YouTube Phasing Out Support For IE6

Oracle Goddess sends word that YouTube is presenting IE6 users with a banner exhorting them to upgrade to a modern browser, and TechCrunch is reporting that YouTube will be phasing out support for IE6 soon. This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net at the imminent demise of this most despised and non-standards-compliant browser. The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

Comments

About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. That's like phasing out of support for cancer.

Re:About time

[CorporateSuit]

Perhaps next, they can follow Slashdot's example and phase out support for web browsers.

Re:About time

[beatbox32]

Isn't that Web 3.0? The Browser-less Web? There is no browsing, you'll be served up a heaping pile of Slashdot and you'll like it, mister!

Re:About time

[MacTO]

> Perhaps next, they can follow Slashdot's example and phase out support for web browsers.

This may actually be an advantage:

show_articles.sh YouTube-Phasing-Out-Support-For-IE6 | sed s/IE6/Windows/g | more

Re:About time

[alexborges]

Less is more....

Sheesh, this Unix old timers....

Re:About time

[DoofusOfDeath]

Perhaps next, they can follow Slashdot's example and phase out support for web browsers.

No, I think MS would rather skip a step and just phase out Slashdot.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Web 3.0 is the Webless Web. Everyone will get so sick Web 2.0's user generated content, that not even web developers will be able to generate content, just in case.

Re:About time

[derGoldstein]

Perhaps next, they can follow Slashdot's example and phase out support for web browsers.

Slashdot supports web browsers? Since when!?

Re:About time

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But most people prefer neither less nor more. Why settle for less?

Re:About time

[Cimexus]

Yeah what the hell is wrong with Slashdot these days. I'm using Firefox (not even an 'evil' browser like IE) and Slashdot renders all weird ... all this extra green space under the Slashdot logo at the top etc...

Re:About time

[numbski]

Why constrain yourself to 6? I mean why make your life difficult?

Live a little! Just ditch all IE version for a day. See what happens. What are people going to do? Flood your support lines? Oh - right, you don't have any support lines. :)

Re:About time

[yoyhed]

I hate whatever new it is that they did, but as soon as it appeared a year or two ago, I enabled "Classic Index" in options - I can't stand how /. looks when I'm not logged in.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're not logged in you can click repeatedly on the 'article title link within the article' and sooner or later it switches to classic view. It's well worth it.

Re:About time

[soliptic]

I'm not sure what's behind all these complaints about slashdot lately, because I haven't seen anything untoward. But I'm still on firefox 2.0.20 here, rather than letting it auto-upgrade me to 3.x - which was frankly rather difficult (far more than it should have been). It took registry edits and all sorts to stop the upgrade, so why slashdot would make things work for browsers that next-to-nobody would use and not work for the versions everybody is on these days, is baffling.

Re:About time

[Loopy1492]

I don't get it. It works in the browsers I use. You must be using a browser that has an extra chromosome.

Re:About time

[Loopy1492]

I reiterate: I don't get it. I use Firefox and it works fine.

Re:About time

[ta bu shi da yu]

I telnet to port 80, you insensitive clod!

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking about timing: my gf left me 1 hour ago and this is my Slashdot fortune on the bottom of this page: "You will be divorced within a year." (whoa)

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm, thanks for the link there.
Most of the links result in 'under construction'.
Takes me back to the mid 90's....
 
But shouldn't there be animated gifs of guys digging?
And where's the hit counter and link to sign the guestbook??

Re:About time

[Ilgaz]

If I told you that Slashdot is capable of making Opera 10 browser (and 9) hit 100% on a G5 2500 (IBM 970MP), intel latest generation core duo and most importantly this poor G4 Mini?

Opera core is coded in a way to actually run, render on 100 Mhz ARM CPU. Opera doesn't hate Slashdot (they even have shortcut) or Slashdot doesn't hate Opera. Even if they hated, there is no way you will be able to find all Opera issues and code specifically to break it. Slashdot is not Microsoft (that MSN scandal costed them) and they don't have coding resources.

I haven't seen Opera using 100% CPU to the point of displaying a spinning wheel on any site except slashdot. None. Flash could cause such thing but not a spinning wheel.

It is almost something that I am afraid MS will get the slashdot code, copy whatever makes Opera and Firefox go down to their knees and feed those browsers with that code on their sites. BTW IE 8 on 64bit Windows 7 is acting strange on Slashdot too.

All of these browsers display other sites fine, act normally. It is only Slashdot making them nuts. I also don't understand why they don't code with web standards while overhauling site. It would make people way more understanding like "they try to support standards, be patient".

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry brother. . .

Market share

[amicusNYCL]

The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

According to whom? Even on w3schools.com, which is visited almost exclusively by web developers, more than 14% of people are still using IE6.

Re:Market share

[cml4524]

Web developers are probably more likely to have IE6 around than your typical user since they need it for their job. I use Firefox exclusively at home, but when I'm having problems getting something to work on the job and need to look up a reference, I occasionally use IE either by mistake or just because I happen to be in it already.

Re:Market share

[Qubit]

Maybe they're getting a number of hits from web developers who are testing in IE6.

At least that's what I want to hope!

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

That doesn't justify that many people browsing the reference site using your test browser. People aren't mistakenly using IE6 to look up the HTML reference, they're using IE6 because that's what they always use. Look at the usage numbers, Firefox is almost at 50%, Chrome is already at 6%. That is indicative of web developers, not using a browser that is 9 years old. Web developers might be more likely to have IE6 installed, but they're not going to browse with it. Web developers are more likely to have a favorite browser to do all of their normal tasks in, and they'll use that one.

Also, I'm a web developer and don't have IE6 installed, on any of my machines. I have access to it, but not on any computer I use on a regular basis. The debugging tools in IE8 are much better for web developers than having IE6 available to test on.

Re:Market share

[frodo from middle ea]

A lot of those could be merely the hits to their validation services, used by web developers, just to test validity with different browsers, IE6 being one of them.

Re:Market share

[wjousts]

I agree. That number must be completely made up. Lot's of corporations still have IE 6 as their "corporate IT approved" browser. I know we do because all our corporate web apps are such shit that they don't work in anything else.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Testing what? Testing the w3schools site? Wouldn't you want to have your main browser open for references and things even though you might have another test browser open? Hell, I usually develop with 3 browsers open (Firefox, to use Firebug for debugging my Javascript stuff, Chrome to show the Javascript-heavy API docs, and Opera for everything else).

IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.

Re:Market share

[Mystra_x64]

IE6 users will need to switch/upgrade then. And that's good.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

w3schools doesn't do validation, that's the W3C.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Definitely. Like I said below, IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.

Re:Market share

[Skylinux]

Might be SPAM bots, they fake user-agents all the time and try to either hide as a major search engine or as a user.

I am currently working on a question/answer based CAPTCHA system + bot trap and monitor the user agents triggering my bot trap.
So far,
59 falsely claimed to be Googlebot
The rest claim to be some version of IE

Don't rely on anything for user-agents, I am identifying myself as Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) right now to get around websites offering unlocked content to Google but require registrations from normal users.

Re:Market share

[JCSoRocks]

Lot's of corporations still have IE 6 as their "corporate IT approved" browser.

This. This. This. Our web apps are written exclusively for big companies and we're still stuck supporting IE6 because our customers absolutely require it. It's painful. *sigh* What I wouldn't do to go Office Space on something that represents IE6.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a 20k hits/month site oriented at small businesses and IE6 has accounted for about 13% of the hits over the last 6 months and 16.5% of the hits over the 6 months before that.

Total IE usage has dropped from 84% to 82% for the same periods.

A year ago we had less hits on the site, but I think the numbers stand. Very surprised that they're lower than W3Schools', but all I know is that it's still too high for us to encourage users to upgrade instead of supporting that turd.

Re:Market share

[clone53421]

Which websites are those? Experts-exchange puts the content waaaaaay down the page, but it's there if you scroll down far enough. (Apparently Google got pissy over the fact that they were giving Google content that they didn't let normal visitors see... or that's how I heard it, anyway.)

Re:Market share

[Runaway1956]

Developers are like (ab)normal people. They can be retards, just like anyone else.

Re:Market share

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd be quite surprised if YouTube's move spurs too much moving away from IE6. IE7 and IE8 have both been declared critical updates by MS, so only home users who really hate IE7/8 and know enough to manually deselect that update, or users whose automatic updates are disabled or broken would still have IE6. This number probably isn't zero; but it isn't huge.

On ye olde business side, where IE6 is more likely to be lurking, IT controls the upgrade path with an iron fist and probably considers user inability to waste time and bandwidth on youtube to be a virtue.

Re:Market share

[whoever57]

IE7 and IE8 have both been declared critical updates by MS, so only home users who really hate IE7/8 and know enough to manually deselect that update, or users whose automatic updates are disabled or broken would still have IE6. This number probably isn't zero; but it isn't huge.

And Windows 2000 users.

Re:Market share

[Joe Sick]

14% of web developers are really crappy at their jobs?

Re:Market share

[legirons]

The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

According to whom? Even on w3schools.com, which is visited almost exclusively by web developers, more than 14% of people are still using IE6.

hexadecimal digits?

Re:Market share

[The MAZZTer]

I read an article today about this story. About 50% of consumers still use IE6, and 90% of users at work use it (likely because they can't install anything else).

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

w3schools has a live edit feature. Maybe they're testing how IE6 responds to certain edits. Of course this is just wild speculation on my part.

Re:Market share

[Ben174]

I've had several times where I'm testing a site in IE6, find a bug or quirk, then press Ctrl-N to open a new IE6 window, and browse to W3C (or other web development related site) to find a reference to that particular element and determine its compatibility with the browser I'm currently in. I'd say that's pretty common.

Re:Market share

[drfreak]

ATM Machines don't count.

Re:Market share

[Tony Hoyle]

50% of consumers using IE6? Not on this planet. 90% of users at work sounds dodgy as well - most of the places I've seen are at least on IE7 even firefox is fairly well represented. Haven't seen an IE6 for ages, although I believe it's still required by some of the more neanderthal companies.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* What I wouldn't do to go Office Space on something that represents IE6.

A chair?

Re:Market share

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Automatic updates weren't enabled on XP until one of the service packs. So millions of PCs will never know about the new browsers.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they count! How could they dispense a set amount of money otherwise.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! My employer has upgraded to XP, thankyouverymuch!

Re:Market share

[cayenne8]

"Testing what? Testing the w3schools site? Wouldn't you want to have your main browser open for references and things even though you might have another test browser open? Hell, I usually develop with 3 browsers open (Firefox, to use Firebug for debugging my Javascript stuff, Chrome to show the Javascript-heavy API docs, and Opera for everything else)."

Well, let's say your testing something with IE6...and it isn't working...if I was currently in that browser at that time, I would likely just go from there to the reference site to look around, rather than switch to another browser?

Maybe just a time saving thing...you're already in a browser window, why switch just to look something up?

