settlement of 300,000 is a small city but a reasonable town.
89. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Spy+Handler · 2009-02-20 20:44 · Score: 1
  
  Is IE 7 really an improvement? If they're going to tell users to upgrade, why don't they encourage a standards-compliant browser?
  from my (limited) point of view, yes IE7 is a big improvement over IE6.
  First thing is, IE6 does not support transparent PNG, so all my fancy transparent-background 16bit color images have to be converted to 256color GIF just for IE6, which makes them look crappy.
  I don't do anything fancy, just basic stuff like tables and floating divs in a separate css file. First I write the pages for Firefox, and when everything looks right, I switch over to IE7. Anything that comes out broken, I fix with the "!-- [if IE 7]" tag. Then after that I look in IE6 and use "[if IE 6]" for some more fixing.
  IE7 isn't too bad, but IE6 is often quite horrible. Fixes required for IE6 are easily 2 to 3 times the amount required for IE7.
  If I could drop IE6 support and limit IE support to 7, I'd be very happy.
90. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by nicklott · 2009-02-20 21:06 · Score: 1
  
  You are doing something that it's not designed for and then complaining that it's broken?
91. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 21:26 · Score: 0
  
  If I was in that position, I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox.
  Why block it? And you would block Dillo, Lynx, Elinks and whatnot, too, I suppose? And you would certainly block them with UA sniffing, not so? Well, some web developers still are worse than browser developers.
  From an accessibility point of view, just include your CSS via an IE6-incompatible technique and everything will be fine.
92. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  Would you care to point to the part of RFC2616 that details anything about the length?
  That is precisely my point.
  
  Just because other browsers use something larger doesn't change the fact that the spec doesn't dictate the length, and thus this will always be a potential problem, or, at the very least, something where someone at some point will have to decide a limit "randomly".
  Nothing random about it. When you're writing a browser, don't impose arbitrary limits. Simply pass on the limit you yourself had imposed upon you, i.e., the limitations of the architecture. If your users want to pass longer URLs, they can buy more memory, get a 64-bit machine, etc.
  
  The shitty part is that they don't raise the limit. Seems like an easy thing to fix. I believe IE8 uses the same restriction.
  No, the shitty part is that they impose an arbitrary limit.
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
93. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-20 21:31 · Score: 1
  
  The post to which diskis replied is the one that spawned this whole thread. Would you care to point me to another?
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
94. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by thalassinos · 2009-02-20 21:47 · Score: 1
  
  That will not work for all cases. In my workplace aprx. 95% of non-IT users have Windows 2000 + IE6. They are supposed to only use the internet for work related stuff and many websites (e.g. social networking sites, web mail sites, stock trading sites, discussion forums, youtube) are blacklisted.
  If a user complains that website X does not work, the first thing that IT will check is if website X is work related or if it helps the user with his work.
  Nobody will admit "I want IE7/IE8/Firefox/Opera/Chrome/Safari in order to watch youtube videos/buy stuff from finn.no" to their network access overlords if they value their work (and in this business climate, nobody will).
  On the other hand, we are transitioning our old custom internal (3270 terminal) applications to AJAX. Some of the tools we use misbehave under IE6, so there's hope for us yet.
95. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by thalassinos · 2009-02-20 22:01 · Score: 1
  
  Many browsers lie that they are IE6 in order to work with some intranets or other stupid government/school/bank website.
  I actually have a custom scriptable download manager (not even a browser) which runs under linux and it is configured to claim that it's IE6 running under Windows 2000 in order to download/upload some statistics files every month from a government website (they use a proprietary CMS system which sucks; up until 2 years ago they used FTP which was a far better solution).
  Actively blocking all browsers which claim to be IE6 does a disservice to the people who hate IE6 but simply do not have a choice.
96. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by FreeFull · 2009-02-20 22:12 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed, they are known to secretly run FreeBSD and to use Macs.
  
  --
  No ascii art.
97. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by FreeFull · 2009-02-20 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  Do you think IE6 is any better?
  
  --
  No ascii art.
98. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hasdikarlsam · 2009-02-20 22:35 · Score: 1
  
  Mailing it is the simplest solution. If it works, why make things more complex?
  (Now, granted, it wouldn't work for me - I don't have a local email client set)
99. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by MrMr · 2009-02-20 23:49 · Score: 1
  
  Hm Improvent as in the Acid3 test?
  IE6 sp2=11/100, IE7=14/100, IE8=20/100.
  At that rate (1 point per year) Internet Explorer will be ready for my desktop in the year 2089.
100. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hitmark · 2009-02-21 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  some of the pages taking part in this do so, they list all the major browsers the user can upgrade to, complete with links.
  
  --
  comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
101. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by johnw · 2009-02-21 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  actively blocking them based on their browser is outright moronic.
  You wouldn't like to mention this to Wightlink - http://www.wightlink.co.uk/ - would you? I've contacted them several times but they decline to fix their system.
102. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 01:41 · Score: 0
  
  If they are that locked in, then what chance do they have the right to upgrade their machine to IE7? This campaign is a bullshit microsoft scam! Follow the Kroners!
103. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Vexorian · 2009-02-21 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  Well, it at least supports PNG transparency. That's an improvement.
  
  --
  
  Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
104. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2009-02-21 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  Well, the simplest is actually a straight form submission, rather than ajax. But this is a mashup with google maps and everything. Making it anything less than ajax makes the developer look bad. ( I also do not have a local mail client set)
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
105. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by dna_(c)(tm)(r) · 2009-02-21 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  Haven't you heard the expression "the customer is always right?"
  Yeah, but the answer to that question is "no".
  In IT customers often have unrealistic expectations. In that case you need to explain, negotiate and generally try to save the planet in a polite but firm way...
  Especially in this example, there are probably no real business cases to be made for working with IE6 (or IE in general, maybe). ActiveX? Proprietary legacy software? Those would possibly tip the balance in the other direction. Inertia, on the other hand...
106. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by dna_(c)(tm)(r) · 2009-02-21 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  "closer"
  I think you mistyped "less evil" there. Glad to help.
107. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Joe+U · 2009-02-21 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on your OS, in Windows 2000 I don't have much of a choice for IE7. So yes, I would choose IE6 over Firefox.
108. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-21 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  It's not impossible to make a page that works in IE6. Still it's a good thing that you explain up front that you don't want to do that so they can go and find someone else who does. I'm sure there are a lots of people in China, India or Russia who would be quite happy to make a website that works on browser that even now is number 2 in popularity. E.g. see here
  http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2009/February/browser.php
  1. MSIE 7.x (42%)
  2. MSIE 6.x (34%)
  3. FireFox (17%)
  4. Safari (4%)
  5. Opera x.x (1%)
  I bet they'll do it for less than you charge too.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
109. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by AGMW · 2009-02-21 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  I use IE6 [*ducks*]. I've seen (and used) IE7 and I totally hate it! Why the interface change when all we wanted was for it to be more (or better yet "completely"!) standards compliant! I guess I'd get used to it eventually but why the hell should I bother. If I'd spent the time to work out what all the new buttons do, where all the stuff I want to do is now hidden(!) I'd now be having to do the same again with IE8! Can't Microsloth just leave the interface alone and fixs the problems (see also the new Windows OS!) and/or give me an "IE6" skin for IE7, then I'd be happy(ish)!
  My plan is to move to something non-MS if/when I have to move, but right now IE6 works just fine (most of the time). Ditto for the OS unless I hear some VERY good things about the next Microslump OS (including the removal of the DRM-hobbling!).
  What Time Is It?
  It's Mac Time!
  
  --
  Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
  handmadehands.co.uk
110. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Raenex · 2009-02-21 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  First, if you've hired me, it's up to you.
  Is this a clarification or backpedaling? Originally you said "If I was in that position, I would actively block IE6, and have a large banner for IE7 users suggesting Firefox."
  If I hired you to develop for a mass-market web site, I'd expect you not to make asinine decisions where around 20% of visitors are actively blocked from the site.
111. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Lennie · 2009-02-21 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't be surprised if those things are of the combination: really hard and very not-real-worlds. ;-)
  
  --
  New things are always on the horizon
112. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Skim123 · 2009-02-21 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  Small, yes (to a Londoner like me). But a "small town"? Once you add a specific noun, you have something to compare it with.
  What complicates the comparison more is the word "town," as that word has different connotations in different parts of the world. If I'm not mistaken, in England a "town" is considered to be a place with a small population, and has a connotation of a rural setting. "Village" would be a good synonym.
  In the US it depends on where you're from. In New England, for instance, the word "town" has a specific meaning that has nothing to do with the size of the place, but the way the local government is organized. And in the Midwestern part of the country (where I grew up, and where Iowa is part of) most states have a "city" or two and everything else is a town. E.g., in the state of Missouri I think everyone would agree that St. Louis and Kansas City are "cities" because they have an urban center, a skyline, and are the two most populous cities in the state. But there are other places with 100,000-200,000 people (Springfield and Columbia, for instance), that I've always heard referred to as towns.
  Isn't the spoken language fun? :-)
  
  --
  I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
113. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by jonadab · 2009-02-21 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  > Is IE 7 really an improvement?
  
  Somewhat. It's not nearly as good as IE8, but it does support real transparency, more CSS descriptors than IE6, native XMLHttpRequest (without going through ActiveX), and a couple of other goodies. So yeah, it's better than IE6.
  
  Note here that I'm talking about how well it renders sites. To a web developer, the UI isn't really the issue. (The UI of IE7 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the toolbars and menubar are a mess. On the other hand, it has tabbed browsing, which is pretty essential these days. But web content creators don't care about how the user's browser handles either of those things. They care about how well it renders their site, and what weird hoops it makes them jump through to get their site looking like they want it. And in terms of those things, IE6 is bad juju.)
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
114. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by jonadab · 2009-02-21 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  In Ohio, a "city" is legally defined as a municipality with a population of at least some number of people (ten thousand IIRC) as of the last census. There are fiscal advantages to a municipality if it has this status, so ones that are on the borderline (e.g., Crestline, just up the road from here) go out of their way at census time to make a big public deal out of the fact that they need absolutely everyone to be real sure to fill out the census forms, because they don't want to lose their city status.
  
  Smaller municipalities are usually called towns, although I think the technical legal term is "incorporated village" or something along those lines.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
115. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by migla · 2009-02-21 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  such inexplicable evolution results as our retinas being wired backwards [...] result in a system that's thoroughly confusing and that in retrospect appears insane.
  Well, that's because evolution is a hoax. We we're created by means of insane design!
  
  --
  Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
116. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-21 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Still it's a good thing that you explain up front that you don't want to do that so they can go and find someone else who does.
  That depends entirely on how much I need work at the moment, and how interesting the project is otherwise.
  I'm willing to work with IE, if I'm being paid.
  If not -- if it's a personal site, or a blog -- I really don't owe you anything. It's not worth 20% of my time to have an additional 80% more readers who are too lazy or apathetic to support good standards.
  In fact, on a personal site, your statistics encourage me even more to try to change those numbers, rather than to contribute to the status quo.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
117. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-21 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  Many browsers lie that they are IE6 in order to work with some intranets or other stupid government/school/bank website.
  Really?
  My browser can lie that it's IE6, or Firefox, for a specific site, when that specific site is using browser detection. It's trivial to configure this per-domain.
  And it helps nobody except Microsoft to use a non-IE browser claiming to be IE, if the site will support both. Wouldn't you rather contribute to statistics that drive down IE's marketshare, rather than the other way around?
  
  Actively blocking all browsers which claim to be IE6 does a disservice to the people who hate IE6 but simply do not have a choice.
  True, but that is not your example. Your example is browsers which are smart enough to pretend to be IE6, but too stupid to change user-agent based on domain.
  And the users who actually are stuck with IE6, I'd like to make as uncomfortable as possible, to make them that much more motivated to find a choice, even if they have to beat it out of their IT department.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
118. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-21 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  you would block Dillo, Lynx, Elinks and whatnot, too, I suppose?
  Actually, no. Most of those browsers bastardize HTML far less than IE6 does.
  I probably would not go out of my way to make a web application accessible to them, but I would probably at least test a purely content-oriented site on Lynx.
  
