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Internet Explorer 6 Will Not Die
caffeinejolt writes "Despite all the hype surrounding new browsers being released pushing the limits of what can be done on the Web, Firefox 3 has only this past month overtaken IE6. Furthermore, if you take the previous report and snap on the Corporate America filter, IE6 rules the roost and shows no signs of leaving anytime soon. Sorry web developers, for those of you who thought the ugly hacks would soon be over, it appears they will linger on for quite a bit — especially if you develop for business sites."
The reason IE 6 won't die is intranet applications that were coded specifically for IE 6 that corporations haven't bothered to make cross-browser. IE 7 (and presumably IE 8) breaks a lot of those sites.
At my current job, we're not allowed to install IE 7 or 8, and don't have the administrator rights to do it. It sucks because as a web developer, I'd like nothing better than to see IE 6 die a quick death.
This space left intentionally blank.
IT departments have no budgets right now. Testing all the in-house apps with IE8 would cost money. Even telling people to press the "render in IE6 mode" button would be quite expensive in terms of calls. So they're just blocking the update.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It doesn't render correctly with Chrome either.
I'm a web developer and I'm already doing that. However, people from certain areas of business may have the majority of their users still visiting through IE6. When that happens, your only choices are either to support IE6 or not to work for that client.
If you're so cheap that you can't download a FREE browser to see the web, fuck ye!
The excuse: "I can download a web browser for free, but I can't install it because I'm not in the Administrators group."
And I use to blame IE6 for making /. look like shit but then I go home and use Firefox and /. still looks like shit. It makes me wonder if there's any browser that will load up /. correctly.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
This is misrepresentative and a sign of false hope; IE has lost no ground to FF according to that chart:
IE7 + IE6 + IE8 = 43.51 + 18.23 + 8.26 = 70.0% share
FF3 + FF2 + FF1 = 18.58 + 1.45 + 0.17 = 20.2% share
This is unchanged from the average (71.6% v 19.84%) or the oldest data in Dec '08 (70.8% v 20.8%).
There is no growth here, just the obvious resistance to change in the corporate world, which will be more reflected in Windows (IE6) than anything else.
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We'll only really see the demise if IE6 when the corporate world fully adopts the next OS, which would be Windows 7, a year or three after its first service pack (assuming MS plays it smart). That means we're stuck with IE6 for at least another 2-3 years.
(Yes, I know that a large percentage of corporate deployments are still on Windows 2000. If they're moving to XP but aren't already too far along, it will hopefully be with IE7 or IE8, or even something else entirely.)
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I've also found that there are a large number of folks who are still using old versions of WinXP with not-so-legit site licenses or corporate licenses who don't want to upgrade to Vista and don't intend to now pay for a license for an OS they have been using "free" for years and are stuck with IE6 because they can no longer perform windows updates.
this kind of idiocy pisses me off. I have always had weird browsers on cellphones and other devices... I would rather see a partially broken page than a stuffed shirt jackass page telling me to install a browser that CANNOT be installed on my device or work laptop.
It works fine in the WebKit nightlies, at least as far as comment titles and scores (Don't see any other problems either). I'd venture to guess it's a problem with the Safari 4 build - webkit itself has been updated a lot since then, and should therefore be working when Safari 4 final comes out.
It also doesn't render correctly in Konqueror 3.5 (AJAX everything in comments broken now) or 4.2 (front page autorefresh doesn't work).
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
The comment titles and scores are being rendered (highlight the page with ctrl-a), the problem is with the CSS - the background image that runs the length of the div element containing the title is being overwritten. This:
get's overwritten by this (appears further down the document):
You'll notice the issue doesn't occur on some of the alternative stylesheets (Ask Slashdot, YRO, etc). In the meantime, you can hit 'change' in the threshold form to set things straight.
Most of it isn't down to the IT department to upgrade their web pages and ActiveX controls, but the 3rd party vendors who supply the 'mission critical' apps that need to work. I'm talking companies like SAP or Siebel whose ability to change direction makes an oil tanker look zippy.
Most IT departments do have a strategy to upgrade:
1. buy upgrade of vendor for tens of thousands of dollars.
2. change and configure the new system at cost of more tens of thousands of dollars
3. install on new servers (that cost.. you get the idea by now) and pilot it
4. roll it out to users, if it actually works and provides the features the old version did.
If your site is correctly formed HTML, then it will degrade gracefully and be perfectly accessible in lynx.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
How about, the version of enterprise apps x,y,z,q, etc that we run are certified and supported running in IE6 with ActiveX controls a,b,c,d,l,m. We have a strategy of moving to the current version of those apps over then next N years as we reach the current systems end of life (which may be extended from the originally planned EOL by the lack of capital for the replacement systems). The only possible strategy for us would be to move to Firefox for general web browsing but that requires significant additional effort and buy-in from the users. Sorry but I'll use my limited resources and political capital for projects that make sense to me and the business, not to make some web developers life easier.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
IE7 and 8 are not available for Windows 2000, which is still in use in a lot of companies. Also, most larger companies run WSUS to manage update deployment, this means they can selectively block updates that they do not want from being deployed. This includes IE7 and IE8.
I'm sure some of the numbers are from piracy, but if you are smart enough to pirate Windows and evade detection, you are probably smart enough to use a more modern secure browser like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Not to mention that it's 2009, but Slashdot can't even be bothered to work with Unicode yet.
Here is an em-dash: â"
Here is some Japanese: æ--¥æoeèzãã
See?
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Leopard is $118 from Amazon. And you can go cheaper if you buy 'used'.
Or find a friend who has a spare license left in a family pack.
Methinks thou doest protest too much.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Your sig is wrong. I like machines that last for 10 years too but if I had a 10 year old PC (until last year, my parents used one regularily) and refused to update my OS, I would be running windows 98SE. Try running a lot of current windows apps on windows 98...it does not work as it is no longer a problem to require XP and drop 98/ME support. The point of a computer lasting 10 years is that it is still updatable to stay reasonably current. Either stick with your old OS and only use old apps or switch to new one for new apps (or buy a new computer)
Bottles.
I just checked and it seems that Microsoft does not require validation for IE7 any longer. They do not prompt for validation to download the IE8 installer, but at only 16 MB it probably phones home to grab the rest during install which is something a Windows pirate would probably not want even if WGA is not required.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
I've worked for a number of companies that would respond to your 'happy hacking' by simply terminating your employment. Happy hunting (a new job)!
IE7 stopped requiring the validation at some point.
doesn't slashdot have any bug reporting tools for us to use?
Yes, yes it does..
My blog
Microsoft will no longer provide any updates for IE6 come 13-Jul-2010. That means no security patches which means many businesses will have to move to something else. My company will tell our clients that come that date.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps/#Internet_Explorer
Ah yes! Yet again we see the clueless masses who get the mod points around here rearing their ugly heads.
So, what you want me to do, as a freelance developer, is tell the guy who signs my paycheck that I refuse to work for him because he wants to support an application that I'm not found of? If you don't see the problem with this let me suggest that you go back to junior college and take a couple business courses. As a manager I would see it as you saying "I'm an employee of yours and I refuse to do what is best for your company. Instead I'd rather take the easy route and risk alienating your customers."
If I were to hire you and you gave me that spiel you'd be out on your ass and I'd let others know about it too. Have fun finding work for anyone who can pay real money for your *cough* services *cough*.
They did that, it got abused, so they stopped.
The latest SeaMonkey works as far back as Windows NT 3.51. There's no excuse. I use it without problems on Windows 95. OpenOffice before version 3 works fine on Windows 95 as well.