Re:Market share

[Skylinux]

I just used it today to get a research paper which required me to come from the universities network OR be Google. I think they use Google Custom Search on an Intranet site so need Google to index things. The major flaw here is that they accept by user-agent and don't check if the originating IP is owned by Google.
Now that I think about it, maybe they even use Referer: to validate internal network IPs .... I need to look into that :)

But mostly adult sites with images on Google image search and some smaller sites offering pdfs and other indexable content to Google.

Re:Market share

[icannotthinkofaname]

And to think, yesterday was Day 3 of my last set of mod points.... Nice humorously insightful comment, AC! I lol'd.

Re:Market share

[symbolset]

Lot's of corporations still have IE 6 as their "corporate IT approved" browser. I know we do because all our corporate web apps are such shit that they don't work in anything else.

And when the server side software update project gets going, one bullet item on the "requirements" list will be "Cross Platform support".

"Cross platform support: Service must support access from, and usability for, users of AT LEAST TWO of: Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 4.2, gopher."

Re:Market share

[DNS-and-BIND]

And pirated copies of Windows XP, which is what Asia uses exclusively. I remember showing one fellow Firefox, he was flabbergasted that something could replace IE. It had never entered his brain that anyone could use anything other than IE6 that came with the system.

Re:Market share

[John Hasler]

Well, Gopher, at least, is easy.

Re:Market share

[Dr Cool]

Automatic updates weren't enabled on XP until one of the service packs. So millions of PCs will never know about the new browsers.

They will when they can no longer view many of their favorite websites. I'm glad YouTube and other sites are doing this. We need strong leadership to force IE6 off the web.

Pretty soon, the idea of banning IE6 from websites will hit critical mass and suddenly it'll start affecting websites used by people in businesses who refuse to upgrade out of IE6. That's when those IT departments will finally upgrade to something newer than an 8 year-old browser. In Internet years, that's like 100.

Re:Market share

[Timmmm]

20% according to statcounter.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-daily-20080701-20090714

Re:Market share

[Bourbonium]

This is the case in my office, where IE6 is the approved standard, and no one is allowed to use FireFox or Opera or Chrome unless they can submit a written justification to the IT standards committee and obtain their approval. That is rare.

This is mainly because we use several different web-based applications developed in-house for submitting travel claims and interfacing with our purchasing department's back-end databases, all built years ago on non-standards-compliant IE6 code. The team of contractors who developed these apps are long gone, and updating them would require finding a new contractor and paying them to re-build all the apps from scratch, a difficult sell to management in today's economy. It ain't broke, they say, so why fix it?

Re:Market share

[igaborf]

Yeah, I'm not buying that single-digit stuff. In the last 30 days, 13% of our site's 721,375 visits were via IE6 (per Google Analytics).

Now, if YouTube manages to drive the number to the low single digits, well, yay!

Re:Market share

[thetoadwarrior]

Who cares? There is no reason to be using IE6 these days.

Re:Market share

[joetomato]

Corporate IT departments (and their management) that are still using IE6 probably aren't going to be too upset that their users / employees aren't able to access YouTube while at work.

Re:Market share

[muszek]

one of my websites (love calculator - definitely not for us geeks) got 124000 visits in the past month. 72.11% of those were made with IE (any version). 28.10% of all IE visits were made with 6.0. This means IE 6 still has 20%.

Also, w3schools is #1 in Google's SERPS for a huge number of common keywords, try searching for some basic html or css stuff. Example: css background. I imagine they get HUGE traffic and "I came here using IE by mistake" visits are a meaningless fraction.

Re:Market share

[thetoadwarrior]

Some of it is probably users of pirated copies and quite frankly I don't care if they can use YouTube or not. As far as business users, unless you're paid to watch YouTube videos, do it on your own time.

Re:Market share

[Lennie]

A chair ?

That would be ironic.

Re:Market share

[Sancho]

Luckily, a lot of these companies don't want their employees watching Youtube. Maybe they'll stick with IE6 due to the lack of compatibility!

Re:Market share

[Ihmhi]

When I was younger and basically sitting on my ass at home, Valve's Steam service announced that they would be ending support of Windows 98/ME. I was running Windows ME. (Yeah it crashed a lot, but I didn't want to partition my 40 gig HD at the time.)

I busted my ass to find some kind of work - any work - so I could get some upgraded parts and a copy of XP. Damned if I was going to lose the ability to play my Steam games.

The best way to drive users to the next generation is to have a service that they feel is critical or important say "We're upgrading, and if you don't you're gonna lose us."

Re:Market share

[LordLimecat]

Theres such a thing as IE tab, which would allow both the legacy code to work (it works with OWA!), as well as allowing folks to use a modern, secure browser. Or, they could pull their heads out of the sand and realize that installing firefox|chrome|opera doesnt uninstall ie6...

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the world can you install a decent browser and keep IE6 around for those broken sites. Also, IETab will automate this for you.

Re:Market share

[Ortega-Starfire]

Well, how about ATMs? They count!

I can understand your concern about the automatic teller machine machines though.

Re:Market share

[gravyface]

Or they could roll-out FireFox (with NoScript) as the default browser using Group Policy with FireMotion's FireFox MSI and create shortcuts on the desktop with a target of "iexplore http://your.wretched.old.internal.app.com/".
More security, same ol' craptastic IE6 "experience" for your internal apps.

Re:Market share

[hedwards]

That's something I always wonder about, exactly why is MS not being taken to task for cutting off updates to pirates which are necessary for proper security? It strikes me that by the time it gets to that point, they may as well just admit that they've lost, rather than pollute the internet and all the other law abiding users with the extra malware targets.

Re:Market share

[bigngamer92]

Of course in relation to the article these users don't matter. Your not supposed to be using Youtube at corporate HQ right? Right? Why is everyone laughing?

Re:Market share

[Nefarious Wheel]

I'm glad IE6 is being phased out. But I still need at least IE7 because much of my work involves online research, and quite a number of sites are based on .aspx. I'm not a great fan of .aspx either, but some of the content I need pretty much does require IE to render the stuff. Chrome sort of chokes and retreats into its shell when presented with some of these.

But it's kind of a crock to need several browsers like I do today. A Joomla! site I built, for example, all open source as it is, takes forever to render in Chrome, and shows CSS overlap errors in Firefox. IE 7 renders it perfectly.

So I'm kind of stuck with a number of browsers. I use Firefox for Slashdot, Chrome for search & favorites, and IE for the content I put together for my paying customers. Kind of sucks, but I guess divergence will happen whether I want it to or not.

Re:Market share

[brentonboy]

The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

According to whom? Even on w3schools.com, which is visited almost exclusively by web developers, more than 14% of people are still using IE6.

According to StatCounter: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-US-monthly-200807-200907 . Their graph shows IE6 at 9.45% in July, just barely dipping below 10% for the first time ever.

Re:Market share

[gilgongo]

The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

According to whom? Even on w3schools.com, which is visited almost exclusively by web developers, more than 14% of people are still using IE6.

Quoting w3schools on anything - in particular browser stats - marks you out as an imbecile. Please, for you own good, refrain.

Re:Market share

[Kelbear]

I don't know about that. At home, people have probably either heard of IE7/8 or firefox, or have been cajoled by a friend/family member into ditching IE6.

I suspect that the bulk of the lingering IE6 users are trapped there by their company's IT department. The last two places I worked still use IE6 because the company intranet is designed for IE6, and they're loathe to promote general usage of two browsers on each user's computer because of the confusion it could cause. Even if they want to install something else, they don't have permission and/or administrative privileges(I had to use portable firefox instead).

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up!

Re:Market share

[Ramirozz]

Yeah, the problem is that in businesses a lot of computers are still using it. I know places where more than 50% of the machines are still using IE6. Microsoft is pushing a campaign to promote migration for all these scenarios. It it time to forget about IE6!

Re:Market share

[adona1]

Exactly. IE6 is a corporate browswer nowadays. And if anything is going to push companies into adopting IE7/8 or Firefox, it'll be blocking their access to Youtube :)

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

And who cares about corporations who refuse to move on from a tool that even the creator has killed off?
Survival of the fittest always wins, always.

Also, this is probably the most retarded reason for IE6 being used.
Why the hell don't some companies allow the use of another browser?
This is a much better thing for several reasons, 2 main ones being:
1) More secure since the buggy IE6 isn't being used for external sites
2) More up-to-date, of course.

IE6 is fairly simple to setup to run entirely separate and within a sandbox with a few scripts and some copy-paste-renaming. (or even easier, run that program that has the library of all IE browsers in IE6 mode)

Also, a little bit of the reason i used IE6 for a while even when i had FF1.5 around was because it was still fairly fast to get open and get to sites, had a nice simple "compactable" GUI.
Reason i despise the new IE browsers is thanks to Microsoft "Vistafying" everything. (read: it fucking sucks, shit never looked nicer)

Re:Market share

[eobanb]

You're complaining about a supposed need for multiple browsers and then your example is a site that YOU built that only works with IE7? Seriously?

Re:Market share

[Hadlock]

I have IE6 on my computer at work. I COULD change it, but I have better things to do than upgrade my browser. I use firefox mostly, but a couple of the sites I have to use at work require IE to login (FF just sits there dumbly). So I have FF 3.0 and IE6. Until I can't login to my required sites using either of those, it's unlikely for me to need to upgrade (unless youtube starts blocking FF 3.0 in which case I might upgrade).

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

If nothing else, it's going to make the VPs and PHBs running the company aware that their IE6-only software is relying on technology that is, at the very least, out of date. The people signing the checks (stereotypically) don't understand the technology involved and don't see a compelling reason to fund an upgrade to their software. This will help point out to those people that IE6 is obsolete technology and should be migrated away from. They can have IT create reports about it until they're blue in the face, but for some people it doesn't sink in until they're no longer able to log on and watch videos online in between meetings and telling other people to get to work.

Moreover, if IT wants to stop people from going to Youtube, the solution there is to block access to youtube.com, not enforce usage of an obsolete browser that Youtube doesn't support.

Even better, a more significant impact of Youtube dropping IE6 support is that other websites will feel more confident to also drop IE6 support. Youtube might not affect a lot of people, but if your boss can't log into his bank because his browser is obsolete, he's going to have IT on the phone pretty quick.

Re:Market share

[greetings programs]

I couldn't agree more. It really sucks that MS negates win 2000 of some very necessary stuff without any regard for the customer. I was still using w2k six months ago. It was blissfully fast and gimmick free. I had to update to XP because many newer apps require some MS components that won't install on 2k. Most of them won't install just because the installer checks for 2k and denies what would be otherwise posible. It's one thing to let it die a natural death and it's another to artificially kill it because you want to force users to upgrade. IE7 was the first of this trend followed by WMP10, then MSN messenger. So far, so good, i didn't really use any of these and all have better alternatives. What really broke it for me was .NET framework 3.5 because it was a requirement for the version of AutoCAD I was upgrading to. The installer refuses to run un 2k just because. Good thing is XP on current hardware is almost as fast as W2k was, but nowhere as stable for me. XP SP3 has brought for me a lot of BSODs and general instability and frailness, specially with NTFS. Back in the day it was a really lame duck.