  And you would certainly block them with UA sniffing, not so?
  I would block anything with an IE6 UA, yes. Or, at the very least, I would give them an interstitial, instead of a banner, demanding that they install a browser that is less evil.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
119. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-21 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  So, corporate America is out.
  This is very much for corporate America. It is for a specific area of corporate America, which is composed of smaller, somewhat independent branches of a larger corporation, with minimal interference from the larger corporation's IT department.
  
  that's not even going into details on what a POS hackfest that Firefox currently is.
  And IE isn't? Especially IE6?
  
  40 known severe vulnerabilities in 2008
  How many unpatched? How many live exploits in the wild?
  How many might Microsoft have discovered, and hidden in a seemingly unrelated patch, rather than disclose a vulnerability?
  For what it's worth, Firefox seems to patch vulnerabilities much quicker than IE patches compatibility.
  But it's not about FIrefox, it's about standards. If you think Opera is better, or Chrome, go for it -- most of the time, whatever I write that works on Firefox will work everywhere else except IE. That's why we're having this discussion in the first place -- IE sucks at standards.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
120. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-21 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Is this a clarification or backpedaling?
  A clarification.
  If I was in a position to make the decision, that is the decision I would make. Obviously, if you've hired me, and you've specified that it has to work on IE6 -- and this would be discussed -- then I am not in that position.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
121. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Talla · 2009-02-21 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  They do. Some sites suggest IE7, Firefox or Opera, and some also mention Chrome and Safari.
122. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 21:08 · Score: 0
  
  Many browsers lie that they are IE6 in order to work with some intranets or other stupid government/school/bank website.
  Really?
  Yes, indeed.
  
  My browser can lie that it's IE6, or Firefox, for a specific site, when that specific site is using browser detection. It's trivial to configure this per-domain.
  Please tell (and explain!) this configuration option to Joe the Plumber. While I wholeheartedly agree that you should never configure your browser to support Microsoft's browser (i. e., UA string) market share, users like things to simply work. That's why they globally allow JavaScript (instead of white-listing domain-wise), thats why they permanently set their UA to something like IE6 if they are required to do so just once.
  Below you replied to one of my comments and--somewhat to my surprise--answered in the affirmative you "would block anything with an IE6 UA, yes." At least, this is in conformance with this posting of yours. ;) Really, I think this is an over-reaction.
123. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-22 16:31 · Score: 0
  
  I think I was thinking of this post but that was posted after the one you mentioned.
  It's very possible that I read this entire thread backwards!
124. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Hordeking · 2009-02-22 16:55 · Score: 1
  
  In my experience (in the midwest and the South), town vs city is subjective, but generally, people consider a town to be rural in attitude, and a city to be more urban. From what I can tell, if I had to put an absolute number on it, anything bigger than population 5000~7000 is a city, with anything from 2000~5000 a big town. Another way to judge would be economic activity. The closest towns to me don't even have a a pharmacy, and only one has a school. The one with the school is the biggest (at ~1500. up from ~1000 in the mid 90's).
  
  --
  Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
125. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by A12m0v · 2009-02-23 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  Not true!
  It tests standards that most sites wont use because they aren't supported by IE, if they were they'll find more use.
  
  --
  GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
126. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by barzok · 2009-02-23 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  And what about those who can't upgrade beyond IE6 for at least 2 more years?
127. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by sexconker · 2009-02-23 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Firefox has an arbitrary limit as well, moron.
  All browsers do.
128. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-23 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  O RLY?
  I love it when people call "moron" when they're completely wrong.
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
129. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by sexconker · 2009-02-23 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  Says right there there is a confirmed limit on the display, and it's just as arbitrary as 2048.
130. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by hobbit · 2009-02-23 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  It says there's a limit on the display on Windows. Like I said, it's reasonable to pass on the limits imposed upon you.
  And what about the other bit you made up, where you said the same was true of all browsers?
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
131. Re:"Upgrade" to IE 7 by Acaeris · 2009-02-23 22:11 · Score: 1
  
  In the UK a city is a town that has been granted city status (usually due to royal connection, i.e. There is a cathedral in it), everything else of moderate population size is a town, there are quite a few towns with larger population size than some of the cities here.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City#United_Kingdom
What about... by TubeSteak · 2009-02-20 09:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

I guess suggesting FireFox or Opera is too big a leap for an established corporation.
Is "I recommend Internet Explorer" the new "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"?

--
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
1. Re:What about... by von_rick · 2009-02-20 09:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Especially considering Opera is a Norwegian company, I was expecting them to give thumbs up to their homebrewed web browser. Opera is pretty awesome, all things considered and the current version is certainly lot more compliant and powerful than IE6.
  
  --
  Face your daemons!
2. Re:What about... by Foofoobar · 2009-02-20 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  Hardly. Government IT agencies don't even recommend IE anymore. The financial institution I work for (which hasn't gone out of business) has installed Firefox on all the machines because there have been so many alerts from security agencies saying not to use IE that they decided they needed all their users to have an alternative.
  
  --
  This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
3. Re:What about... by Penguinisto · 2009-02-20 09:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's more like: "...all our custom VBS-based apps that we can't afford to get rid of is IE-based, therefore so is your job."
  And if you think there's unavoidable lock-ins now, wait'll SharePoint gets its tentacles into the enterprise at large... "what, no Outlook integration? No automatic login from Active Directory!? We can't have that! Forget your wiki thingy, hire a SharePoint guy already, and let's get this thing rolling! You're wasting my time here!"
  Call me a troll if you like, but damn - it's a very slick way to make sure the folks in Redmond have continued income for at least the next decade...
  /P
  
  --
  Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
4. Re:What about... by dotancohen · 2009-02-20 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  Take a look at the site in my sig in IE. I've been telling IE users for years to upgrade. As I do it for a hobby and not for the money (though the money is nice) I don't care about turning some visitors away. And coding for Firefox, then cleaning up in Opera takes me only two or three hours at most. IE? Two or three days of cleanup after that. No, thanks
  By the way, before Adsense removed the Firefox referrals program, I was making more money on Firefox conversions alone from that one site than I was making from the advertisements on my five biggest sites combined. People are more than glad to ditch IE, once they realize that there exists something else.
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
5. Re:What about... by Thelasko · 2009-02-20 10:05 · Score: 1
  
  I guess suggesting FireFox or Opera is too big a leap for an established corporation.
  I don't understand what it is about corporate environments and IE6. My company's IT department forces everyone to use IE6.
  
  --
  One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
6. Re:What about... by hobo+sapiens · 2009-02-20 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  Because many Intranet developers (not all) are inept boobs who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a text editor, much less some what-you-see-is-all-you-get software like dreamweaver. And since corporations have invested big bucks into stupid software developed by cretins, they cannot afford to upgrade. Doing so would mean rewriting these apps. And that like costs money or something.
  
  --
  blah blah blah
7. Re:What about... by digitalunity · 2009-02-20 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much. If it weren't for shitty VB script features in Office, many would have ditched it long ago.
  
  --
  You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
8. Re:What about... by nowonder · 2009-02-20 10:34 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Actually many of the participating pages tell you to get Firefox, Opera, or a newer version of IE. This includes some commercial web sites.
  
  --
  -- NoWonder of WonderWorks/OmegaProject
9. Re:What about... by diskis · 2009-02-20 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Internet Explorer can be locked down with group policies, Firefox & company cannot.
  Also, at the two previous megacorporations I've worked at IE6 was not "forced" on anyone. You simply needed it to actually work, because all the corporate internal webapps were IE6 only... :(
10. Re:What about... by Ronald+Dumsfeld · 2009-02-20 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  The suckyness that is Sharepoint is already digging its claws into the corporate market. I regularly see contracts for it, usually requiring other Microsoft lock-in technologies as well.
  
  They might as well be burning the money, but - no. They're investing it in ways that ensure they are stuck with the whole family of Microsoft products.
  
  It really is a typical short-term business solution, with serious long-term financial implications. Many, many companies could recoup the cost of investing in use of other, more open technologies in 5-10 years as they paid less 'Microsoft tax'. If the CIA, FBI, and US State Department can all use MediaWiki, why can't business? "But it doesn't integrate with Microsoft Product X" should not be a showstopper. Hire someone to write something to integrate them, if you go with the Sharepoint solution you'll be doing similar stuff for other systems/packages.
  
  --
  Where's the Kaboom?
  There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
11. Re:What about... by FlyingBishop · 2009-02-20 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  Opera is pretty awesome, all things considered and the current version is certainly lot more compliant and powerful than IE6.
  That's like saying a BMW is certainly a lot more compliant and powerful than a 5 year old moped.
12. Re:What about... by Rob+Kaper · 2009-02-20 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  Especially considering Opera is a Norwegian company, I was expecting them to give thumbs up to their homebrewed web browser.
  No, they do the right thing. There's no benefit in turning all this into a political "my browser is best" debate, the primary message is and shouldn't be more than "your browser is eight years old and outdated for today's applications, please get something more recent". The whole point is not to pick, promote or prefer a specific browser. Any modern and more standards compliant one will do.
13. Re:What about... by Man+Eating+Duck · 2009-02-20 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  Opera is an awesome browser. It's fast, in many respects it's better than Firefox.
  The only reason why I don't use Opera full time is a lack of something like adblock. Yes, I know you kan keep a killfile of filtered urls, but I can do that already with my hosts file. Firefox is just generally better for my taste.
  Of course, any version of IE is out of the question, because of a lack of non-evilness :)
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
14. Re:What about... by Xtravar · 2009-02-20 12:10 · Score: 1
  
  My company uses SharePoint *and* a wiki.
  I guess that makes us as confused as I suspected.
  
  --
  Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
15. Re:What about... by easyTree · 2009-02-20 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Outpost Firewall Pro has a component which removes ads before they even reach the browser. I haven't seen one for ages..
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
16. Re:What about... by StuartHankins · 2009-02-20 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  Except SharePoint 2007 has bugs with IE8 RC1. For instance, you can edit Office docs in-place using IE6 or 7. Doesn't work in IE8 and so far I haven't found a workaround.
  
  And don't even get me started about forcing us to stop using FireFox and switch to IE...
17. Re:What about... by I'm+not+really+here · 2009-02-20 17:20 · Score: 1
  
  ldap and ical are your friends.
  
  --
  Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
18. Re:What about... by Penguinisto · 2009-02-20 18:20 · Score: 1
  
  The suckyness that is Sharepoint is already digging its claws into the corporate market. I regularly see contracts for it, usually requiring other Microsoft lock-in technologies as well.
  Specifically, 1 MS SQL Server, at least three (yes, 3 - CA, Index, and NLB) Windows Servers, with .NET and ASP splattered all over the works... and don't forget the Office plugin licenses! (Nevermind that you can do 95% of the featureset with a decent CMS and one server at a total software cost of $0.00...)
  Don't ask about the pricetag. Little wonder SharePoint has like only one universal license key and that they literally give it away for free to most folks... they make their money back in spades off of everything else.
  
  They might as well be burning the money, but - no. They're investing it in ways that ensure they are stuck with the whole family of Microsoft products.
  A-yep.
  /P
  
  --
  Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
19. Re:What about... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-23 06:51 · Score: 0
  
  I can't remember my login info, so I'm posting anon, but...
  Lots of CMS/Wikis have pretty good integrated support for AD/Exchange/Outlook.
  I'm the developer of the LDAP plugin for MediaWiki. The plugin has generic web-server auth support (for Kerberos/Smartcards/Radius/etc), regular password-auth, both of the previous with local-db auth, can synch security groups, restrict login to security groups, pull preferences (like email, language, etc) from AD, and can do all of it for multiple domains. It also has the ability to update AD, or use it as a user store (adding users and such).
  MediaWiki also has integrated email support; sharepoint is a POS in comparison (and most people who look at our internal wiki have agreed).
Oh really? by the_humeister · 2009-02-20 09:34 · Score: 1

"A large and rapidly growing campaign to get users to stop using IE6 is beeingimplemented throughout Europe.
That must really put a sting on MS...
1. Re:Oh really? by Frosty+Piss · 2009-02-20 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Not only that, the summary says "the banner seen at right..."
  