Re:Market share

[Firehed]

IE8 allows you to disable standards-compliance mode for just this reason - in fact, I believe it even defaults to IE6's rendering engine for any intranet address.

Unless you're on Win2k or older, there's absolutely no reason to still be using IE6.

Re:Market share

[Hadlock]

I thought Steam still worked on ME, just not Orange Box games like HL, TF2 etc (they require W2K now). The fact that Valve supported Win98 (1998!) up until early 2008 is a goddamn miracle. One can only pray that 10 year support from major software houses becomes the norm. Quake still runs on Windows despite being a DOS game at heart, thanks to the Quake95.exe release and the subsequent backsupport of windows 95 in XP (is this broken in Win7's "xp compatibility mode"?). Of course it's open source now and more compatible versions work, but it's the oldest example I can think of.
 
I'm having trouble playing X-Wing Alliance because it supports Direct-X 5 but there's a compatibility issue between DX9 and DX5 and there was never a patch released since. Fortunately it has a software mode but I'm sure there's lots of "abandonware" games that only support DX4 or 5 (or 6? there was a major overhaul of D3D around that release) that don't have software mode, and unless you have an old 3DFx card running DX5 drivers, you may never be able to play those games again.
 
As a counterpoint, TF2 has DX8.0 (8.zero! that version released Nov 2000) support. Which is why the load times suck compared to L4D but you take what you can get. This is for a game released in fall of 2007 as DX10 was being announced.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Maybe just a time saving thing...you're already in a browser window, why switch just to look something up?

Because you want to leave your test browser open to your test page, and because you already have the reference loaded in a tab in another browser, which you also want to leave open.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

That's what network access policies are for, relying on obsolete software is not a replacement for a decent network access policy.

Re:Market share

[dissy]

This is the case in my office, where IE6 is the approved standard, and no one is allowed to use FireFox or Opera or Chrome

Is looking at youtube videos seriously part of your job? If so, it sounds like you have the justification needed by your IT department.

If not, then you probably won't find too many people at work to cry over the fact you can't watch youtube videos.

You could always take a smartphone or a laptop with a cell modem and watch youtube on your own time equipment and bandwidth.
Assuming they would be OK with the occasional quick slack-break and you using their bandwidth, then you just need a laptop and ethernet cable.

Worst case, you can look at youtube when you get home. This is not the big deal you are making it out to be.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

At my office we don't require any specific software other than the email client, as long as you can interact with customers, but we do have at least 3 people (out of ~16) still using IE6 because our deficient email client that uses IE as the rendering engine won't render calendar invitations correctly unless it's using IE6. So we don't require it, and I don't see people using it on a daily basis, but I know it's just around the corner, just waiting to crap on someone's day.

Re:Market share

[Sancho]

*whoosh*

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

You're right. Unless you work at a company that uses IE6-only intranet software. Or unless another application you run requires IE6. Or unless a website you need to use requires IE6. Or unless you're a web developer who needs to support customers using IE6, for whatever reason. But other than that, you're right.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Indeed, it does say that. However, I wouldn't refer to 9.45% as "well down in the single digits". I'm wondering how they collect data though, if you zoom in to a 30-day view the graphs are sort of all over the place. That might be a weekly trend where IE usage falls on the weekends.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

That's not true at all, considering their high Google placement on all web-related terms, their browser stats are a good indication of what web developers are using. I haven't seen traffic numbers but I imagine that their site sees an excessive amount of traffic, mostly driven by search engine placement. The majority of their tutorials are crap, and their references are incomplete, but that doesn't mean the site doesn't contain interesting data. A lot of people use the site to help learn web development though, which is good in that it helps other people learn new skills, and bad in that it encourages undereducated people to make web sites.

Re:Market share

[whoever57]

Most of them won't install just because the installer checks for 2k and denies what would be otherwise posible.

Your solution is here. I even have Windows Defender running on Win2K after using this tool.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

who can get firefox

Re:Market share

[sparkz]

And corporate users, who have a WinXP desktop with IE6. I'm working on a customer site at the moment, where IE6 is the only permitted browser, the web proxy blocks sites which may install other browsers, so the only way to access many websites is to use my laptop with a 3G dongle to get direct access to the internet. Somehow, although PortableApps' Firefox worked once (loaded by USB stick, as the website was barred), it, too, is now somehow blocked. When browsing, I'm not too bothered about IE6's lack of compliance, but the lack of tabbed browsing means that it's impossible to organise a few sets of web pages together into a coherent set. (What *did* we do before tabbed browsing?!!)

Re:Market share

[coxymla]

Plenty of news and business websites allow googlebot unfettered access to articles/reports, so they can get ranked highly and show up with blurbs of the article in Google News and other aggregators.

If you show up with a plain jane browser user agent though, you may get told to create an account or even that you have to pay to read the article.

Re:Market share

[BikeHelmet]

I use IE NetRender for all my IE development. In my experience, it's accurate.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

I have IE6 on my computer at work. I COULD change it, but I have better things to do than upgrade my browser.

Right, because the 5-10 minutes spent doing that is better spent posting comments on Slashdot.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Sorry, was there a poorly-stated joke in there? Replying with "whoosh" is no excuse for not being able to craft a joke that's actually funny.

Re:Market share

[Sancho]

My mommy thinks I'm funny.

Re:Market share

[sexyrexy]

Do you even know what '.aspx' means? If you are trying to refer to sites built on ASP.NET, you are quite mistaken - ASP.NET is 100% cross-browser compatible. If a site you visit only works in IE7, that is the developer's incompetence; whether they used Joomla! or Ruby on Rails to suck has nothing to do with the platform.

Re:Market share

[Snarf You]

According to that w3schools report, IE6 usage actually increased between May and June.

For the first time in 4 years.

God help us all.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misunderstood her when she said the idea of a 35 year old still living in his parent's basement was 'laughable'.

Re:Market share

[mdwh2]

You also have to be careful of stats. I use Opera 99% of the time - but if I'm viewing YouTube, I'm using IE 6 100% of the time, because the shitty Flash plug in that they require crashes on anything other than IE 6. So YouTube's browser stats I imagine would have a much higher proportion for IE 6.

Re:Market share

[mdwh2]

Yeah, I'll be forced to upgrade to IE 8. Yay!

Re:Market share

[mike260]

What *did* we do before tabbed browsing?

Alt-tabbed browsing.

Re:Market share

[pizzach]

A Joomla! site I built, for example, all open source as it is, takes forever to render in Chrome, and shows CSS overlap errors in Firefox. IE 7 renders it perfectly.

It is 100% your fault if you chose a template that is crap. Joomla is what you make it. It is no different than if you got a contractor to design a website and they didn't w3c validate it and only checked it in IE7.

Re:Market share

[cayenne8]

Hey...everyone works differently...hehehe

I think with even IE you can hit ctl-something, and another window opens...I'd as likely do that and go to the reference....

I don't usually keep a reference open when I do things..I only go to them when I need to see something I don't know, or when something blows up. When I'm doing DBA work..I don't always have a reference guide/book/website open when I'm doing things, only when something goes wrong I don't know how to solve off the top of my head, ya know?

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Take the few minutes to upgrade (both browsers), even if you mostly use FF, v3.5 is WAY faster and more stable.

Re:Market share

[prockcore]

from the domain name alone, I can tell you that "love calculator" is most certainly for geeks.

Re:Market share

[gullevek]

sounds like my company. But at least we can use any other browser for daily browsing, we just have to fallback to IE6 for the internal apps.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company that provides a web site to a lot of medical institutions, depressingly, 48% of our users are running IE6--I just checked the stats the other day. It's kind of crazy really, corporate America won't upgrade because of the unknowns of IE7/8, they'd rather use a web browser from 2001.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, while IE 8 has an IE 7 backward compatibility mode, it lacks an IE 6 backward compatibility mode, so the people still using Web apps written exclusively for IE 6 are out of luck.

Re:Market share

[gid]

Yeah, but TF2 was announced in 1998, what do you expect? Valve is famous for programming their games for the lowest common denominator. Counter Strike was and continues to be popular because it runs on all sorts of crazy old hardware.

Re:Market share

[Hadlock]

FF 3.0 is instantaneous and has never crashed on me. I'm running a vanilla install of XP SP3 though. In fact I use 3.0 at home and work and I've never had a crash or any "slowdown" which you speak of. Modern computers are just way too fast for software to be "slow" anymore.

Re:Market share

[gid]

Of course you realize the majority of websites that require IE6 only require IE6 because of a check against the user-agent string. If you change IE8's user-agent to IE6, I'd be willing to be you could get most sites to work.

Maybe everyone should change their user-agent to this:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0))

IE8 masquerading as IE6 masquerading as Netscape (pronounced Mozilla)

I wish retarded web programmers would stop checking user-agent strings already and just the test the damn javascript function you need instead.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

You could disable "standards-compliance" mode in every version of IE ever made including IE8 by simply opening the browser and going to any website. IE8 gets 20/100 on the Acid 3 test with it's default settings and 12 if you install msxml 3.0 when the browser prompts you. In compatibility mode it gets a whopping 6.

Re:Market share

[daemonburrito]

http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/

5 minute sessions are free, subscriptions and VNC available.

Re:Market share

[ga53n]

It is definately not ITs job to decide what and if people waste company time. This is something to be decided by the management.

Online application for the business that require IE6 are a lame excuse. If IT had a propper release and retirement schedule in place this would not be happening. Keeping a crutial security hole for years in a business only because other departments did not do their job is not really an option.
Just announce until when you will support an environment so everybody can adapt to it.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't rely on anything for user-agents, I am identifying myself as Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) right now to get around websites offering unlocked content to Google but require registrations from normal users.

That's the old Googlebot; try this one: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought this may amuse some people:

The Australian Immigration Department website suggests using IE6 OR LOWER when browsing their site!

http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/

Re:Market share

[yoyhed]

Double taskbar.

Re:Market share

[Bert64]

Masquerading as a really obsolete version of Mozilla no less...

Re:Market share

[bemymonkey]

Bhahahahahh. Nice one :D

Re:Market share

[u38cg]

Whoosh!

Re:Market share

[mcvos]

I recently saw a report that showed IE6 sharing the top spot with IE8. Apparently a lot of big corporations still use IE6 because they're too scared to touch anything.

Re:Market share

[Hal_Porter]

I had a Windows 2000 machine at work until very recently. You can still install the latest Opera or Firefox on Windows 2000, even now. Actually I suspect most Windows code started off supporting Win2k and up and hasn't changed enough to break on Win2k even now. .Net 3.5 framework doesn't support Win2k, so that would be an issue for application compatibility.

Re:Market share

[Hal_Porter]

Oh snap.

Re:Market share

[wjousts]

It's block by our corporate overlords. Which is annoying, because I'm increasing coming across valid work-related websites that have their videos hosted by YouTube or other blocked video sites.

Re:Market share

[sabs]

Or you know
Corporations that still use IE6 because 1/2 their machines can't actually handle ie7, much less 8

Re:Market share

[Sudline]

Biased stats. Most of them come here to verify the compatibility with IE6 and other browsers...

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all Canadian Govt. still uses IE6

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

I use opera and like many opera users I have it set for many sites to identify as IE (I used to have it set to ALWAYS identify as IE just because of web pages that try to deny me based on browser)

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend User Agent Switcher for Firefox. Quick and easy way of faking your UA string from inside the browser.

The only thing it's missing is allowing you to specify an UA to be selected automatically for a certain site, so you have to do it manually. Not a big deal for me.

Re:Market share

[skeeto]

Linux Magazine cloaks their articles, and Google hasn't penalized them yet. Here's an example,

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/1180

Visit that normally, then with a googlebot UA string (or visit Google's cached version) and watch the "you must log in" disappear. Like Expert Sexchange I whish there was a way to auto-remove Linux Magazine from my search results.

Re:Market share

[skeeto]

To reply to myself: if you want to fight this, fill out a spam report to punish them. I just did. Select "cloaked page".

http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Here's the search page that gets you to a bad Linux Magazine page,

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=linux%20journaling%20filesystem&aq=f&oq=

Re:Market share

[Torontoman]

I went to enroll my son in Hockey this year (Canada... We enroll our kids in June at the latest for Hockey Season which starts in Sept/Oct) and the Hockey Canada website doesn't allow IE6 to be used.

That's a problem for me from work - where we also only have IE6 only. We can't fart without permission on our systems.

Re:Market share

[YourExperiment]

This is the case in my office, where IE6 is the approved standard, and no one is allowed to use FireFox or Opera or Chrome unless they can submit a written justification to the IT standards committee and obtain their approval. That is rare.

Might I suggest that this will become considerably less rare when the web simply doesn't work properly in IE6 any more? If they really can't fix their internal apps so you can upgrade to IE8, they'll eventually have to accept that having Firefox as a second browser is a necessity.

Re:Market share

[whoever57]

the web proxy blocks sites which may install other browsers,

Do they block ftp to ftp.mozilla.org?

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

Modern computers are just way too fast for software to be "slow" anymore.

That statement is ridiculous on several levels. Are you implying that it's not possible to write a piece of software sufficiently complex to use all of a system's resources? If your desktop is so badass, then why are we still developing supercomputers?

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

I like those services, but usually they aren't enough. Typically I want to test how IE uses the site, not just renders it. I want to be able to click around and things like that, and typically I'm trying to test various Javascript-related things in addition to just standard rendering.

Re:Market share

[Hadlock]

I will admit, I've never tried running Firefox 3.0 or 3.5 on a supercomputer before. I wasn't aware you could download binaries for specific supercomputers. I bet loading slashdot on my computer screen in Firefox would still be limited by my home broadband connection and screen refresh rate, rather than my (super)computer's processing power.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

I guess you're right, it's obvious that any given application will perform identically on a "bargain" machine running an $85 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 1GB of RAM and a single 7,200 RPM hard drive, as well as a premium machine running a $1000+ Intel Core i7 965 Extreme with 8GB of high-speed multi-channel RAM and a striped array of WD VelociRaptor drives.

Hadlock has the scoop guys, we can stop upgrading our computers now. Software will never be more complex than the programs we're running today, and all current hardware is capable of running all current software identically. The bottleneck we need to focus on is screen refresh rate, so upgrade your monitor for better application performance. Also, if you upgrade your printer, then your word processor will be much faster. Memory throughput, disk I/O, and cycles per second have been maxed out. You heard it here first.

Re:Market share

[thetoadwarrior]

I've never run into a website that requires Internet Explorer 6 on the open web and if I did, I would ignore it because no self respecting developer would require IE6 therefore the site was built by spacktards.

I don't think the company intranet issue is such a big deal and I certainly don't think the rest of the world should be held back because some companies are too cheap to advance with the rest of the world.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

There was a link in this thread somewhere where a guy posted a link to an Australian gov. site. They list the requirements there as "IE6 or lower" on one area, and on the requirements page list IE5 or above. So apparently they support IE5 or IE6, and that's it. But hey, at least they also listed IE5.1 for Mac, so I guess they're branching out. Spacktards indeed.

Re:Market share

[Nefarious Wheel]

It is 100% your fault if you chose a template that is crap.

Ok, nail me for ignorance, I'll wear it. But it was bog-standard Joomla running on XAMPP and the template was the supplied ja_purity.

Re:Market share

[Anonymous Coward]

'Standards-compliant' means correctly supporting standards that you claim to support, not fully supporting every standard in existence.

Re:Market share

[Jake Griffin]

You should check out the "IE Tab" add-on for Firefox. You can use it to view pages using IE's engine in FF. And you can set it up so that certain sites automatically use IE.

Re:Market share

[Hadlock]

Neat! Thanks for the heads up! I'll give it a shot

I don't know...

[Darkness404]

I don't know about anyone else, but I really felt that IE6 was a much better (although flawed) browser than IE7. Sure, IE7/8 has new features, but its UI is terrible and seems to be slower responding. IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.

Re:I don't know...

[TheRealMindChild]

IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.

This hamburger is decent, aside from the fact that it's growing mold and smells like urine.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying it was a decent browser in all ways except what truly makes a decent browser decent?

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

Re:I don't know...

[Hyppy]

I can think of a few things that make IE6 (not exclusively, but still) a horrible browser:

ActiveX
Non-standard HTML rendering
Lack of tabs
ActiveX
Lack of support for many standard files (PNG, anyone?)
Crashing when fed simple code
Oh, and ActiveX.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

The navigation buttons are all clustered together (unlike IE 7). That's the only advantage I see. For me, a browser without tabs is 100% useless.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is too complicated for a freetard to understand, but he's saying it's more usable, and for the average end-user he's probably right.

Re:I don't know...

[amicusNYCL]

IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.

Huh? So aside from arguably two of the most important pieces of a browser, it was a decent browser? Are you just talking about the sparse UI? A UI doesn't make otherwise shitty software somehow good (and, if you want to talk about IE's user interface, make sure to mention the giant checkbox list under Internet Options). IE7 was an incremental improvement over IE6, and IE8 was a major improvement over both versions.

Re:I don't know...

[vux984]

IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.

Car analogy:

IE8 is your your new car. It runs smooth, and there are no real complaints about the reliability. The seats are little on the hard side, and you'd like more leg room.

IE6 is your old car. It broke down every other week, belched poisonous black smoke into the cars around it, and the doors didn't close properly. But the seats were soft and you had more leg room.

Your old car was 'decent' the same way IE6 was decent.

And lets face it, IE8's UI isn't terrible. You might not be used to it, or like it as much, but its objectively not all that bad. They've moved things around, and hid a lot of stuff almost nobody used. But the tab support and integrated search alone make the UI superior. I don't find it slow (but I have lots of RAM). I still prefer Firefox, but I no longer loathe using (or developing for) Internet Explorer.

Re:I don't know...

[Tubal-Cain]

He never claimed that IEs 7 & 8 weren't horrible.

Re:I don't know...

[basementman]

A better analogy would be a customer that pays for the hamburger by dumping a bucketful of pennies on the counter. It's not hard for him to pay with the bucket of change, but for the restaurant it's a pain in the ass to count them all out.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

for(x in document.write){ document.write(x); }

I'm informed this crashes IE6 =D

Re:I don't know...

[FlyingBishop]

Quite true. But I will not be satisfied until IE7 support is phased out. The UI is fine, but the engine is still crap. IE8 at least brings Microsoft up to about Firefox 1.5, if not 2.0.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get too mad at the self-centered developers who believe developers are the only true users. They can't help it, much like retarded babies can't help being ugly.

Re:I don't know...

[Hyppy]

Hence "not exclusively."

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did i sell my old car to you? If so i'm sorry. Just so you know, the radiator is also busted, so is the thermostat.

Re:I don't know...

[MojoRilla]

Unable to handle gzipped js or css correctly. It advertises it can accept it but it really can't (or at least some versions can't).

Re:I don't know...

[n30na]

But the seats were soft and you had more leg room.

You mean seat. IE6 could only hold one at a time.

Re:I don't know...

[raju1kabir]

A better analogy would be: the customer buys a hamburger, then someone named basementman walks up to him and starts trying to make an analogy that is totally irrelevant and makes no sense, then the customer throws the hamburger at basementman and goes home.

Re:I don't know...

[Lennie]

Actually IE5.5 is the least buggy IE, IE6 is probably the worst, it's very unpredictable in how it will render/break webpages.

Re:I don't know...

[twidarkling]

Hey, I've seen some retarded people that aren't ugly. They're merely not pretty. A better analogy would be "much like ugly people can't help being bitter."

Re:I don't know...

[AKAImBatman]

No offense, but that's exactly the type of bullshit Microsoft wants you to believe. They've implemented some of the CSS stuff, but they're a LONG way from meeting a standard even as simple as FF1.5.

Call me when IE's DOM support leaves the DOM1 standard and moves on to the DECADE OLD DOM2 support. Then we'll talk.

Re:I don't know...

[DorkRawk]

I'm sure in 2001 that hamburger was fine. 8 years later, if it's still around, it's probably growing mold and smells like urine. It might be time to get a new hamburger...errr.... browser!

Re:I don't know...

[Phroggy]

Quite true. But I will not be satisfied until IE7 support is phased out. The UI is fine, but the engine is still crap. IE8 at least brings Microsoft up to about Firefox 1.5, if not 2.0.

Fortunately, it will be easy to gradually phase out IE7. Nobody is stuck relying on IE7 the way they're stuck relying on IE6. Anything that works in IE7 but not in other browsers should be very easy to make work in IE8's compatibility mode, if indeed any changes are required at all, although hopefully that won't be a common situation. When IE7 came out, I think most people with IE6-only web sites realized that rebuilding them to support standards-compliant browsers wouldn't really be any harder than rebuilding them to support just IE7, and with Firefox's significant market share, it made sense to do so.

Basically, anyone who's running IE7 can switch to another browser if they want to. That wasn't true of IE6 at all.

Re:I don't know...

[bertoelcon]

My grandmother made me put IE6 back of her computer because she didn't like the tabs at all. "Lack of tabs" isn't horrible its just a niche now to not want them.

Re:I don't know...

[AC-x]

IE6 > NS4.

That's as far as it goes.

Re:I don't know...

[rantingkitten]

And lets face it, IE8's UI isn't terrible. You might not be used to it, or like it as much, but its objectively not all that bad.

"Used to it" is important in interfaces. Why is the refresh button suddenly part of the address bar? There was absolutely no reason for that -- they just DID it, and users find it confusing because it's unexpected.

Why are the controls pushed to the four corners of creation instead of being grouped in a single location? Back and forward are now way over HERE while stop and refresh are way over THERE. It's cumbersome and there was no reason to change it.

Why are the menus now little indecipherable icon: What, pray tell, would be logical to put under the house-looking icon? I can't tell, so I have to click each one to figure it out, and only get back to those options through rote memory instead of contextual clues.

Why are those aforementioned menus taking up such a huge portion of the real estate used by tabs? That's one of the most obnoxious UI decisions they could have made.