  I understand it's a straigh cut-and-paste from the Wired story, but is it possible for the Slashdot "editors" to actually do some, you know, "editing"?
  
  --
  If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
2. Re:Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:03 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, this shit quality pisses me off! And it's not like this is the first time.
  Fuck the lazy bastards!
3. Re:Oh really? by Endo13 · 2009-02-20 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  Way to spoil your own joke. =(
  But thank god they're not using wasps...
  
  --
  There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
4. Re:Oh really? by Tubal-Cain · 2009-02-20 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  And here I thought my banner blindness was just a little overactive...
Well, that's a retarded press release.... by tjstork · 2009-02-20 09:36 · Score: 1, Insightful

Some Norwegian guys == all of Europe
A press release on Wired == Big Media
Getting rid IE is good and all, but does like Slashdot hire out to India to write their article summaries? The retardation is growing daily.

--
This is my sig.
1. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by Ethanol-fueled · 2009-02-20 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  He said "India", not "Indians".
  
  Geez, don't you understand English? You must be an Indian working in a call center in India. For AOL.
2. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:32 · Score: 0
  
  The retardation is growing daily.
  I'm afraid it's too late. Slashdot has already gone full retard.
3. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by nowonder · 2009-02-20 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  Some Norwegian guys == all of Europe
  A press release on Wired == Big Media
  You got this wrong. It's in big media all over Europe, but the web sites are mostly in Norway so far. I saw a lot of coverage by traditional media in Germany.
  
  --
  -- NoWonder of WonderWorks/OmegaProject
4. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by fm6 · 2009-02-20 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  Don't be rude to India. Yeah, call center zombies with thick Hindi accents are a pain to deal with, but at least they know how to follow flow charts!
5. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by Tired+and+Emotional · 2009-02-20 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  > call center zombies with thick Hindi accents
  Yes, its a pain. I only speak Hindi with a thick English accent and they have trouble understanding me.
  As for retardation, we could have done with more of that in Victoria recently.
  
  --
  Squirrel!
6. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:56 · Score: 0
  
  ...does like Slashdot hire out to India to write their article summaries? The retardation is growing daily.
  No, worse... Australia.
  Hi kdawson!
7. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by Kjella · 2009-02-20 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  Some Norwegian guys == all of Europe
  Yep, but it's spread far and wide in Norway at least. I never even knew finn.no was part of it, because first I saw it on hardware.no then on our biggest national newspaper vg.no, and I'm not talking about at night. I'm talking about today while on a break from work where they still run IE6. So I expect the IE6 stats for Norway to take a big plunge.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
8. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by smoker2 · 2009-02-20 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Is Norway part of Europe ? I haven't seen anything about this until an American site pointed it out.
9. Re:Well, that's a retarded press release.... by RealGrouchy · 2009-02-20 16:59 · Score: 1
  
  He said "India", not "Indians".
  
  Yes, and he also said "retardation", suggesting that Indians (i.e. people from India) are retarded.
  Or is it only racist to suggest that North American Indians are retarded?
  Geez! I guess I just don't understand!
  - RG>
  
  --
  Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Microsoft sending out a lot of press releases by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 09:37 · Score: 0

Microsoft is sure sending out a lot of press releases lately..
Boring by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 09:37 · Score: 0

Way too many Windows stories on the front page recently. This is Slashdot, lest we forget.
1. Re:Boring by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  sorry, if you were looking for the slashdot of old. today real tech and science articles just don't make the cut. it's the meaningless babble that gets all the fanbois in a frenzy and that's what generates the hits that keep cmdrtaco's pockets full of coin.
  
  just check out the post counts on articles. if it's low that means it's a subject that either requires thought or can't be heckled by a bunch of idiots who like to think they're intellectual giants because they got an a in 8th grade math.
2. Re:Boring by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:01 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah we need more articles about Linux distros changing the colour of their default theme.
3. Re:Boring by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 20:40 · Score: 1
  
  Way too many Windows stories on the front page recently. This is Slashdot, lest we forget.
  Do you mind? A friend of my great great grandfather died in WWI.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Good luck with corporate destkops! by javacowboy · 2009-02-20 09:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

I work for a medium-sized bank that has strict and outdated IT policies. All Windows XP workstations are set up with non-admin accounts, including developers. IE 6 is installed and we're not allowed to update to IE 7.
I don't even have a Windows PC at home, but at work, I'm officially effectively forced to use IE 6 (even though I've found a way to install Firefox as a non-admin user).
It's employees in companies like mine that will not be able to convert to IE 7 or another browser, even if they really want to.

--
This space left intentionally blank.
1. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by Bryansix · 2009-02-20 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  Even though you have a MAC you are not an island unto yourself and if you are like many of the people on here you publish content to the web and therefore care which browser base is the largest.
2. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by javacowboy · 2009-02-20 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  Even though you have a MAC you are not an island unto yourself and if you are like many of the people on here you publish content to the web and therefore care which browser base is the largest.
  Did I say I didn't care? As a former web developer, I would just as soon see IE 6 disappear off the face of the Earth. It's companies like mine that will prevent that from happening, which is a real shame.
  
  --
  This space left intentionally blank.
3. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by Teun · 2009-02-20 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  But then employees like you are not supposed to browse 'Ebay-like' sites from company equipment.
  
  It's a bit like where I work, the IT dept. is acutely aware of the advantages of Firefox and they'll allow you to install it but the PHB's tell us all of our intranet is IE6 'compliant' and that's Good Enough.
  That'll change quite rapidly when their favourite golf or investment site baulks at IE6 :)
  
  --
  "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
4. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by rbrausse · 2009-02-20 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  > All Windows XP workstations are set up with non-admin accounts, including developers.
  as an admin I understand this policy
  our users [not a bank but a service provider for clinical studies - only sensitive data, not sensitive money :)] have also only users without admin rights, the only exception are local admin users without network access.
  since I get the approval for this procedure I have much less work with fixing messed up setups - and my developers don't play around with strange new tools/games/apps/whatever (just testing, *really*)...
  they CAN get root access to there machines (the local admin account) but they are *not* allowed to use such a privileged account for the daily work. and to be honest: the worst in Windows is the attitude to use the computer with admin rights
5. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by zoips · 2009-02-20 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  Unless they whitelist programs that you can execute, you can just go to the Mozilla FTP server, find the nightly that corresponds to the latest release version of Firefox, and download the zip file. No installation necessary.
6. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by PitaBred · 2009-02-20 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  Everyone with a network connection has a MAC. Or did you mean Mac? It's not an acronym, damnit, it's an abbreviation!
  
  --
  My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
7. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by javacowboy · 2009-02-20 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but it's stupid to prevent developers from installing new tools. They get demoralized and leave.
  I spent a month and a half doing nothing between projects. Instead of trying out new tools and improving my skills, I was left surfing Slashdot.
  Hopefully, I'll be gone shortly to greener pastures.
  
  --
  This space left intentionally blank.
8. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by rbrausse · 2009-02-20 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  I don't prevent anything. I just force them to use a non-privileged user for the daily work.
  and if you claim that you need a root-user for your coding I don't want you as a developer in my network (yes, this is harsh - but sorry, I have seen too much broken machines in my life... and I have absolutely no problems with local root accounts for anyone of the staff, as soon as this account is not used normally but only for specific tasks like installing/upgrading software)
9. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by Jraregris · 2009-02-21 01:12 · Score: 1
  
  Actually finn.no is a lot more like craigslist than ebay.
10. Re:Good luck with corporate destkops! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 22:11 · Score: 0
  
  Then you need www.portableapps.com
  Drop the files on your HD (desktop, user directory, my documents, etc) and run them. No installing!
About Time! by MazzThePianoman · 2009-02-20 09:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have to waste so much time adapting my code to work with IE6 when it works perfectly fine in FF 1.5 thru 3, Chrome, Opera, Safari and even IE7. We talk about needing a stimulus; you have any idea how many man-hours are wasted because of IE6 quirks?

--
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
1. Re:About Time! by MillionthMonkey · 2009-02-20 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  I have a copy of IE6 and I'll never give it up. I need it for testing IE6 bugs.
2. Re:About Time! by amn108 · 2009-02-20 09:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Just do what I used to do, when I was doing web development (and they payed me for it) - Disable CSS linking for IE6 altogether by not sending the <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" ... />. If you use PHP, just read the HTTP user agent header and if it is IE 6, do not output the LINK element. If you are as good as you seem to be, catering for webstandards and all, chances are your webpage is readable WITHOUT stylesheets, and NOBODY has complained to me yet about bad looking black on white webpage. It is when things stop working they complain, but when there is no style at all they see, there is nothing to complain about. Webpages are free, since visitors seldom pay to see them, I do not feel guilty discriminating against a web browser, since it cannot display stylesheet properly anyway. The rest of CSS quirks that work differently in Firefox and Opera can be worked out, but IE6 is just too alien for my web-dev tastes. I used to ask for extra money to do IE6 web-dev before, but of course nobody wanted to see that part of the budget, so instead they get a no-style (X)HTML page which works. Even in Lynx, with proper mime type and headers. If your boss or a client threatens to break your kneecaps for leaving out IE6 support brutally like that, make a simple stylesheet from scratch just for IE, small one, with fonts, colors and backgrounds, no fancy box model usage and selectors it has not even heard about. It might end up looking decent, ant it only took you a quarter.
3. Re:About Time! by MazzThePianoman · 2009-02-20 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, I use Multiple IE so I have IE 6 handy to work out bugs. I was also using it to try and support IE5.5 but a vertical alignment bug pissed me off too much and now I just test for 6 and up with IE.
  
  --
  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
4. Re:About Time! by MazzThePianoman · 2009-02-20 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  I would love to do that but I also love box models and some of the neat CSS I have incorporating lately. While IE6 is a pain trying to emulate css with php would be even more of a pain for me right now. IE6 is a pain but I do not want to give up perfectly standard compliant CSS because of one browser. The more people do that the less it will be supported. CSS3 is going to have some really cool stuff so anything to show the industry that standards are required will be better in the long run.
  
  --
  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
5. Re:About Time! by Achoi77 · 2009-02-20 11:31 · Score: 1
  
  I have a copy of IE6 and I'll never give it up. I need it for testing IE6 bugs.
  Ditto for me. I fire up Virtual PC with an instance of XP with IE 6 (and an older version of FF for the hell of it). That way it can do it's worst and I'll just shut it down. Saves me a lot of grief.
  As an aside, IE6 needs to die in a fire. Especially concerning the png alpha-transparency issue.
6. Re:About Time! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 11:57 · Score: 0
  
  I think the problem is the fixation to getting pages to look exactly the same in IE6 than in every other browser. You could use a style sheet that resets every value and then apply a simpler design for IE6. Unless it is mandated to you, then you are screwed by a bonehead boss.
7. Re:About Time! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:41 · Score: 0
  
  Webpages are free, since visitors seldom pay to see them, I do not feel guilty discriminating against a web browser, since it cannot display stylesheet properly anyway.
  