No, the UI in IE8 is truly an abomination. Thankfully I never have to use it, but the few times I have, the only thing that impressed me was the speed at which it caused me to want to stop using it.

Re:I don't know...

[asdfndsagse]

IE8 is your your new car. It runs smooth, and there are no real complaints about the reliability. The seats are little on the hard side, and you'd like more leg room.

What cool-aid are you smoking? With no support for canvas, video, audo; slow javascript; horrible security, privacy; and completely ineptitude still for standards--epic fail for acid3; IE8 was obsolete before it was ever released.

Re:I don't know...

[Hurricane78]

You forgot
non-deterministic rendering,
"Object not found",
"error in line 50" (when you got 20 files, and then it's not in like 50 anyway, but somewhere below or above it.)
non-deterministic rendering,
non-deterministic rendering,
and, you guessed it:
non-deterministic rendering.

There's nothing worse than unreliable race-conditions in page interpretation, and a huge mess of bugs, making it impossible to know if the 21st reload and the click one pixel below when the moon stands above Redmond, will render everything completely different, or just one pixel off.

Re:I don't know...

[vux984]

IE8 was obsolete before it was ever released.

I never said it was cutting edge, or best-in-class.

Its adequate, functional, and fixes a ton of the worst issues of IE6.

I never said it was a Porsche or a Tesla.

If IE8 were a car its a new Ford Focus.

Re:I don't know...

[DMalic]

I bet that in a great majority of cases, the hamburger went bad six hours later when it was left out in the sun. It didn't need to be replaced, it just needed some patches cut out of it. Unfortunately, Update has been turned off the whole time..

Re:I don't know...

[mcvos]

IE6 > NS4.

That's as far as it goes.

True, but then, every single browser in the history of the world was better than NS4.

Re:I don't know...

[Hal_Porter]

The odd thing is that I never even noticed the stop and refresh buttons - I just used Esc and F5. Still I find when I move from Opera to IE8 or FF the UI just seems completely wrong and the browser is much slower so I move back as soon as I can.

Re:I don't know...

[Hal_Porter]

What cool-aid are you smoking?

I think you mean "What cool aid are you drinking", a reference to the Jonestown cult mass suicide =

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones#Deaths_in_Jonestown

Or maybe "What are you smoking?", a reference to irrational behaviour brought on by smoking crack cocaine.

Still I'm going to have to fine you $150 for using a mixed metaphor. Type carefully in future.

Re:I don't know...

[anss123]

Why is the refresh button suddenly part of the address bar? There was absolutely no reason for that -- they just DID it, and users find it confusing because it's unexpected.

I've actually looked for a FF extension to make the refresh button part of the address bar. That's something IE8 got right as it makes it smaller and gets it out of the way.

Re:I don't know...

[jake_ie8team]

vux984, nice car analogy. For those of you planning on making this switch and upgrading to Internet Explorer 8 in order to continue visiting YouTube, be sure to download and install IE 8 from http://www.browserforthebetter.com?ocid=ie8_sm_a and donate to charity in the process. 8 meals are donated to Feeding America for every complete download and install of IE 8 from http://www.browserforthebetter.com?ocid=ie8_sm_a Also, for those of you who have already made the change and are pleased with your new browser, you should become a fan of the Official Internet Explorer Facebook page at http;//www.facebook.com/internetexplorer to get all the latest news and info about IE 8. - Jake MSFT Internet Explorer Outreach Team

Re:I don't know...

[Nicolay77]

And Firefox 1.5 was crap.

Re:I don't know...

[asdfndsagse]

I applaud you for keeping with the car metaphor.

Praise Jeebus!

[chill]

What is needed is a good exorcism. IE6 needs to be cast out from the net and its bloated carcass nailed to a tree as a lesson to others.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Hyppy]

We saw what happened to humanity the last time we tried that. Let's remember our lessons, shall we?

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Brian Gordon]

At work I have to use IE on Windows 2000. Don't phase me out please!

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Dunbal]

AFAIK web browsers cannot run for president...

oh wait, who were YOU talking about?

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Anonymous Coward]

A lesson? Isn't it a little late for Firefox?

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[martas]

quit. now.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[MaskedSlacker]

Ah but Chrome has things it needs to learn before it can be a buggy memory whore.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[mike260]

You don't welcome the pressure to upgrade?

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[adamchou]

I think he will as soon as you welcome his sarcasm

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Oh noes! Just think of all the government and corporate workers that will no longer be able to watch YouTube after the phase-out. I bet those organizations will see a drop-off in their network traffic when the switch is thrown.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Should that be "Don't phase me, bro!"?

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, IE versions 8 are the worst products to ever come from Redmond. Every time I add a feature to our Internet banking product I have to battle to support IE. On the other hand, issues with other browsers are rare, they all seem to react the same. (Almost like there is a standard or something)

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, just die.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Roman Mamedov]

At work I have to use IE on Windows 2000. Don't phase me out please!

No, they will just move you to the basement and take away your red stapler. :P

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[ko9]

What is needed is a good exorcism. IE6 needs to be cast out from the net and its bloated carcass nailed to a tree as a lesson to others.

The last time society cast someone out and nailed him to bits of tree, it started one of the world's most popular religions. Please, let's not make IE6 a martyr. We'll never be rid of it!

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we're stuck using IE6 due to 'legacy apps'

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[numbski]

More sites need to do this though. Really. Detect the user agent as IE6, and pop up an annoying message telling them to upgrade. Or better - simply use modern css, refuse to fix the rendering errors in IE6, then put a message on the page telling them that this page will render in any browser made in the last 5 years. IE6 was not. Please upgrade.

Simple and effective - but everyone is too afraid of alienating the end user - even though you can instantly point them to stable and secure browser targets.

I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[BlueBoxSW.com]

My experiences with large corp and gov't clients tells me otherwise.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[Jesterace]

I agree we're not going to get rid of IE6 for a long time. Seems our IT department is very comfortable with it. Thank goodness for portable Firefox installs.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[nurb432]

I agree, where i work we have 30000+ workstations. IE7 was proven to buggy so its not being deployed.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[Eudial]

My experiences with large corp and gov't clients tells me otherwise.

Large corporations and governments* should hopefully not be major youtube users, so this really shouldn't be a problem here anyways.

* ... or is the gazillions of narcissistic emo-videos on youtube some sort of CIA demotivation campaign?

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it definitely depends on the type of site you have. If you run sites that people are likely to browse while they are at work, like real estate or large e-commerce sites, then I can guarantee that IE6 useage statistics are still *quite* comfortably in the double digits.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[lambent]

So large corporations and governments use IE6, but why should content providers cater to them? If their only reason for using IE6 is for the horrible legacy apps, then by all means, let them keep IE6 around to continue to use their horrible legacy apps.

This is no way justifies, however, everyone else in sane-people's world having to jump through hoops to support the terrible abomination of a web browser that is IE6. If they want to screw around at work watching youtube, let them do it in an unsupported fashion. Everyone else is ready to move on.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[John Napkintosh]

I believe you mean "to whom IE7 was proven".

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[Anonymous Coward]

Browsing youtube was not allowed at many of those places.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[nurb432]

It was proven to management. They made the decision. Expecting something else?

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[wjousts]

Your management is buggy? I think a lot of people have to deal with that.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[ArhcAngel]

Actually many corporations are beginning to embrace not only youtube but many "web 2.x" technologies. I just learned our company now has it's own Twitter account and they've been actively using youtube to distribute non-confidential company information for over a year.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[thetoadwarrior]

IT departments are lazy. For instance, our intranet and everything we have works with browsers above IE6 but they still have people on IE6 (aside from the developers, thankfully) but why?

They're just too lazy to install it and then deal with people asking where things have moved. Boo hoo, their job isn't to sit there looking at sports scores. It's their job to keep the computer up to date and deal with help requests whether they like it or not.

The sooner sites ignoring IE6 users the sooner lazy IT departments will get around to upgrade to something decent.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[KrackerJax]

This is absolutely true -- I work for a pretty large web development shop, and over 30% of our client browsers are IE6. The corporate world just can't lay out the money to upgrade their customized browsers, rework intranet sites, etc.

Our management has decided to support IE6 for another year at least -- there is just no way we could justify losing 30% of our client base, no matter how many hoops we must jump through to get our client side working in IE 6/7/8, FF2/3/3.5 etc. The legacy of IE6 will remain with us for quite some time I'm afraid.

Re:I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[Eudial]

But this is from the PR department, and not Joe the cubicle jockey, no?

Great but

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure if youtube's previous banner is any indication, it will be telling them all to migrate to Chrome

Re:Great but

[Tubal-Cain]

So?

Re:Great but

[Mystra_x64]

Link there somewhere shows image with IE8/Chrome/FF3.5.

Re:Great but

[Qubit]

Right here:
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/2015/youtubeie6.png

My feelings...

[pizzach]

;_;

Support? What do you mean, support?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to "support" IE6.

Youtube is a website, with an embedded flash object, that plays a movie. Youtube doesn't even need javascript at all (if you know the urls to the embedded flash).

Plus, many businesses are are running windows 2000 (for application reasons), because Win2000 is stable, well-known & well-documented, and still supported by Microsoft. Win2000 only has IE6 (and firefox).

Actually, that means business productivity will go up if youtube doesn't run on IE6. Go for it!

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[IntlHarvester]

YouTube has various fly-out menus and the like, which generally a PITA to get working in IE6, especially if you have flash all over the page.

Not to mention IT workers are lazy SOBs, and if they can't sit around and watch videos all day, they might get off their butt and upgrade everyone off IE6. :^)

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[JCSoRocks]

Everyone!? Hahahahahahahahahahaha. You are hilarious. Why would they do that? Then everyone could watch videos and that'd cut into their bandwidth. They'll upgrade themselves. Everyone else is screwed and they'll be too busy watching YouTube videos to care.

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[Hatta]

Exactly what I was going to say. Provide a simple link to a video file and even lynx could view Youtube.

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[Bourbonium]

Many businesses still run Win2K, but Microsoft no longer supports it. End of life for that product was announced three years ago. It may be "stable, well-known & well-documented" but Microsoft does not support it any longer and does not issue any new security updates for it. If you still run Win2K Server, you'd better be using it for a honeypot, because it's probably already compromised and part of a botnet.

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many businesses still run Win2K, but Microsoft no longer supports it. End of life for that product was announced three years ago. It may be "stable, well-known & well-documented" but Microsoft does not support it any longer and does not issue any new security updates for it.

Christ, you're a moron. Microsoft is still releasing security patches for win2000 and will continue to do so for quite some time.

Why don't you look at today's "patch tuesday" announcements from Microsoft. Look at the web page, and scroll down a bit. Look at the many places where "windows 2000 service pack 4" is mentioned and the easy clickable links to download the win2000 security patches for today's announcements.

Idiot.

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[amicusNYCL]

Youtube is a website, with an embedded flash object, that plays a movie. Youtube doesn't even need javascript at all (if you know the urls to the embedded flash).