  Soup-kitchens are free. Since visitors seldom pay to eat the soup, I do not feel guilty discriminating against muslims and atheists, since they cannot appreciate the gospels anyway.
8. Re:About Time! by midicase · 2009-02-20 13:46 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks, I know how that feels. We are a small shop that develops and manufactures embedded systems. We've recently given up on any IE product since it creates more work than it's worth. Our customer base has not complained about about us "telling" them to use FF to use our product.
9. Re:About Time! by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 20:56 · Score: 1
  
  You know what? I'd rather most websites did this. No stylesheet may be a bit ugly but it's readable. Also websites that don't use images, stylesheets or Javascript load fast as hell.
  Actually my company's website is like this. I do use Javascript to display links from Google in a frameset, but I don't depend on it. There is no stylesheet. I have one small gif for the logo. Actually come to think of it I use gifs for email obfuscation too - on a javascript capable browser I use a script to write my email address in a way that hopefully isn't harvestable. On a non javascript browser I write the @ and . characters as gifs. I use an alt tag though, so it's readable in Lynx.
  And I've had one person say that liked the minimalism. No one has ever complained that I don't use CSS or have a Web 2.0 look. And it works on all versions of IE, all versions of Opera, all versions of Firefox, Lynx, Safari. Hell if you telnet to port 80 you could probably find what you wanted.
  See here's the thing. People go to your website to do something in my case to download a utility that is easy to find with Google. They want to do get that done and leave. If the site is broken, they will be pissed off. If it is ugly or oldfashioned they might raise their eyebrows. But if it works and is fast they'll soon forget.
  In an odd sort of way, since I work as with embedded systems and device drivers I think a somewhat retro website with lots of links to source code probably inspires confidence that I'm not a Digg type who wastes times fiddling around with CSS.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
10. Re:About Time! by mgblst · 2009-02-20 23:00 · Score: 1
  
  When people hire a web developer, they usually want the resulting website to look good. Especially is a designer is involved as well.
11. Re:About Time! by amn108 · 2009-02-20 23:19 · Score: 1
  
  Point taken, although I am pretty sure youre pulling a joke on me. I dont do IE6 websites, you may. People seek information, and they do not strictly need a three column page layout for that. If they do, a better browser is just a download away for most of the cases. Clients do not pay for two websites after all.
12. Re:About Time! by amn108 · 2009-02-20 23:29 · Score: 1
  
  My personal taste is in the middle. I appreciate minimalistic lightning fast websites, and these are the ones that use minimal CSS - fonts, sizes, few if ever boxes, colors, and background colors. That is it. The website ends up looking very decent, modern, and loads in an instant. Sometimes one can do buttons too. Otherwise it is all more than enough, and like you said if it is functional - people come, download what they need or read a written piece, and leave. Mission accomplished. But for many out there, the WWW is a road sign, and they use all the real estate they can to blast the visitor with information and what is much worse - bad style. Not everybody is apparently a minimalist, either that or their motivation with a website differs from mine.
  And, by the way, your email address is easily harvestable, they (those who care) read and decode it from an image just fine. It has been done for at least a year now, and was the precursor to the breaking of many CAPTCHAs out there.
  You can output the email with javascript. It will go on the page as text, but will be decoded first from an encoded string with a key, and inserted in the document on the fly. I am not aware of any robots that do Javascript, so they will not operate the script, although they will sweep through it, looking for addresses.
13. Re:About Time! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 23:33 · Score: 0
  
  You should learn CSS. It's really not much more complicated than a config file with blocks of name-value pairs.
  What's good about CSS, even if you don't care about how good your site looks, is that you separate your semantic content (these items are part of a list, this is a heading, etc) from your presentation (this text should be bold, this should be in a slightly larger blue font).
  Keeping those layers separate should be something any programmer recognizes as good design. It's not just for "Digg types".
14. Re:About Time! by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-21 00:38 · Score: 1
  
  I've read about CSS. And you're right, it's not complicated. But it doesn't add anything to your site apart from empty bling. That's no crime but the real problem is that CSS support varies across browsers. If you want to do cross platform CSS, you need to test on each browser and make sure you degrade gracefully on downlevel ones like IE6.
  If the semantic content is really separate from the presentation as you claim you should be able to just show the semantic content to people on IE6 and skip the presentation, i.e. don't send IE6 users a stylesheet. You could white list the Firefox beta you test on for your kewl web 2.0 effects and serve the rest of us plain html.
  When I see campaigns like this I can tell that the people using CSS either don't understand this or are more interested in passive aggressive political lecturing of their users than solving the problems they are paid to solve, which in this case is making a website that is accessible regardless of browser.
  I use Opera, which is usually ahead of FF on standards support, but I don't really care if you serve me plain html too, since bleeding edge CSS bullshit always seems to broken, even when I try it on IE/the latest Firefox release/the latest Firefox beta which is presumably what the developer tested it on, if they tested it at all.
  Your boss doesn't care if you do CSS bullshit. He does care if your CSS bullshit is used an excuse for not supporting browsers other than Firefox. And if you don't agree, please leave web page design up to the millions of Chinese and Indians who are happy to make pages work on IE and willing to work for far less than you.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
15. Re:About Time! by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-21 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  >And, by the way, your email address is easily harvestable, they (those who care) read and decode it from an image just fine. It has been done for at least a year now, and was the precursor to the breaking of many CAPTCHAs out there.
  You can output the email with javascript. It will go on the page as text, but will be decoded first from an encoded string with a key, and inserted in the document on the fly. I am not aware of any robots that do Javascript, so they will not operate the script, although they will sweep through it, looking for addresses.
  Here's my code
  
  <P align=left>Email: <script language="JavaScript">  </script> <noscript> halpublic<IMG height=10 src="gfx/at.gif" alt="(at)" width=7>isp<IMG height=9 src="gfx/dot.gif" alt="(dot)" width=8>com</noscript></P> </noscript>
  
  The idea is that modern browsers with JS get a clickable mailto link, old browsers get an unclickable link and the actual email address doesn't appear anywhere in the source code to defeat dumb harvesting.
  Of course it would be no problem to harvest this email address. Thing is they'd need to write some code to do it, and that code would only work with my page. That isn't worth their time - they'd be better off breaking the captcha on something important.
  In a sense it doesn't matter much if they do, I had my email address unobfuscated for ages and I'm presumably on most spam lists. This address has industrial strength spam blocking anyhow, it's designed to be public and hence spammed. Back in the old days before I had spam blocking, I do think the obfuscation helped.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
So IE 5 is still good then by genner · 2009-02-20 09:39 · Score: 1

My users seem to think so.
1. Re:So IE 5 is still good then by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2009-02-20 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  So you've developed a website that allows connections from the past? That's awesome. Sort of. I guess you could sell them stock tips.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Twitter? by djrogers · 2009-02-20 09:43 · Score: 1

Really? What's the incidence of correlation between twitter users and IE6 users? I'm guessing pretty damn close to zero.

--
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
IE7? by Tree131 · 2009-02-20 09:44 · Score: 1

Can someone please give me a rhetorical answer of what is so good about IE7 that's not already there in Firefox, and why I should waste my time and resources upgrading....
1. Re:IE7? by jafiwam · 2009-02-20 10:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  IE is built into a lot of places in Windows. Help displays, Windows Explorer uses it, etc.
  By upgrading, you upgrade those displays too.
  IE6 (IIRC) has issues, and probably has unpatched or undiscovered security issues that will root your computer if you run across the wrong stuff.
  Even if you never use IE for anything, you should upgrade it and keep it patched. It's free, and doesn't hurt anything and you can continue to use whatever your favorite browser is.
2. Re:IE7? by hobo+sapiens · 2009-02-20 10:19 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  You're not a web developer then?
  IE7 is a pile of dog crap compared to Firefox. But compared to IE6, IE7 is a chocolate bar.
  IE6 is getting to be like 8 years old. Think of how much the web has changed in 8 years. I cannot think of any real web developers who *like* IE6. It fails at even the most mundane stuff.
  
  --
  blah blah blah
3. Re:IE7? by MemoryDragon · 2009-02-20 11:04 · Score: 1
  
  IE6 is 10 years I think. And yes it is a load of crap. I recently was in a project where the client wanted the neatest web2.0 dhtml mumbo jumbo, but they demanded that IE6 also was supported. Speaking of hell and wasted developer hours!
  It took 30-40% more time to support that pile of ...
4. Re:IE7? by ais523 · 2009-02-21 00:37 · Score: 1
  
  Better security if you load IE by accident. (Some programs default to loading IE rather than Firefox...)
  
  --
  (1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
5. Re:IE7? by hobo+sapiens · 2009-02-21 15:51 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, anyone who has had to do anything remotely interesting in terms of client side code for the web has run across the same things. I am always amazed at the so-called web developers who don't think IE is that bad.
  
  --
  blah blah blah
Let's expand it, eh? by cayenne8 · 2009-02-20 09:45 · Score: 1

"Yes, it's a huge improvement over IE6. Tabs alone make it much nicer IMO. Of course, here at work, IE 6 is all that we're allowed to have installed without a signed exception from management and IT."
Hmm...sounds like we need to expand this push to get rid of IE6, into something much larger.
Get rid of Windows? A nice plus in your case would sound like getting rid of management.
:)

--
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
1. Re:Let's expand it, eh? by PitaBred · 2009-02-20 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  I like that... "G.R.O.W. up... use a real operating system!"
  
  --
  My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
2. Re:Let's expand it, eh? by spectre_240sx · 2009-02-20 15:24 · Score: 1
  
  It's an unfortunate fact that a lot of web-based software that businesses use still only works in IE6. I deal with it every day and it drives me crazy, but there's no other realistic solution for us at the moment.
3. Re:Let's expand it, eh? by catman · 2009-02-21 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  I'm in the same situation as GP. Looking forward to retirement and a return to sanity in December :-)
The Scourge Continues... by Crashspeeder · 2009-02-20 09:45 · Score: 1

Now we only have to worry about IE7 and the perpetual crashing of IE8 (though that's more of the user's problem than mine). Now if only FF3.1 would be released final then we'd be all set on becoming more standards compliant.
Somehow I don't see IE6 being phased anytime soon with the exception of some really awesome malware targeted specifically for IE6 (hint hint).
What about IE4? by OrangeTide · 2009-02-20 09:46 · Score: 1

Because I'm still running a on a Macintosh Performa. It's only worth selling someone in ebay and the like if you can use the computer you're selling to post the auction.

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Oh hey by kjzk · 2009-02-20 09:46 · Score: 1

I wonder if IE6 will counterattack with more page loading errors and botched layouts. I'm scared.
It's good to see some action by dave562 · 2009-02-20 09:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

Althought a lot people like to complain about IE6 sucking, it takes an organization standing up and taking action to actually change things. Microsoft, like the record companies, and all the other "evil" organizations out there will only continue to shovel shit if people continue to consume it. IE7 has been out for a while at this point and there isn't any reason for anyone to be running IE6. It takes action from the community to change things. The community needs to say, "We aren't going to support IE6 because it sucks. Here, run this other browser that works great."
1. Re:It's good to see some action by AlHunt · 2009-02-20 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  >IE7 has been out for a while at this point and there isn't any reason for anyone to be running IE6. It
  I'll let my win98, P3 box with 128 megs of RAM know right away. IE7 has this silly idea that it won't run on Win98. Ubuntu, similarly, doesn't think much of 128 megs of RAM. RIMM modules being hard to come by, the situation isn't likely to improve any time soon.
  I know it's outdated hardware. It does everything else I require of it. I just don't do anything "secure" on it and evidently I won't be surfing any more Norwegian websites. I'll go update my bookmarks.
  
  --
  1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
2. Re:It's good to see some action by AvitarX · 2009-02-20 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Did you try xubuntu?
  It may be a stretch with only 128MB though.
  How about Ubuntulite, or even something real small like puppy?
  I can't speak to what they have for browsing though. I know that Firefox alone regularly breaks 150MB, so perhaps IE6 is your best option.
  I would think if an XFCE based distro worked it would be worth installing, it really does a great job of being "modern" with less resources.
  
  --
  Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
3. Re:It's good to see some action by Moekandu · 2009-02-20 12:38 · Score: 1
  
  IE 7 won't run on Win 2000, either.
  
  --
  Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Re:It's good to see some action by Pentium100 · 2009-02-20 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  Opera works OK on a 486DX 50MHz, 16MB of RAM and Windows 98. It should work on your PC too. Probably it will even allow you to open 4 tabs without running out of memory. Some version of Firefox shold work on W98 too.
5. Re:It's good to see some action by John+Hasler · 2009-02-20 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  > Ubuntu, similarly, doesn't think much of 128 megs of RAM.
  There are several Linux distributions targeted at old hardware that would work fine on that machine.
  > I know it's outdated hardware. It does everything else I require of it.
  As long as you don't require it to access modern Web sites.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
6. Re:It's good to see some action by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 15:04 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, like Chrysler. (They can go away with ie6)
7. Re:It's good to see some action by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 15:11 · Score: 0
  
  The big problem is that it's not 'we the people' that are keeping IE-6 alive.
  I work for a very large e-commerce site, and we have the stats to prove it. Our users are about 60% IE-6 during business hours, 20% IE-7. After hours, IE-6 usage drops like a rock and IE-7 usage rises dramatically until those numbers are reversed. FireFox/Safari/Opera/Chrome/etc. add up to about 20% and that stays constant, day or night.
  What this tells me is that corporate installs are the largest single block of users on IE-6. And those users have absolutely no control over which browser is installed on their company-supplied desktop, nor do they have the access required to install new software.
  The failure of Vista in corporate-land is the main reason that IE-6 is still alive.
8. Re:It's good to see some action by sxtxixtxcxh · 2009-02-21 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  that's why I started http://iedeathmarch.org/ six months ago.
  
  --
  for a minute there, i lost myself...
9. Re:It's good to see some action by 427_ci_505 · 2009-02-21 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  Don't install with the livecd, and the resulting install will work just fine. Use the alternate text mode installer cd.
10. Re:It's good to see some action by dave562 · 2009-02-21 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  Here's an anecdote for your anecdote. At the company I work at, we have a corporate account through Wells Fargo. A good portion of the staff needs to access a specific site on Wells Fargo to monitor their company credit card transactions and other things. (I'm just in IT, I don't know the exact functionality.) Wells Fargo designed the site so that it doesn't work in IE6. We updated everyone to IE7. It's that simple. As long as there is a business need to update, the update will take place. Our update took place almost two years at this point and as a benefit, the users are using a more secure web browser. FWIW, the majority of our users are on Firefox as their default browser.
  The point I'm trying to make is that action needs to come from the web community. It needs to come from the people designing the sites. If Wells Fargo can give the finger to their corporate clients and require a specific browser, so can everyone else. It's not like we were going to move all our financial accounts away from Wells Fargo because they made our users use a more secure browser.
11. Re:It's good to see some action by dave562 · 2009-02-21 08:55 · Score: 1
  
  As another example, I use Firefox to browse to Slashdot because the site renders like shit in IE7. Otherwise, I use IE7 as my default browser because it gets the job done and works just fine. Having to change browsers to access a specific site isn't the end of the world. If the content is compelling, I will do what I need to do to access that content.
Will /. Join the War on IE6? by denis-The-menace · 2009-02-20 09:49 · Score: 1

Title says it all
Maybe we should have a poll?

--
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
1. Re:Will /. Join the War on IE6? by Samschnooks · 2009-02-20 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Only if MS makes a sneak attack against /. in Hawaii. That's will get us into the war. Until then, most Slashdotters are isolationists. We're perfectly happy with Firefox, Opera, etc...
as someone who needs to code for many browsers by circletimessquare · 2009-02-20 09:49 · Score: 1

good
please drive ie6 usage into the basement, so i don't have to support it anymore. i don't want to have to refer to ActiveXObject, when I want an XMLHttpRequest, ever again, thank you
on a related note, i have a recent server log that indicates someone just visited my site in january with IE3
IE3!?
some sort of masochist?

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Re:as someone who needs to code for many browsers by geekoid · 2009-02-20 10:12 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  It's better then 6
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
2. Re:as someone who needs to code for many browsers by dwye · 2009-02-20 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe a Perl script setting a fake Browser string to avoid later complexity?
3. Re:as someone who needs to code for many browsers by vux984 · 2009-02-20 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  IE3!?
  Possibly. It came bundled with Win95OSR2, so it might be someone with a really old system that never upgraded anything.
  Its more likely someone with a fresh install of Win95 or NT4 for testing purposes somewhere. Probably who is trying download a more modern browser but is having trouble finding one because microsoft.com, windows update, etc pukes on browsers that old.
  Come on Microsoft! Windows update should detect the really old browsers and redirect to a PLAIN html page with downloads for NT service backs, IE redistributables, and so on. For that matter firefox.com should also provide very graceful degradation for browsers that old too (which last time I checked, it did not.)
  And while I'm dreaming, they should degrade to a low resolution low color page too.
  Because if I'm using IE3 or 4 I'm almost always trying to bootstrap a fresh install of a legacy OS... meaning that while I'm trying to upgrade IE3/4 to something more modern I'm also usually stuck at 800x600 or even 640x480 in 16 colors...)
  Nothing is more annoying than trying to download video drivers from a site that is designed to be viewed exclusively at 1024x768 in 24bit+ color with flash animations and png transparency, and fancy css/dhtml/ajax... Hello!! I'm here to download video drivers, why is this site designed to assume I already have them with no fallback -- if I show up at nvidia.com or support.dell.com with an antique browser have the decency to take pity on me, and let me bybass your flashy web2.0 hi-color hi-res crap... and take me straight to the damn drivers in plain ugly html 1.0 with old fashioned download links.
4. Re:as someone who needs to code for many browsers by MtViewGuy · 2009-02-20 14:52 · Score: 1
  
  please drive ie6 usage into the basement, so i don't have to support it anymore.
  If you have Windows XP with the Windows Update active, most users would have upgraded to IE 7.0 a LONG time ago. I like IE 7.0, but frankly, the memory management in Firefox 3.0.6 is WAY better, so I have Firefox as my default browser in Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1).
So, the Ebay equivalent in finland is by JCCyC · 2009-02-20 09:50 · Score: 1

norwegian.fi ?
1. Re:So, the Ebay equivalent in finland is by Dionysus · 2009-02-20 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  finn basically means find in Norwegian.
  
  --
  Je ne parle pas francais.
2. Re:So, the Ebay equivalent in finland is by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:50 · Score: 0
  
  'finn' means 'find'. The Norwegian/Swedish words for someone from Finland is 'finne' or 'finlendere'/'finnländare'. The former is sometimes considered slightly derogatory in Swedish.
3. Re:So, the Ebay equivalent in finland is by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 22:16 · Score: 1
  
  'finn' means 'find'.
  The Norwegian/Swedish words for someone from Finland is 'finne' or 'finlendere'/'finnländare'.
  The former is sometimes considered slightly derogatory in Swedish.
  So is the word Norwegian in Swedish. I worked at a company in Sweden that made software for mobile phones. We had some prototype phones but a dire shortage of batteries. Some suggested a "Norwegian battery" - this was an empty shell of a battery with wires coming out which you could attach to a bench PSU.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
4. Re:So, the Ebay equivalent in finland is by catman · 2009-02-21 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Please. Let's not restart the intra-Scandinavian joke war, it was worse than emacs/vi.
Funny... by Max+Romantschuk · 2009-02-20 09:50 · Score: 1

...I've been doing this on my personal site for years, but never thought big commercial ones would do it. Then again, the amount of man hours lost on IE6-related issues just for me personally is huge, and I can't even begin the think globally...

--
.: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
Who cares about users by NotQuiteReal · 2009-02-20 09:51 · Score: 1

Twitter people who RUN web sites...

--
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
What about Windows 2000? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 09:51 · Score: 0

It seems like it would be more prudent to suggest upgrading to Firefox or something considering IE7 isn't even available for Windows 2000.
Yes, a lot of us still use Windows 2000 because it's not encumbered by all the activation bullshit (which makes development difficult because I change my hardware all the time).
1. Re:What about Windows 2000? by rbrausse · 2009-02-20 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  so what?
  the "hey, please upgrade"-banner is maybe wrong for your OS but there are many alternatives out there.
  if this small info box annoys a win2k user it doesn't needs a rocket scientist to find other alternatives for ie6.
2. Re:What about Windows 2000? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:35 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah but mostly the only people still running IE6 are on Windows 2000. It doesn't make sense to tell them to upgrade to IE7.
Funny by dedazo · 2009-02-20 09:54 · Score: 1

I can read that campaign page with IE6.
But anyway, to echo some of the comments above, good luck with this at the corporate level. People who organize these things are usually completely ignorant about how companies deploy and upgrade the browser.
Having said that, I hope IE6 does die off. It will take a looong time though, unfortunately.

--
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
1. Re:Funny by arcade · 2009-02-20 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  Except that the campaign in Norway is being run by:
  - All major newspapers
  - The state broadcaster
  - The major consumer websites
  - At least one bank/insurance company
  
  --
  "Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
2. Re:Funny by catman · 2009-02-21 08:44 · Score: 1
  
  - and supported by Microsoft Norway. No kidding.
Now think about your dad! by Gizzmonic · 2009-02-20 09:57 · Score: 1

I use Innernet Explorer to visit Sites like DadSpot. I can't stop thinkin' about your dad's email address!

--
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
It's about time by JayTech · 2009-02-20 10:00 · Score: 1

I'm a web designer, and this comes as good news to me; the sooner IE6 hits low use numbers, the sooner I don't have to waste time coding a zillon hacks to get stuff like PNG support to work. They should be pointing people to Firefox / Chrome / etc though, not IE7.
IE 7 does not install in Windows 2000 by macraig · 2009-02-20 10:00 · Score: 1

Would they also expect me to upgrade my entire otherwise perfectly functional operating system, just so I can install a different version of Microsoft's mostly useless browser? The better choice is not to use Internet Explorer at all.
1. Re:IE 7 does not install in Windows 2000 by macraig · 2009-02-20 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  Addendum: Wouldn't this be yet more fine evidence that Internet Explorer has been and is too closely embedded in the operating system? IE7 won't even install, but Firefox and Opera have no issues at all with Windows 2000 (this is being submitted from FF3). What is it about IE7 that makes it so utterly dependent upon Windows XP?
2. Re:IE 7 does not install in Windows 2000 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:32 · Score: 0
  
  some of the security work in IE7 relies on operating system functionality in XPSP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000
3. Re:IE 7 does not install in Windows 2000 by macraig · 2009-02-20 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  You missed my point: ain't it interesting that neither Firefox nor Opera are forced to rely on this "operating system functionality" that is "non-trivial to port" and yet both have "security work" that is the equal of that in IE7?
  That specific paragraph in that specific page you referenced is double-speak for:
  "We've tied IE7 tightly to new stuff that we embedded in Windows XP, and we don't want to bother UN-embedding that new stuff and including it directly with IE7 so that it can work with Windows 2000... so don't even bother asking!"
  That sounds at lot like bundling to me. In this case, they're bundling IE7 with Windows XP to coerce stubborn Windows 2000 users to upgrade to Windows XP, rather than designing IE7 to be STANDALONE like Firefox and Opera which work equally well in either version of Windows.
Not "Throughout Europe" by Gonoff · 2009-02-20 10:01 · Score: 1

Popular culture throughout the world may struggle against IE in all its forms but we have no hope while ill-educated MBAs wearing expensive suits are in charge.
Here in the UK, for example, our health service has millions of PCs. We are told we must run IE6 because the national programme will not run on anything else.This is tested and found to be incorrect but that is what the Suits command.
Apparently, it will not run on FF although I haven't heard of it tested with IEtabs

--
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
1. Re:Not "Throughout Europe" by pbhj · 2009-02-20 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  Apparently, it will not run on FF although I haven't heard of it tested with IEtabs
  The real WTF is that they commission a browser based application locked to a piece of obsolete software that was originally backed by a malignant monopoly. Why not just add in the spec "must run on 2 of Saf/Op/FF/IE under Mac and Windows OS ..." they pay umpteen million x2 (always run over forecast spend limits) for their apps, don't they bother writing requirements for them?? I guess if they can't even negotiate fixed price contracts then probably the answer is no.
  Gah, this stuff makes me angry.
2. Re:Not "Throughout Europe" by John+Hasler · 2009-02-20 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  > ...we have no hope while ill-educated MBAs wearing expensive suits are in charge.
  So quit doing what they tell you and they won't be in charge any more.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
3. Re:Not "Throughout Europe" by Gonoff · 2009-02-21 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  They will be in charge. I will not have a job.
  
  --
  I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by weston · 2009-02-20 10:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

In his latest blog entry, Douglas Crockford postulates that companies using IE6 are probably among the less efficient and competent ones, and therefore among the more likely to be weeded out by the invisible hand as times get tough.
Hope he's right.