Really, that's all it is? How do all of these movies get there, do they just magically appear? I was under the impression that people created accounts, managed their accounts, logged in to upload movies, commented on other people's movies, etc etc etc. There's also a link that says "Customize this homepage", I'm not sure what that's all about, some more magic involved, no doubt. Many boxes also seem to have tools indicating you can move, resize or close the boxes on the pages. Some more arcane trickery there, you can be sure. Then there seem to be some clickable ratings, favorites, sharing with others, playlists.. I don't understand any of that, but I'm having several 14 year olds look over it and get back to me.

This seems like a bit more than a page with an embedded Flash object, unless you're suggesting that the entire Youtube UI be implemented as a single Flash movie.

Re:Support? What do you mean, support?

[asdfndsagse]

hell yeah, video tag support is lynx

Hello? IT Department?

[Enuratique]

I, uh, want to upgrade to IE8. Why? Uhhh, I hear it's safer to use. What do you mean the time sheet tool and headcount apps won't work in IE8?! I don't give a damn, how hard can it be to make them work? I need it NOOOOOOOOOW!

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, uh, want to upgrade to IE8. Why? Uhhh, I hear it's safer to use. What do you mean the time sheet tool and headcount apps won't work in IE8?! I don't give a damn, how hard can it be to make them work? I need it NOOOOOOOOOW!

Maybe you should switch jobs to IT and make it work... ya know: 'cause you think it's so easy.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[CorporateSuit]

This is why smart web developers use tables.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[lambent]

that's an unpopular opinion, but very true nonetheless.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[mrgiles]

BOFH replies:

That's easy to fix, but I can't be bothered.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then stop being a bitch, admit that you hired a shit-for-brains "developer" back in 2003, and have your app redone in in a more sane manner. It's effing 2009, your browser has been otherwise dead and buried for YEARS.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[forsonic]

OMG, not the "T" word!

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Animaether]

yes, the t-word!

-moz-table
-moz-table-cell
-moz-table-column
-moz-table-column-group
-moz-table-outer
-moz-table-row
-moz-table-row-group ...being fine examples of it.

Ahhh.. introducing CSS to make elements behave like tables did; but not -being- tables. We've almost come full-circle.

giveupandusetables.com indeed.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[pizzach]

Actually, tables in css still are an improvement because you can untable the elements by removing the stylesheet. This is a large usability gain for many users on odd devices. Granted, a lot of W3C specs are pretty wonky, but I still feel they are better than nothing.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart? You mean lazy. Tables are for data, not for presentation.

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh I agree.. I just find it humorous that so many people have page layout issues with div/li positioning and pointing at tables, that CSS3 / the custom extensions all make direct references -to- the HTML table elements when describing their display behavior :>

seems like they could have given them names that would make more sense when thinking outside of the old tables box.

unfortunately this is common in lots of areas.. yeah, I'm looking at you, Photoshop with your 'burn' and 'dodge' which are strictly analog photography methods (brighten/darken is what you'd call them if you decided to break with the old)... or ISO (film speed/sensitivity) on digital cameras (where the sensor only has one sensitivity and all you're doing is boosting output. tee.) /anon

Re:Hello? IT Department?

[Stan Vassilev]

This is why smart web developers use tables.

Care to elaborate :)?

cool

[ocularDeathRay]

now if they would just make it so I can watch a few youtube videos in a row, without b0rking my firefox running in linux I will be happy.. seriously, can we get this done? Its gotten better over the last couple years, but I still have to kill -9 firefox after watching 10 or so videos. My favorite is when the audio freaks out and plays a 1 second loop at max volume until I kill it. Or I have seen no video, but audio is fine. I am not saying this is youtubes fault, but then again, maybe it is their fault for not using open technology for their videos, which would be available to everyone.

Re: cool

[Anonymous Coward]

this has to be a total lie. linux does everything perfectly out of the box every single time. you're a shill and a troll. linux is the bestest~!!!!!onethousandonehundredeleven!!!! how much is balmers paying you? chairs thorw dev3loprss.dfsa.faddfg

NO CARRIER

Re: cool

[Darkness404]

Try using a different Flash plugin. I've had some flash plugins eating 100% CPU all the time, and after upgrading or downgrading they are usable.

Re: cool

[rho]

Try using a different Flash plugin. I've had some flash plugins eating 100% CPU all the time, and after upgrading or downgrading they are usable.

The future is nao!

Sometimes I truly wonder what the fuck we think we're doing with computers.

Re: cool

[EvanED]

My favorite thing is when Flash grabs the sound card and refuses to give it up, and because of the craptastic setup I'm working on right now, I don't get sound again until I log out and back in.

Re: cool

[MaskedSlacker]

That may be, but this is the year of OS/2 on the desktop. Mark my words!

Re: cool

[MaskedSlacker]

Watching porn.

Was it really that hard to figure out?

Re: cool

[Hatta]

That's just Firefox protecting you from the adverse affects of too much Youtube use.

Re: cool

[Randle_Revar]

I don't know, but with the 64-bit flash 10, I have not had any problems.
make sure flash-support is not installed.

Re: cool

[dargaud]

You don't need to kill FF, it's enough to "killall npviewer.bin" and reload the page.

Thank you, God.

[Narcocide]

please make it true please make it true please make it true

Still mandatory where I work

[ArhcAngel]

I know quite a few LARGE corporate environments that won't be upgrading any time soon since IE7/8 "breaks" their intranet web apps and they aren't about to budget for updating apps that work on the existing browser.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[mehrotra.akash]

cant firefox be installed on a system with IE6 and IEtab used for the intranet apps, while firefox used for internet??

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[lenkyl]

kind of a catch 22 there. can't upgrade the browser cause all the apps are coded for ie6. can't upgrade the code cause everyone's required to have ie6.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[afidel]

We're a midsized business and until we upgrade our ERP system next year we can't migrate off IE6 so I can only imagine how bad it is for shops with tons of custom code. The version of our ECM system that we are currently testing supports IE7 and Firefox with only partial functionality, no IE8. That means we can upgrade to IE7 once we upgrade our ERP system but we will be on IE7 until mid 2012 at least since our systems are on a 3 year rotation.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Tubal-Cain]

So code for Firefox (or just be standards compliant). Works on Win2k and Vista (and 7 and Linux and OS X and BSD...), unlike any IE versions.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[MaskedSlacker]

The moral of the story is don't use crappy custom code (ex: anything I've ever written in perl) because its unmaintainable and non-portable.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[powerlord]

We're a midsized business and until we upgrade our ERP system next year we can't migrate off IE6 so I can only imagine how bad it is for shops with tons of custom code. The version of our ECM system that we are currently testing supports IE7 and Firefox with only partial functionality, no IE8. That means we can upgrade to IE7 once we upgrade our ERP system but we will be on IE7 until mid 2012 at least since our systems are on a 3 year rotation.

Since IE7 is already getting EOL'ed as IE8 gets pushed out, is there any possibility of pushing to support FireFox instead? It seems to have quite a few things to recommend it over IE7 on the upgrade path:

- Available for more platforms (and older platforms), to decouple the Windows dependency from the Browser dependency.
- Better standards compliance, so that if the system needs to be updated in the future, it can be done in a way that supports standards which opens up the platform to alternative browser choices (such as being able to access it via Safari or an iPhone for instance?)

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

For home users and techies, sure. Until said Large Corporations can use group policies to tell Firefox on a per user, per machine, or both, basis exactly which URLs to open with IEtab(oh, and be sure that whatever windows credential single-sign-on stuff IE uses works too) and have firefox pulling updates from WSUS(and heck, an MSI installer would be nice), they aren't going to touch it.

Firefox is excellent for small scale use, or with Linux, where the package manager can do installs and upgrades for you; but for an environment deeply invested in The Microsoft Way(tm), it is a dubious fit.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Runaway1956]

Does anyone really care if corporate America is left in the dark ages? Let's face it - corporations are there to serve the public. When they fail to serve, they are forgotten and left behind. They will either adapt to what the consumers demand from the web, or they can abandon the web, and become part of history. No problem.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Lehman Brothers, GM, and the bankrupt US government? Fuck 'em.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Spad]

The NHS (~1.3 Million staff) National Patient Record System still only "officially" supports IE6, though most of it seems to work in IE7 anecdotally, but IE8 doesn't have a prayer. Given that Vista (32-bit only) support didn't arrive until March of this year and there's no 64-bit support on their roadmap, not to mention all the other critical NHS webapps that are IE6/2K-XP/32-bit only, I wouldn't expect them to move off IE6 for quite some time yet.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Tony Hoyle]

Way to set an impossible barrier. Firefox isn't a microsoft product so won't pull updates from WSUS. Duh. Anyway, you're talking about companies who are still running IE6 so what do they care about updates?

If you want to wrap the firefox installer in an MSI, knock yourself out. Takes about 5 minutes. The requirement for that is *way* overstated.. We spent months writing a full fledged MSI installer. Number of customers who actually use the feature to push it out automatically? Zero. They stick it on the intranet and tell people to double click on it, or the admin runs around and installs it.

You don't set what sites can be reached in the browser. That's a retarded way to do it. You do it on the gateway.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Don't get me wrong: I don't think that the above standard is a good or sensible one, I just strongly suspect that the sort of large corporate outfit that reveres IE6 as the one true way to run its horrible intranet apps will likely hold a standard quite similar to it.

Running IE6 at this point indicates either Win2k, substantial inflexibility, or some sort of external compulsion.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

> Does anyone really care if corporate America is left in the dark ages?

Of course we care. I'm personally looking forward to it.

-- European

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[xednieht]

TFA says YouTube is phasing out IE6 NOT Microsoft. And why would you be looking at YouTube at work anyway?

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure can, just not iMAP, that piece of shit won't seem to run on anything but 'approved microsoft browsers'.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[hedwards]

Let me guess, these are the same large corporations that are running botnets because they didn't bother to budget for proper security measures either. I'd love to know which corporations those are so that I can be sure to never do business with them until they've gotten some proper budgets in place.

That sounds like the same bullshit that led TD Ameritrade to not know about the trojan that was providing spammers with customer contact information.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Phroggy]

I know quite a few LARGE corporate environments that won't be upgrading any time soon since IE7/8 "breaks" their intranet web apps and they aren't about to budget for updating apps that work on the existing browser.

Dropping support in YouTube is a VERY positive step. Whatever sites the managers in those corporate environments go to for fun need to drop support for IE6, and then the problem will magically go away.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

You got some stupid IT guys in your company ;) IE the worst software/browser ever made ;)

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider using different browsers for different applications. It's safer anyway.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

Running IE6 at this point indicates either Win2k, substantial inflexibility, or some sort of external compulsion.

All of the above.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[bertoelcon]

Does anyone really care if corporate America is left in the dark ages? Let's face it - corporations are there to serve the public. When they fail to serve, they are forgotten and left behind. They will either adapt to what the consumers demand from the web, or they can abandon the web, and become part of history. No problem.