--
Tweet, tweet.
1. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by hobo+sapiens · 2009-02-20 10:28 · Score: 1
  
  In the last year, I have worked for two major corporations, who even in this economic climate, are doing pretty well. Both were still stuck on IE6 and still are as far as I know. I generally tend to think Crockford is right on, but I don't think he is here.
  There are so many apps targeted toward IE6 (by this, I mean they pass the "hey, it works in IE test".) I don't think IE6 has achieved its dominance my means of stupid corporations, anyhow. I think it has achieved its dominance from stupid web developers. One place I worked at was a very large telco, and they wanted to upgrade to IE7 a few years ago. Know what held things up? Myopic web developers screaming about how it would break their apps. Sad. No, I don't think these corporations will be out of business. But the inept web developers, if there is any justice, will be forced to either upgrade their skills or work at WalMart.
  
  --
  blah blah blah
2. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by glwtta · 2009-02-20 12:14 · Score: 1
  
  Seems like a stretch - it's not incompetent companies that tend to lag behind on IE (and Windows, and Office, etc) adoption, it's large companies. The larger the company, the more inertia there is.
  
  Hey, there's benefits to that too - I may have to target all my development to IE6, but at least nobody's forcing me to "upgrade" to Vista.
  
  --
  sic transit gloria mundi
3. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by dkf · 2009-02-20 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  Hey, there's benefits to [large companies] too - I may have to target all my development to IE6, but at least nobody's forcing me to "upgrade" to Vista.
  I'd watch out if I were you. They've got this new-fangled "Windows XP" software which they might force you onto...
  
  --
  "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
4. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by ignavus · 2009-02-20 12:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  companies using IE6
  What about "government agencies using IE6"?
  Unfortunately, they are more likely to survive the invisible hand of the economy than private corporations at present. Some 80% of my website page hits are from government users with IE6.
  I won't object to the claim that the government agencies using IE6 are among the less efficient and competent. But that won't stop them from surviving.
  
  --
  I am anarch of all I survey.
5. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by sydbarrett74 · 2009-02-20 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  Douglas Crockford postulates that companies using IE6 are probably among the less efficient and competent ones, and therefore among the more likely to be weeded out by the invisible hand as times get tough.
  I can confirm this. I was at Qimonda, who were still on Win2000/IE6 not for any good business reason, but because they couldn't afford to upgrade to anything newer. Look at what happened to them.
  
  --
  'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
6. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 15:26 · Score: 0
  
  that's a total crockford of shit. Many companies use internet browsers as a tool to get other real business done. Companies that waste a lot of time upgrading software to do the same job they did before are the ones wasting the money. You could spend millions keeping up with the lastest Msft office and windows without ever getting new features that actually enhance business.
7. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by FLEABttn · 2009-02-20 18:27 · Score: 1
  
  Correlation != Causation
8. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by sydbarrett74 · 2009-02-20 20:49 · Score: 1
  
  Where, in either Crockford's postulate or my corroboration, does causation come up? You're making unwarranted assumptions.
  
  --
  'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
9. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 22:22 · Score: 1
  
  It's the same with $group_i_hate. Everyone knows they are less efficient than $my_group so in these tough times I'd expect them to die out.
  Failing that $my_groups_media can always organise a final solution to the $group_i_hate problem.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
10. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 03:32 · Score: 0
  
  ...companies using IE6 are probably among the less efficient and competent ones, and therefore among the more likely to be weeded out by the invisible hand as times get tough.
  Yeah, like Chrysler.
11. Re:Crockford Predicts IE6's Decline by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 16:07 · Score: 0
  
  In his latest blog entry, Douglas Crockford postulates that companies using IE6 are probably among the less efficient and competent ones, and therefore among the more likely to be weeded out by the invisible hand as times get tough.
  Businesses use computers to get work done. If your employees are stuck using IE6 for legacy app reasons and can't browse some websites, many businesses would regard that as a FEATURE and not a bug: less time-wasting on the web.
Not as bad as it used to be by amn108 · 2009-02-20 10:10 · Score: 1

Ugh, I remember the days when IE6 was all the rage, and how difficult it was to explain to management that the future of web is W3C standards and how important it was to design websites with future in mind, according to standards, and how easy it was (even at the time) to switch to Firefox or Opera. Nobody important enough listened, and we were payed to heed and implement those awful CSS hacks for that horrible, horrible commercial abomination of a web browser that is IE6. I had had so much of it already then, even now I can't bring myself to use any version of it to read web pages. This is Microsoft caring for its users at its 'best'. Talk about reputation. Stubborn as they were, keeping to their bad code, excusing themselves for their corporate stock holders.
But then again, there were the days when we used to slice images in Photoshop and Dreamweaver and cooked up monstrous HTML-spaghetti webpages out of such ingridients as tables, javascript browser detection of the if(useragent.indexOf("MSIE"))... kind, and a really bad mix of inline DHTML events and the worst part of it all - document.write - IEs best tool for the DHTML job. Those websites were so fragile, they would collapse on browser switch twice a day for free, but I remember they were payed for in hundreds of thousands if not millions of norwegian crowns. Yuck. The only thing that matters is the looks - if it looks like it works, it must be working.
OS Support by BrettofSeattle · 2009-02-20 10:14 · Score: 1

I'm guessing the reason why some many users stick with IE6 is that it is the most up-to-date browser for their version of Windows. IE7 support starts at XP and Firefox 3 starts at Windows 2000. IE6 supports 98, ME, and even NT 4.0.
1. Re:OS Support by Tubal-Cain · 2009-02-20 10:23 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  [IE6] is the most up-to-date browser for their version of Windows.
  Most up-to-date IE; but certainly not the most up-to-date browser.
  Firefox 2 is slightly newer than IE 7, and it runs on Windows 98.
2. Re:OS Support by BenoitRen · 2009-02-20 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  SeaMonkey (built on the same rendering engine as Firefox), runs as far back as Windows NT 3.51.
  There really is no excuse.
3. Re:OS Support by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 19:19 · Score: 0
  
  Firefox 3 can work on Windows 98 as long as you're prepared to follow the instructions to hack 98 a bit.
You are missing the point by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:19 · Score: 0

The point is not who is smoking less crack, that's certainly debatable. The point is, what have people agreed to accept, whatever crack they may have been smoking. This is what standards are, mutually acceptable levels of smoking crack.
Opera. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 10:28 · Score: 0

Even FireFox struggles to catch up to it.
Microsoft-Free Fridays by Jantastic · 2009-02-20 10:39 · Score: 4, Informative

This reminds me of Dave Winer's 2001 idea of Microsoft-Free Fridays from the (2001) days Micrsoft played with the idea of implementing smart tags in IE6. An Apache mod was crafted for it.

--
...a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore ~H2G2
How about a Sheep in Wolf's clothing? by gsherman · 2009-02-20 10:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

The place I'm at runs IE 6.0. I think it's due to user inertia and resistance that it doesn't get switched over to Firefox. What I'd like to see is a version of Firefox that emulates the visual appearance and workings of the IE 6.0 interface (down to the title bar, icons, etc.), but under the hood and all the rendering is really being done by the latest FF. Updates would just go in automatically with no user intervention.
Seems simple enough, and there are some themes/skins for FF that purport to do this, but they don't go far enough, or aren't polished. They end up looking a little crufty (for instance, they don't get rid of the structure of the forward/back buttons in the latest FF).
If somebody came out with a seamless "sheep in wolf's clothing" solution for IE 6.0 -> FF, it would be a lot easier to get users to adopt it. Does that help wider FF adoption? No, but I think that's a separate issue from pure user "acceptance."
1. Re:How about a Sheep in Wolf's clothing? by Erikderzweite · 2009-02-20 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  While I was working for SiemensVDO, we had to use IE6 too, so I have installed firefox portable (had to rename the executable to iexplore.exe too), downloaded a IE6-like skin and made a few quircks to make it look even more like IE (like got rid of yellow addressbar for https). Here are the instructions: http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/firefox_internet_explorer/
  It works very well, even the colleagues who have used it didn't spot the difference. So I could use all the benefits of firefox and pretend I was using IE6.
Options? by bill_mcgonigle · 2009-02-20 10:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
I think whoever came up with HTML and CSS was smoking crack ... I say this as somebody who writes high profile web applications that must look right in all major browsers (including IE6).
Hey, good for you for not being one of the ones who finally masters it and then so declares it good. :) There are many more in the Give up and use tables camp than masters of CSS positioning.
My initial reaction to HTML, almost 15 years ago, was "this is unnecessarily hard". :)
I do like the ideas in CSS for decoration (though not the classing syntax), but CSS positioning is so hard as to be nearly unusable. Larry Wall's maxim of "easy things should be easy, hard things should be possible" clearly wasn't followed. There's a school of thought that goes like this:
1. tables are bad because they're hard to re-factor, reuse, etc.
2. CSS positioning is not tables.
3. CSS positioning is good.
and then reactionaries who say:
1. CSS positioning is damn near impossible
2. tables are not CSS positioning
3. tables are good
and that doesn't make sense either.
If anybody has a favorite meta-language (e.g. ideas like MarkDown) that's easily rendered into HTML/CSS, please comment.
--
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1. Re:Options? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:17 · Score: 0
  
  The problem with CSS positioning is that it's backwards. Layout should be defined in terms of boxes and placement relationships between these boxes, and then the boxes should be filled with content. The way HTML with CSS works is that the content defines the boxes and CSS can only move and size them according to some arcane rules. This places unnecessary limits on the order of the content and consequently makes the placement rules very complicated to allow for flexible layouts.
2. Re:Options? by MisterSquid · 2009-02-20 14:04 · Score: 1
  
  Learning how to position elements using CSS certainly is more difficult than learning HTML, which most people do by viewing source code. CSS stylesheets add a layer of abstraction and several degrees of complexity to HTML, and inspecting the code will give even smart people headaches.
  Just when I was starting to suspect that CSS positioning is so hard as to be nearly unusable, I spent forty minutes reading Chapter 10 of the second edition of O'Reilly's Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, "Floating and Positioning." There, I learned that CSS positioning is actually pretty straightforward, based on a procedural model that many programmers will readily grok. But unlike HTML, CSS positioning requires a very clear discussion and laying out of principles. While it's not rocket science, CSS positioning is very fault intolerant
  
  --
  blog
3. Re:Options? by voxner · 2009-02-20 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  When I was into web-design, I found grids very useful. It made the positioning of elements in the page much easier.
4. Re:Options? by bill_mcgonigle · 2009-02-20 16:15 · Score: 1
  
  Hey, thanks for the comment. I only have the first edition; I bet that was a revised chapter. I'll try again with a programmer's hat on. I did teach my grandfather HTML over lunch one day, I don't expect I'll have as much luck democratizing this though.
  Last time I strolled through the CSS Zen Garden, 80%+ of the layouts fell apart if I made my fonts a couple sizes bigger. This altered my perspective, though I suppose the authors there tend to be more geeky designers and less programmers. But that's also one of the promises, that designers can focus on design. Most that I know just use Dreamweaver and haven't a care in the world what kind of code it generates. The exceptions to this rule produce more beautiful layout, though.
  And, just to veer back on topic, without IE6 the stuff in the CSS book tends to work reliably. :)
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
5. Re:Options? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-22 00:43 · Score: 0
  
  Me thinks you haven't really discovered floating yet.
  Absolute and relative positioning are a pain, especially when taking into account dynamic sizing. But as long as you use dynamic floating, and just control the width of the container and the elements inside, it's even easier than tables. Everything just clicks into place on it's own accord.
  Also i parses a helluva lot faster
In short by Rei · 2009-02-20 10:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

To sum up:
1) There is no spec limit for GET lengths. Microsoft decided to make one up. And they made it tiny.
2) mailto is not a GET request. According to the spec, "No additional information other than an Internet mailing address is present or implied." Microsoft decided to interpret it as a GET request, probably due to lazy coding.
3) HTTP/1.1 RFC applies to *http*. Mailto is not http.
Their choice of behavior is both in violation of specs *and* a big annoyance. And it's just one random example out of hundreds that I've encountered. 9 times out of ten, if one browser isn't working and every other one is, that one is IE.

--
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
1. Re:In short by Phroggy · 2009-02-20 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  Their choice of behavior is both in violation of specs *and* a big annoyance. And it's just one random example out of hundreds that I've encountered.
  
  The problem is, the specs are inadequate. RFC 1738 that you mentioned doesn't allow for including a body at all. RFC 2368 supersedes that, but says it's totally OK to completely ignore the body altogether. There's no mention of size limits one way or the other.
  I encountered this problem when trying to write an IRC bot. The IRC protocol is poorly defined in the RFCs, so nobody actually follows the RFCs. IRC is a mish-mash of de-facto standards; you can use the RFCs to get you started, but then you have to basically reverse-engineer the popular clients to figure out how they behave, and test your code on a variety of servers since they all work differently.
  
  --
  $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
  $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
2. Re:In short by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 21:11 · Score: 0
  
  ...and then no one bothers to write an updated RFC?
3. Re:In short by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 00:56 · Score: 0
  
  To sum up:
  1) As already mentioned, the spec makes it clear that support for URI lengths above 255 characters should not be counted on. Servers MUST be able to handle any URIs they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbound length ** IF ** they serve forms which could generate such URIs.
  2) "No additional information other than an Internet mailing address is present or implied" means that the browser doesn't even have to accept your use of ?subject and &body as they are not part of the address.
  Right underneath the text you quoted is this:
  "A mailto URL takes the form: mailto:<rfc822-addr-spec>"
  rfc822 says addr-spec = local-part "@" domain. Not local-part "@" domain ? query-part.
  3) Yes, 2616 applies to HTTP and not mailto, however you are arguing that the spec for HTTP GET requests insists on unbound length. To refer to any other RFC in discussion of this would be rather pointless.
4. Re:In short by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 04:10 · Score: 0
  
  3) Yes, 2616 applies to HTTP and not mailto, however you are arguing that the spec for HTTP GET requests insists on unbound length.
  No, he isn't, and I quote:
  
  1) There is no spec limit for GET lengths.
  And indeed, there isn't any limit in the spec. As you yourself write, and I quote again:
  
  the spec makes it clear that support for URI lengths above 255 characters should not be counted on
  Does not, in fact specify a limit.
  Thus, saying that the parent poster argues that the spec insists on unbound length is false.
  Nitpicking, I know, but since you did it, you can expect it right back too.
5. Re:In short by Phroggy · 2009-02-22 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  ...and then no one bothers to write an updated RFC?
  Sure they did, and corrected some of the errors in the original, but those aren't entirely accurate either. This very helpful draft, which defines how a server can declare precisely how it violates the RFCs or specifying details the RFCs don't cover, was never accepted as an RFC by the IETF. I'm aware of no such document on how to handle colors, which is just a de-facto standard that the mIRC client made up (and has some rather glaring problems) that other clients have to emulate for compatibility.
  (Supporting colors is important even for a bot that will never use them, because you have to parse the syntax so you can correctly strip color codes out of messages from other users. The CASEMAPPING parameter defined for the ISUPPORT message is important so you can track whether messages about a user "foo{}" entering the channel and user "foo[]" leaving the channel are talking about the same user or not, otherwise you have no idea how many people are really there. CHANMODES is an enormous pain in the ass to deal with, and if it's not specified via ISUPPORT you just have to guess and hope you can parse it correctly. The list goes on.)
  
  --
  $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
  $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Mailto by Rei · 2009-02-20 11:01 · Score: 1

Mailto isn't GET. It's not even HTTP. It's just a URI shortcut for "open an email client". Mailto in an HREF is the *standard* way of spawning an email client. And IE's 2083 character limit is something that they made up that is not called for by spec anyway, and it interferes with perfectly legitimate uses.

--
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
the only think i can conclude from your post by circletimessquare · 2009-02-20 11:02 · Score: 1

is that biochemistry majors shouldn't code browsers ;-)
i keed, i keed...

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I've done this in my website by iris-n · 2009-02-20 11:02 · Score: 2, Funny

There's a nag screen for IE6 users.
Since I've implemented it, the usage has been down, from 23% to 12%. And the january statistics shows the for the first time the percentage of firefox users is greater than the IE* users.
I've lost clients? Maybe.
I'm a happier person? Sure.

--
entropy happens
1. Re:I've done this in my website by Erikderzweite · 2009-02-20 14:17 · Score: 1
  
  You've lost visitors, that's for sure. But you have saved much time in not dealing with IE6-only issues. Don't know whether it pays off for you but being a lazy person I would do just the same.
Go ahead, make my day... by rickb928 · 2009-02-20 11:04 · Score: 1

The corporate image I use has IE6. No choice by me. IE7 is in the works, but no ETA and not a high priority.
We live inside a pretty robust firewall and proxy server, and I don't use the system outside the office unless I'm VPN'd in through the proxy. Infestations are rare and so far always caused by bypassing the proxy. No one on our team is aware of any malware getting into our systems, other teams have different experiences.
It's not like I can choose at work. At home, it's Firefox mostly and IE7 otherwise.
Lately I've taken to opening something suspicious in the Steel browser on my G1. It seems to not much care about malware, but it does tell me when something acted up. It would be cool to get my G1 infected, just for the heck of it... Maybe it would start spamming the White House... Sweeeet!

--
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
zzz by circletimessquare · 2009-02-20 11:09 · Score: 1

<FORM Action="mailto:xyz" METHOD="POST">
there's dozens of reasons why you don't want huge gets
in the link you just supplied me, the very first reply hints at some of those reasons
do some research. find out why cramming huge amounts of data into a get is plain wrong. i sent you a link before, read it to get started. (just don't "get" started ;-)
this issue is well and above beyond a mark against ie. ie sucks for thousands of reasons. but this is not one of them
if ie never existed, for reasons of basic http architecture, you don't want to cram lots of data into a get
seriously, you need a new METHODology ;-)

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Re:zzz by Rei · 2009-02-20 11:23 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  GET is a type of HTTP request. Mailto isn't HTTP. Why isn't this the beginning and end of this conversation right there?
  Show me one proxy server in use today that limits GETs more than IE. As though that's a valid justification -- limiting, what, 85% of the computers on the net because some proxy might possibly do it for them?
  As stated, there are perfectly legitimate reasons for a long GET URL -- Google Maps being a good example (they have to limit it to be compatible with IE). But that's not even applicable, because mailto is not a GET request in the first place. What exactly is setting method to POST even supposed to do? POST to your email client instead of GET? How do you start up a program with POST rather than GET? Get and POST are HTTP requests, and mailto is not HTTP. Doing a mailto in an HREF is the standard way to do it.
  I can't believe we're even having to have this debate. IE is imposing a non-spec limit on the wrong type of URI in a way that breaks the standard way of doing a common function. That's a bug.
  
  --
  I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
2. Re:zzz by hobbit · 2009-02-20 11:42 · Score: 1
  
  You "program for browsers", and you don't understand what Rei is trying to tell you? Heaven help you.
  
  --
  "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
What Firefox should really do .... by aix+tom · 2009-02-20 11:10 · Score: 1

... is to put the Network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris setting in a more "visible" place in the configuration in the Windows version than just accessible via the about:config interface, which no "normal" user will ever find.
Possible even have the "logon-domain" environment variable already in there so it just needs to be checked to allow it.
I have found that 90% of our corporates Intranet works just fine in Firefox when I allow NTLM authentication. The exception being statistical pages which use Excel web components.
IE6 the next Netscape 4.7 by cjjjer · 2009-02-20 11:33 · Score: 1

About time, someone give them a medal and lets all help out....
Focus on the organisations - how about the NHS? by simonsquiff · 2009-02-20 11:34 · Score: 1

IE6 traffic drops quite a bit at weekends - showing that work machines have a higher percentage of IE6 than home ones. So convincing organisations to change will be the biggest win.
Biggest of them all? Well the UK NHS (National Health Service) is the biggest employer in the UK, and 3rd biggest in the world, after the Indian State Railway and the Chinese Army (who I doubt has the same amount of internet access!). It uses IE6.
Why? Because Connecting for Health, the multibillion pound IT project that's massively over budget and late, doesn't support IE7. Yes, on the Microsoft website it tells the NHS not to push out IE7.
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/nhs/content/articles/ie7-guidelines-for-all-nhs-organisations.aspx
IE7 didn't really break much, so to have very expensive and supposedly new apps still not working in IE7 seems crazy.
Until that is fixed the largest employer in the UK with millions of PCs will be stuck on IE6. And I wouldn't hold your breath for a fix considering this was identified back in Nov 06.
Yay for digg summaries. by thePowerOfGrayskull · 2009-02-20 11:43 · Score: 1

The campaign is now spreading like fire on Twitter (#IE6), and starting to become an amazing effort by big Media companies to get rid of IE6!

Really? We need this here?
Version Outdate? by Ohio+Calvinist · 2009-02-20 11:46 · Score: 1

I'll avoid the browser war for the moment, and simply comment that it makes sense (as somone who is a developer) and who has been in support roles; that is is arguably the right decision to encourage users (or even force under some circumstances) to use the most current version of the broser of their chosing. IE 6 is out of date, and is almost (when IE 8 hits the scene) 2 versions out of date. That would be like running Firefox 1.x when the world is at 3.x. There comes a point where new functionality is worth losing those who can't/won't update even though it would be safer (generally speaking); and there has to be a point where you cut them loose.

However even though the mobile market is becoming more desktop-esque; having at least the facility to support browsers with less features is very important, and if you set the lowest common denominator to a phone browser, then getting all up in a tizzy over IE6 seems over-excessive (as much as I would prefer to see folks on modern software, since most are free and run on almost any platform.)

--
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
ToolBar on Top by Icegryphon · 2009-02-20 12:03 · Score: 0

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser]
"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000001
What? There are people still using IE6? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:11 · Score: 0

Thought IE6 is the past. Wonder why there are people still using IE6 because IE6 is a lousy browser. Seriously.
First you have to get them to upgrade the OS... by Kazoo+the+Clown · 2009-02-20 12:11 · Score: 1

From W98SE-- which won't run even IE6, nor will it run Firefox 2.

And of course, to get them to do that, you'll have to get them to upgrade their hardware as a 64MB 233MHZ P2 won't run XP or Vista worth a darn (though I suppose they could move to Linux, but they won't do that if they're dependent on some Windows-based apps). And since they're by no means computer experts, nor like to re-learn what they think they've already learned, changing the OS is not something that appeals.

And of course, they'll have to buy new apps to go with. No matter how you cut it, upgrading to IE6 or IE7 can be an expensive proposition.

HALF of the people I know are STILL running W98SE on dialup. GET USED TO IT. They don't stream anything, they just get email and surf the web. It works for them just fine, they have little reason to change (things are a little bit slow, that's all).
1. Re:First you have to get them to upgrade the OS... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:31 · Score: 0
  
  How do you like those big MEdia companies anyhow-- first they make you buy a new TV or converter box, now they are trying to make you buy a new computer. What's next, force you to send them a copy of your house key so they can stop over anytime to see if you're following the rules? Where do those guys get off anyway?
  He loved Big Brother.
2. Re:First you have to get them to upgrade the OS... by jabelli · 2009-02-20 12:45 · Score: 1
  
  Funny, my Win98 VM has IE6.
Yay! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:13 · Score: 0

Quick, spread the word and get it on as many sites as possible! IE 6 must die!
Windows 2000 is stuck with IE6.. I KNOW I KNOW by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 12:17 · Score: 0

What about us stuck running windows 2000 terminal servers(citrix 1.8) that we can't upgrade due to other software that's not compatible or would also cost to upgrade? Yes damn it I would like to upgrade everything but it costs! Firefox is not very friendly in a multi user environment...(group polices ect.) I hope we can upgrade our servers soon but it's going to cost alot due for new Term Serv CAL's, software ect. I'm all for a secure browser but what browser options are there in a terminal server environment?
1. Re:Windows 2000 is stuck with IE6.. I KNOW I KNOW by Hal_Porter · 2009-02-20 22:29 · Score: 1
  
  Opera works perfectly on Windows 2000.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Excellent... by Kazoo+the+Clown · 2009-02-20 12:17 · Score: 1

Wow! I just found out how to make a website incompatible with IE-- THANKS!
I'll be joining the campaign by i-CONICA · 2009-02-20 12:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

I run http://geekimo.com/ which is all designed using transparencies and it looks beautiful on all browsers except IE6, which shows a horrid gray site... I absolutely hate IE6, the offices where I work all have IE6 on them and we're not allowed to install any software to replace it. Considering how horrid IE6 makes the site look, I'm going to show a different page to IE6 users showing them two images, the site as it should look and the site as they're seeing it. A "download firefox" button below. All it would take is major services like Facebook, Myspace, Google and Youtube to boycott the browser for a few days, the reduced visits wouldn't be enough to hit them financially yet it would push the browser almost out of existence.
1. Re:I'll be joining the campaign by AaronLawrence · 2009-02-21 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  The transparencies might look nice, but they make it feel a bit sluggish to me (FF3). Such features are not widely used because they require a great deal of work from the browser/PC, as well as being unsupported in IE....
  