America doesn't allow massive corporate failures to fail, it puts them on "business welfare"

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[destuxor]

Look, I hate to nitpick, but while everyone knows what you mean by IEx not everyone knows what ERP and ECM stand for. Although I could go Google it, I find it a little inconsiderate. I work for the government and know a lot of acronyms that I spell out if I don't expect everyone to know them.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[afidel]

Enterprise Resource Planning (Siebel, JD Edwards, SAP, etc) and Enterprise Content Management (Livelink, Sharepoint, Documentum).

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[afidel]

I could try but it's frozen at a particular version level so not much better and the reduced functionality would probably make it a losing battle (ActiveX is actually really freaking useful for some things).

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[destuxor]

Thank you.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Bourbonium]

Tell your IT foiks that IE8 has a "compatibility mode" tab that launches the IE6 rendering engine in an isolated/sandboxed tab, so that any web page coded for IE6 can be displayed in IE8 if you can train your users to click on the Compabitility tab. I think it is rather like the IETab extension you can install in Firefox, which will open a Firefox tab using the IE6 engine. I use it to play NetFlix "Watch Now" videos in Firefox, which normally only play in IE.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[amoeba47]

Just use the 'non-standards compliant' mode in IE8 and voila, your buggy IE6 code will render fine.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Hurricane78]

Cry me a river. ^^

Then they should have invested in working technology!

This will be great, because they will finally learn it the painful way.

If you always protect them, put a pillow here and there, and never let anything come to them, how exactly will they get any motivation to learn anything at all??

If you let them still run IE6, they will run it for 100 years if they can. And essentially you will be responsible for it, because after all, you would still protect them from that ohh so harsh, bad, bad, reality. ^^

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

cant firefox be installed on a system with IE6 and IEtab used for the intranet apps, while firefox used for internet??

God no, don't EVAR do that! That way you connect the intratubes with the interwebs and you open a gate for the drooling hordes of ActiveEx-mutants! All Yahoo will break loose and YouTube will be destroyed! Not even the Googles can stop the hordes with their mighty clouds!

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[ArhcAngel]

Cry me a river. ^^

Then they should have invested in working technology!

What technology should they have chosen eight years ago when most of these projects were green lighted? IE6 was pushed hard by Microsoft and they also supplied the developer tools to aid in its adoption. Most competing technologies even if they were superior didn't have SDKs as easy (by non-developers) to use. Remember Visual Basic didn't become wildly popular because it was a robust language but because it was a damn simple to use one.

This will be great, because they will finally learn it the painful way.

It will hurt like it hurts you when a gnat flies headlong into you. They will identify the issue, determine the economical and business continuity impact and depending on those findings will budget for the upgrade or continue with business as usual.

If you always protect them, put a pillow here and there, and never let anything come to them, how exactly will they get any motivation to learn anything at all??

The only thing they want to know is "How will this make/save us money?" and rightly so. Just because you are passionate about technology it doesn't make it so for everyone else. Shareholders would get very angry if the company just spent money to upgrade every time a newer version of a particular software comes out and no business case for the expenditure.

If you let them still run IE6, they will run it for 100 years if they can. And essentially you will be responsible for it, because after all, you would still protect them from that ohh so harsh, bad, bad, reality. ^^

If it aint broke don't fix it! I know of hundreds of embedded systems that still run on DOS because there is no need to run them on anything else. They perform a single task so multitasking isn't needed and DOS is more than stable enough for these tasks. Sure you could easily switch to a Linux kernel and be even more stable but why spend the time/effort/money when what you have works fine just they way it is?

It's clear that the people who have responded "Just upgrade to IE8 already!" are not familiar with large corporate environments and the politics and bureaucracy involved in getting things accomplished. It is very likely there were some "greased palms" in getting some of the products we use today in the door. The landscape has changed and since those that were doing the greasing don't seem to be as intent on providing that type of incentive any longer the currently installed technology will do until the next palm greaser comes through the door.

Re:Still mandatory where I work

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect those corporations to fail soon for the benefit of the connected mankind.

And nothing of value was lost. n/t

[Eudial]

N/t

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

[Insert generic anti-MS comment here.]

Discussion complete.

As a web developer....

[Tteddo]

I must say:
Thank you jesus, thank you lord!
And I ran 20 red lights in his honor!

Re:As a web developer....

[Loopy1492]

Word.

Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[shawnmchorse]

IE7 doesn't run on Windows 2000.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[outZider]

Last time I checked, the year is 2009. The only reason to run Win2k at this point is in a VM. Now would be a good time to upgrade.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Lendrick]

Firefox does.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[oodaloop]

Then go to portableapps.com and run Firefox off your desktop.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

i have the same issue

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

And get fired for it, as doing that is probably a fire-able offense.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are pitiable, beneath contempt, and not fit to eat dogs' food!

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

what does modern software provide beyond skyrocketing executable size, memory use, and cpu saturation per useful feature?

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a computer that won't even run XP decently (say, 600 MHz with 512 MB of RAM as the lower end of that range... and tweak it to get rid of a lot of the services you won't be using), trash it and get a new one. That's just sad.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[dltaylor]

No #!%$ DRM, no activation, and at least through SP2 (SP4 was changed, but I never looked at SP3) no license agreement that explicitly allows Microsoft access to your hard drive.

Every Microsoft OS since Windows 2000 has been a downgrade.

FF works fine, thank you, and, since Microsoft no longer supports it, I don't have to deal with their illegal "you have to run Windows to get patches".

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[outZider]

Even better, you just don't get patches.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[isama]

ehhhm? A nicer ui maybe? :P

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[whoever57]

Even better, you just don't get patches.

Not true, MS still provides some level of support for Windows 2000. I think the last remnants of support end in 2010. Meanwhile, each patch tuesday, there are a ton of patches for the one W2K machine on my network.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[mike260]

Then YouTube is doing you a favour. Expect an upgrade around the time that YouTube stops working and your entire company simultaneously calls tech support.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[gad_zuki!]

Nope, you still get patches. Not sure how long that lasts, but 2000 + FF makes for a decent computer, especially on older equipment. Lots of server 2000 installs out there too. Run as non-admin and youre golden.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't matter that it's 2009. Lots of companies are still running W2K because they're cheap and lazy. There's one or two guys in my workgroup here who are running W2K, and they can't upgrade 1) because IT won't pay for the XP licenses, and 2) because their computers are so old and slow (and have no free HD space) they wouldn't run XP anyway.

Yes, a new computer capable of running XP quite well probably only costs about $500-600 from Dell (not including monitor), but apparently that's too much for our IT department to support programmers who are currently wasting lots of man-hours watching their computers s-l-o-w-l-y compile code.

However, we don't have too much trouble spending lots of money on engineering tools. But that comes out of a different department's budget, so it's OK. Since our computers come out of the IT department's budget, they refuse to upgrade us, ever, as it makes their spending look bad.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

perfectly acceptable justification..

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

It costs too much to buy a new computer. At least that's what our IT department says. We have several people in my group running old computers with W2K, and developing software on them. Compilation time burns a lot of man-hours here.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[oodaloop]

I guess. I do it here at work, and the admins understand. It's a safer more secure browser, especially with adblock, noscript, and flashblock installed, as I have. I could see a mild chastising perhaps. But firing? Unless you were using it to browse pr0n all day maybe...

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't use a modern web browser at work, you have a bad job. Get a new one. Or just hang out all day on aol.com. Youtube is dropping support for your dinosaur.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[binary paladin]

Firefox does though, so I fail to see the problem.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[thetoadwarrior]

But other browsers do and besides, there's no reason to be using an OS that's coming up on being a decade old.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[BenoitRen]

Oh, it's 2009, and there's 2000 in that OS' name, so let's bash it and urge the user to upgrade!

Did you know that Windows XP is from only little more than a year later? And that Windows XP is Windows NT 5.1, while Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5.0? Doesn't make it seem that ancient!

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[outZider]

This is a cute response, but ultimately, not the reason I ragged on the 2009 metaphor. The last major release to Windows 2000 was 2003. The last major release to Windows XP was in 2008. If someone wants to whine that they can't upgrade because there's no upgrade path for their OS, chances are, their OS might be a little old.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[LordLimecat]

Wouldnt you be just as well off using some distro of linux+wine at that point? Just a heads up, im pretty sure theres NO EULA at all, so no worries about DRM, activation, or worries about evil corps ransacking your data....

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for long...

http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/06/06/08/1240239.shtml

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[BenoitRen]

These "major" releases you are talking about are service packs, right? Service packs are mostly big collections of existing patches, which Windows 2000 still gets. Both Windows 2000 and Windows XP are still supported, so there's no need to go all "it's 2009".

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[outZider]

Microsoft's 'extended' support has been the only support for 2000 after late 2005. The 'extended' support ends in the middle of 2010. You all have the right to use whatever you want, after all, there are still BeOS and Newton users out there. I just laugh at people who say 'but I'm not supported by X and Y!'. No crap, you aren't supported. That's the other side of the coin.

I also didn't say a thing about telling people to upgrade Windows XP. It's going to be a while before that one dies, but Win 2000 is dead if people are wanting to run modern commercial software.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[hedwards]

That's what people used to call "penny wise and pound foolish." By "saving" from $500-600 they're wasting probably 10x that much on lost productivity and extra cost of support. Sure it tends to be hard to quantify those costs, but they're definitely there and even relatively small tweaks like adding a second monitor will typically pay for themselves in only a few months tops.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

You're preaching to the choir. The people running this company think that having software developers use little 17" LCD monitors is a good idea to save money, but they have no problem spending for dual 22"+ monitors for the CAD guys to design the plastic parts in AutoCAD, along with Dell XPS workstations.

The company is losing in another way too: everyone in my group works a very strict 8-hour workday, and there's very little enthusiasm for anything. Poor morale has never been a recipe for success.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[jjohnson]

You should find a new job.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

Have you been living in a cave? New jobs aren't exactly plentiful these days. In fact, this IS a new job. I just started here a few months ago after my team was laid off from another local company, which I could tell much, much worse horror stories about. The management at this new company is much better, relatively, though that's not saying much. I'm starting to wonder if there's any decently-managed companies in America any more.

Don't worry, I am working on an exit strategy however.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[mgblst]

Wow, if you are working in the developing world then this is a joke. I get that you are probably not, no company in the US would be that stupid. In the developing world, cost of hardware can be greater than programmers, so I can understand the problem.

If there are people in the US working like this, then it is their own fault.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[jisatsusha]

So is watching YouTube when you're meant to be working. I don't see the problem.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

I get that you are probably not, no company in the US would be that stupid.

Sorry, but companies in the US are largely run by complete morons. Mine is one of them. (Yes, I'm in the US.) The Dilbert comic strip hasn't been hugely popular for over 15 years for nothing.

Apparently, the big problem with my company I've learned is that all the computers are "owned" by the IT department, so any upgrades would come out of that department's budget. I'm in the engineering department, not IT. So if a faster computer would make me more productive, that doesn't matter because my productivity doesn't affect the IT department's bottom line. However, if my department needs some expensive engineering tool, like a $20,000 oscilloscope, it's not that hard to get it, since it comes out of the engineering department's budget. You'd think that computers, being tools, would work the same way as other tools like oscilloscopes, and be purchased by the department that uses them, but not here.