  --
  For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Time to move on by FyberOptic · 2009-02-20 13:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

I decided a few months ago when I was doing a site redesign that there was no reason to continue supporting IE6. It simply lacked too many things now to make it worth wasting my time and effort on to continue making complicated workarounds for. IE7 is a fine browser, and IE8 will be even better and is quickly approaching, so there's no reason for anyone to have not upgraded by now.
Don't get me wrong though, I feel it's very important for any developer worth their salt to support EVERY major browser. I don't care if you don't like Opera or Safari or whatever the case may be, you should code your site to work right in everything. It's really not very hard, assuming you know what you're doing. I use very little workarounds (none this last time) to make sites render properly in everything these days.
When someone visits a website and their browser isn't supported, it is simply a major turn-off. More people should realize that.
IE6 does work in 98 SE! by antdude · 2009-02-20 13:05 · Score: 1

Dude, are you on crack? IE6.0 SP1 does run in Windows 98 SE. Except it doesn't get the recent updates for years. :( Firefox v3 won't work in 98 SE either.

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Oh, and while we're on the topic by Rei · 2009-02-20 14:39 · Score: 1

I just had to fix two IE-specific bugs. One, IE doesn't play nicely with Google Maps. It pretends like your internet connection is down and asks you to diagnose it (rather than report a page error) if you don't defer all loading of anything related to Google Maps until the DOM is fully loaded. That was a PITA to figure out the proper incandation to convince it to work right, especially since it faked having no net connection rather than report a site error, and refused to uncache its copies unless I deleted browser history. The other was related to it insisting on making me manually reset an IFRAME that was returned by some CGI; sometimes, when the page finished loading, IE would inexplicably wipe out the IFRAME's contents, including a DIV I needed to use. But not immediately. Also a pain, and also, naturally, IE was the only browser that had this behavior.
How can anyone defend this piece of junk?

--
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You by obscuro · 2009-02-20 15:20 · Score: 1

I hate IE6 and I can't stand how much market penetration it still has. Writing nice HTML/CSS for IE7, Firefox 2.0 and Safari is cake compared to getting the same to work in IE6. About 18 months ago when I put up the shingle for vitacall.com I captured the browser type and told the 35%+ market using IE6 to upgrade NOW. I hope this becomes a global, unstoppable groundswell.

--
Every rule has more than one consequence.
different campaign by Onymous+Coward · 2009-02-20 15:24 · Score: 1

If you're pissed off at how IE languished for over five freakin' years, a thorn in our sides the whole while, and you want to be done with that...
Why would you "upgrade" to a version of the same browser from the same people? Why?
Do you think IE6 sucked independently of Microsoft's actions somehow?
"Really, he's a good man, it's just sometimes when he drinks..."
Have Win2k Users Been Forgotten? by idfubar · 2009-02-20 16:12 · Score: 1, Insightful

More great news for Windows 2000 users... This is my call to "upgrade", yeah?

--

Rishi Chopra
www.rishichopra.org
1. Re:Have Win2k Users Been Forgotten? by paganizer · 2009-02-21 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  it IS possible to run IE7 & chrome on Win2k (The One True Operating System); but why? Firefox, or seamonkey.
  
  --
  Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
2. Re:Have Win2k Users Been Forgotten? by idfubar · 2009-02-21 14:44 · Score: 0
  
  Actually... unless there's a hack that I'm not aware of (another, later, Windows OS in a VM or something?)... IE7 is not supported for Win2k and won't download/install by default. Also, IMHO Chrome is still in its infancy and there's definitely no reason not to use Firefox (aside from the fact that Microsoft software works best with Microsoft software)...
  
  --
  
  Rishi Chopra
  www.rishichopra.org
Ob: Python joke by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 17:10 · Score: 0

Are they pining for version Fjour?
I like IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 17:37 · Score: 0

I like IE 6 a lot better than IE 7 mainly since it has a built in FTP client. Without that feature in IE7 just blows.
Opera 9.25 works fine under win98 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 17:53 · Score: 0

probably the latest Opera works as well but I haven't tried it.
Never visited a Norwegan website... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-20 18:37 · Score: 0

Therefore this is not better than put a banner on my private homepage...
People will only change the browser if more than 50 % of their most visited pages do not work....
Microsoft supports the campaign by abrenna · 2009-02-20 20:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Microsoft Norway was first out to support the campaign in an interview with Teknisk Ukeblad: http://www.tu.no/it/article200622.ece They also sent out a press release, and we posted it here: http://tekniskbeta.no/ms-stÃtter-ie6-saken/ Both links above are in English, but Norwegian developer THomas Hansen ran it through Google Translate and ended up with this: http://ra-ajax.org/microsoft-supports-the-war-against-ie6.blog Swedish Microsoft-managers also support the campaign: http://stephanielindberg.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/uppgradera-nu-det-har-gtt-mnga-internetr-sedan-2001/ http://blogs.technet.com/microsoftnyheter/archive/2009/02/20/var-med-i-v-rst-dningen-uppgradera-till-ie7.aspx Best regards, Anders Brenna Teknisk Ukeblad TU.no
1. Re:Microsoft supports the campaign by clive_p · 2009-02-20 21:43 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not surprised. I'm using Win-XP SP2 and normally use Firefox, but keep IE6 installed just for the small number of websites which don't work with Firefox. I'd be happy to upgrade to IE7 or later but have not found a way to do that without agreeing to install WGA. I have a fully licenced Windows machine but don't want to install something as potentially dangerous as this. So I'm stuck with IE6. Maybe Microsoft's approval is yet another attempt to get WGA distributed widely?
Re:I'm sticking with IE6 by Harald+Paulsen · 2009-02-20 21:42 · Score: 1

Seriously, I use IE6 and I love it. I've tried both firefox and ie7 and I didn't like them.
Harald

--
Harald
It's so easy you don't need scripting! by rdebath · 2009-02-20 22:43 · Score: 1

If you use Microsoft conditional comments it's perfectly simple.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/main.css">


Getting that into a TEXT slashdot message OTOH is not.
1. Re:It's so easy you don't need scripting! by amn108 · 2009-02-20 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I used to do that too, somehow forgotten about it completely. I can confirm it works as advertised :-)
IE7 is for Windows XP and up... by suss · 2009-02-20 22:45 · Score: 1

I'm still using Windows 2000 and am forced onto an IE7 upgrade page every time i've used windows update.
Too bad it will only run on Windows XP and up.
Is this an oversight on microsoft's behalf or are they doing this to annoy windows 2000 users?
PS I use opera 9 almost exclusively anyway.
Plus an afterthought .. by rdebath · 2009-02-20 22:52 · Score: 1
Real Reason by Grenk · 2009-02-20 22:56 · Score: 1
This has obviously descended into another slagging match with regards to IE's quality and standards-compliance.
The OP is talking about a drive to upgrade from IE6. Let's talk about that.
The reality is that banks and other blue chips upgrade in cycles. It probably is about time that these organisations upgrade, but:
1. IE7 was around too short a time and was not considered worth it. IE8 is almost here, so these companies WILL skip IE7.
2. The upgrade will be done as part of an OS upgrade. There was no impetus to switch to Vista and Windows 7 is almost here, so it won't happen until then.
3. There is no incentive for these companies to switch to another browser, regardless of how much better it may be. They will continue to use IE because that is what they know and what comes with Windows and what they have documentation and support structures in place for.
4. An upgrade is expensive! It may cost hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars/euros to complete such an upgrade. In these rocky financial times it's pretty far down the list of requirements.
For the record, my browser of choice continues to be Firefox. I also believe that IE7 is much better than IE6 and that IE8 is better again but nowhere near ready for the banks. It will be another 2-3 years before we see IE6 really disappear...
I'll stick with IE6 by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 01:34 · Score: 0

From what I've heard IE7 and Chrome are bloatware, and I know from experience that Firefox is too, Safari scrolls like molasses and disrespects your visual style, and Opera likewise. Some of us just can't afford that memory and the clocks. I'll switch to Konqueror when the Windows version is fully ready.
You're also adviced that like everyone else I hate to be bossed around. If I see such messages on sites that I really need, I'll change my user agent string or whatever you use for detection. Other sites will simply not see me returning. Ever. Not even after I upgrade to Konqueror.
No by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 02:09 · Score: 0

Or is it only racist to suggest that North American Indians are retarded?
Or could it have been that I was suggesting that because India's culture is so completely different from that of the United States, they could not understand what was of value to Americans in a filtering capacity, and therefor produced a retarded product.
Geez! I guess I just don't understand!
That's because you are stupid! Are you white?
They also take American jobs... by tjstork · 2009-02-21 02:29 · Score: 1

So no, I don't have to like them at all. American Express is the worst... a shitty bank getting bailed out with my tax dollars sending jobs off to India. Fuck all these people. IT's entirely rational to hate an economic rival.

--
This is my sig.
Norway is European. by tjstork · 2009-02-21 02:46 · Score: 1

Geographically? Perhaps Norway is not. I think they would all say that Norway is a Scandinavian country. But when people think of European history and culture, they tend to include Norway and Sweden. Indeed, geographical Sweden, on the same peninsula, is often hailed in the USA by the American left as a successful example of a European welfare state. From a historical perspective too, when we discuss the "European theater in World War II", we usually include the Battle for and subsequent German occupation of Norway.
So yeah, Norway is "European".

--
This is my sig.
If they even have that option... by Chordonblue · 2009-02-21 06:12 · Score: 1

Just last night I was working on a relative's computer. She STILL has Win ME (oh God)! Well, Firefox no longer works on it. Chrome doesn't work. IE 7 is right out. But as it turned out, Opera worked PERFECTLY and quickly.
I'm planning on upgrading her soon, but as she just got of dial-up last night, this will do her for now.

--
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Re:I'm sticking with IE6 by jonadab · 2009-02-21 08:11 · Score: 1

> Seriously, I use IE6 and I love it. I've tried both firefox and ie7 and I didn't like them.

Have you tried Netscape 4? It's even older and crustier than IE6, and its CSS support is *worse*. You'd love it.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I prefer IE6 ... by pbhj · 2009-02-21 08:29 · Score: 1

I prefer MS IE6 ... to being castrated with a pencil sharpener.
Where are the US sites in this campaign...? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-21 08:43 · Score: 0

Is it only in Europe, South America, Indonesia and Australia we wish to kill IE6 or...?
Why haven't any big US sites jumped this campaign and helped it out by creating their own banners...?
Add your page here; http://ie6.forteller.net/index.php?title=List and join the war...!!
Re:I'm sticking with IE6 by Harald+Paulsen · 2009-02-21 09:27 · Score: 1

I do use lynx and links on occation, does that count? :-)

--
Harald
people still use IE5 by danlip · 2009-02-21 11:38 · Score: 1

I see these in my access logs, although maybe some of these are bots, but I doubt all of them are (and the page counts exceeds Safari or Opera, although I have a very low hit site so it my be just noise)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0; SCF - Mean & Nasty; T312461)
Stop IE6 now! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-23 23:00 · Score: 0

This is all about the campaign to rid the WWW of Internet Explorer 6 that has devastated web developers and held back the evolution of everything that blocks the tubes for far too long. This can not go on any longer!
BECOME A FRIEND AND SUPPORT THE INITIATIVE TO GET RID OF IE6.
http://ie6donotwant.hyves.nl