Of course, having a corporate-wide spending freeze doesn't help.

If there are people in the US working like this, then it is their own fault.

As I said to another responder, have you been living in a cave? Jobs aren't exactly plentiful these days. Besides, when my whole team got laid off from my last job 3 months ago, I did some interviewing and had a choice between this job and another. The other job would have given me a sizeable pay cut, but this job gave me a 20% pay raise over my old one (which was already paying me pretty decently I thought). The choice was a no-brainer. So even though I complain about the computer situation, I can't complain too much about my paycheck. If the company is dumb enough to pay me a lot to sit around staring at my computer screen while it slowly compiles, that's their problem.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[!eopard]

Make IT responsible for your lost productuivity. Quantify how much actual productive time is lost due to your slow/old PCs, then have that cost shifted to the IT department's budget. It only take ~5 mins a day in lost productivity to equal a the cost of a new PC...

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[bill_mcgonigle]

However, we don't have too much trouble spending lots of money on engineering tools. But that comes out of a different department's budget, so it's OK. Since our computers come out of the IT department's budget, they refuse to upgrade us, ever, as it makes their spending look bad.

If this is true, your manager needs to grow a pair.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[dltaylor]

I do, normally, except for a bit of Solaris and OpenBSD, here and there.

The printer driver for my Xerox Phaser (native, no PostScript) is just a little more flexible on Windows, even compared to the OS X driver, and I have a few old games that don't run as well in WINE as W2K.

BTW, some Linux distro's DO have EULAs, mostly that you agree that you're using the software at your own risk (as Microsoft's does), and notes about any export and binary driver issues.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Hurricane78]

Well that's an easy one: Install Linux. :)

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

I've complained about it, my coworkers have complained about it, and my manager has complained about it (he's saddled with a slow computer just like us, and spends most of his time doing development work just like us), all to no avail.

My manager was so tired of having a tiny monitor to write code on that he bought his own monitor and brought it in.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

He can only do as much as the higher-ups allow.

I heard that, long before I came to work here, he used to be a real taskmaster; worked long hours, etc. But some time before I joined, after finding over and over that management refused to support his team properly, he started working a very strict 40-hour week and never doing anything extra.

This really isn't too different from the place I just left a few months ago. We had a great team, a good manager who supported us, but the higher-ups (mainly at the VP level) really didn't care about us and were just looking for how to squeeze as much profit out of our division's customers as possible before laying off our team and shutting down all new development. They really pissed off a lot of big customers. I honestly don't expect that company to last another 5 years (it's a very large semiconductor company).

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Since our computers come out of the IT department's budget, they refuse to upgrade us, ever, as it makes their spending look bad.

This calls for sabotage. Break the PC in subtle ways every two weeks. First the harddisk, then the memory, then short the video card et cetera. Drive them to madness.

Alternatively, just buy some extra RAM.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[bill_mcgonigle]

He can only do as much as the higher-ups allow.

A good manager understands his superiors' motivations and presents business cases in the proper format to get what he wants done.

If slow computers are eating up that much time, he can make the case for either increased productivity or decreased staff with proper equipment. These are very rational business decisions that affect every industry.

Unless you're again about to be shut down and fired, and are just on life support, or the bosses are completely incapable of understanding economics. Capitalism does the right thing in those situations, which causes short-term pain for the workers, but in the end they'll find more productive outlets for their life's labor.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Grishnakh]

A good manager understands his superiors' motivations and presents business cases in the proper format to get what he wants done.

Again, a good manager can only do as much as his superiors allow. My previous manager at my last job was a good manager too, and his superiors (the VPs) were idiots. He's now working at another company.

Unless you're again about to be shut down and fired, and are just on life support,

As I was told by a key employee who just quit, this company used to be the leader in its field 10 years ago, and its management has taken it from that #1 position to a very distant #3 in that time.

Yes, capitalism usually does the right thing, but it frequently means poorly-run companies going out of business, despite the best efforts of its employees, because the people at the top are idiots.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[bill_mcgonigle]

Again, a good manager can only do as much as his superiors allow. My previous manager at my last job was a good manager too, and his superiors (the VPs) were idiots.

Unless they hate him or are deliberately sabotaging the company, most VP's will listen to a business case, even if they're stunningly dull.

A hallmark of a good manager is being able to sell to his VP's, not to merely take direction from them. A good VP welcomes these kinds of managers, but even bad ones will usually buy if the case reduces personal risk for them. Know your audience and all that.

It's good that he's gone to a better company, though - too much of this is a waste of time.

Re:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[cbhacking]

No firewall, no DEP, no ASLR, no instant search, no BitLocker, not-as-good EFS, no WDDM, no Volume Shadow Copy, no System Restore, very poor plug-and-play support by modern standards (no automatic downloading of drivers), no x64, no ip6, no...

Yeah, that's a *REAL* upgrade from my current systems, for sure! The only box I still have with Win2k is one that came with Win98, and I'm consdiering switching that one to Linux. My current primary machines run Win7, which is not almost a decade out of date.

Seriously, I can understand your beef with the things you listed (although W2K actually *DOES* have DRM in Windows Media Player, where is is exactly as intrusive as the DRM in Vista) but none of those things have been the least bit of a problem for the vast majority of Windows users (seriously, activation takes a couple of seconds, and unless you manage to screw things up badly enough to require re-activating more than 5 times for a given OS version, you don't even need to call in for it... I've never had to). Also, while I've never heard of the "explicitly allows Microsoft access to your hard drive" clause, it's a bit odd considering that they ship a drive encryption tool that the company can not actually break...

no need of restrictions then

[mehrotra.akash]

if IE6 is not supported by youtube, and many other popular, non work related sites follow suit, wouldnt enterprises prefer to keep IE6 as it would automatically prevent employees from accessing video/social networking sites from work, and additional money would not have to be spent on proxies and other content restriction system??

since their own apps are in house they can keep IE6 forever w/o any problems

Re:no need of restrictions then

[SydShamino]

Yeah, the IT team can just rename the IE6 icon as "ERP Interface" or something, and install Firefox, naming its icon "Web Browser".

Voila, internal apps keep working but employees are no longer at risk due to IE6 use on the wild wild internet.

Even better if as a company they block IE6 access to external sites, so people who try to use their ERP software to browse the web would be cut off and told to launch Firefox.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Mystra_x64]

Their problems really. They can happily live in their own little utopia for a time until the future strikes them with a hammer.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Jorgensen]

Please please please for the sake of ${DEITY:-everybody} do not say that out loud. There's bound to be a PHB somewhere who thinks that's a good idea....

Re:no need of restrictions then

[FlyingBishop]

Increasingly, there are a lot of legitimate business tasks that require sites you might not expect. There are a lot of how-to videos on YouTube, for example. Or maybe you're evaluating speakers for an upcoming conference and you need to watch some clips of their speeches.

If this trend hits just a couple more major sites, you won't be able to run an office on IE6.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[T Murphy]

But what would the supervisors have left to do all day?

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Grishnakh]

At my company, quite a few people still run ancient computers with W2K because the IT department is too cheap to upgrade.

However, they apparently have no problem paying for and running some proxy software which prevents us from browsing to various sites, including Facebook, Youtube, The Onion, etc. (Apparently The Onion is considered "obscene".)

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Anonymous Coward]

Most existing corporate firewalls probably already block YouTube anyway, in fact the majority probably do it, which is likely what lead YouTube to deciding to discontinue support for IE6 because they see lower traffic levels from that browser, due to the firewalls blocking YouTube from corporate networks.

The fact that youtube is ditching IE is meaningless to the majority of websites that still do get hits from corporate IE6 users.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the best practical proposal I've heard for a while.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[BenoitRen]

Unfortunately, most people still don't know what a "web browser" is.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Phroggy]

Please please please for the sake of ${DEITY:-everybody} do not say that out loud. There's bound to be a PHB somewhere who thinks that's a good idea....

Explain why it isn't a good idea?

I mean, it's clearly not a great idea. It means you're stuck on XP (or 2k) and can't switch to a better OS. It reduces pressure on the vendors to fix their crap, and reduces the incentive for competitors to come along and offer a better alternative. It means any broken apps that launch web sites in IE instead of respecting your default browser settings will either have to be permitted through the proxy server as well, despite the security implications, or will just be broken. It means users who are used to doing weird things with IE that you've never even thought of will have to be trained on how to get by with Firefox.

But if you can't get the vendors to upgrade their crap anyway, it sounds to me like a much better solution than just sticking with IE6 for everything.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[smash]

At my company, quite a few people still run ancient computers with W2K because the IT department is too cheap to upgrade.

I think you'll find that your IT department are more than willing to upgrade, but the FINANCE department is unwilling to fund it.... nerds always like new toys, and windows 2000 is no longer new any more, good as it is (for an MS operating system, anyway).

The same finance department (or HR) has probably approached IT and asked them to stop people doing things other than work, at work - hence the proxy software. besides, proxy software can SAVE MONEY too, depending on your bandwidth expenses. A copy of SQUID or even ISA will more than pay for itself over a couple of months, if you pay $/gig for bandwidth, both in terms of caching shit so it is only downloaded once, and also because of the ability to block high volume, non-business related activity as well.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[MemoryDragon]

Yeah everybody is entitled to keep ie6 forever as long as he stays away from the internet :-)

Re:no need of restrictions then

[Just Some Guy]

wouldnt enterprises prefer to keep IE6 as it would automatically prevent employees from accessing video/social networking sites from work

It also prevents the bosses from doing the same, and that just won't fly.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[mehrotra.akash]

the bosses would get personal laptops with IE8...

Re:no need of restrictions then

[AgentPhunk]

Even better if as a company they block IE6 access to external sites

How the hell are you going to do that? RegEx on the firewall to block the IE6 User-Agent? Proxy server settings? I'm scratching my head here on how you would implement this, network-wise.

Re:no need of restrictions then

[SydShamino]

Remember I'm assuming IT has complete control over these machines. Could you not manipulate the hosts file so that IE6 could only get to internal sites (and everything else went to an internal redirect), whereas Firefox could have less-filtered access? Could you do not it as well with an IE6 plugin?

If not, I'd use a proxy server with the user agent, yeah.

That's a bit sensationalist

[east coast]

This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net

Yeah, there's a virtual kegger going on over at Twitter about this. Is that going to be our new gauge of how things are going on in the computing world? Has netcraft confirmed it?

Re:That's a bit sensationalist

[amicusNYCL]

No mod points, but that genuinely made me laugh. Well done, sir.

Re:That's a bit sensationalist

[east coast]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I just found that the "jubilation" that was breaking out at Twitter was kind of funny. Actually, a lot of it turned out to be some weird eBay bot. How they think I'd go from looking for a news article on YouTube and IE to wanting to buy some facial cream in the same moment is beyond me.

Slight problem...

[Schnapple]

On the one hand if Joe Average User can't get to YouTube.com anymore then yes they'll either upgrade to IE7/8, or maybe use that crazy Firefox browser.

However, we still run across many many clients who still mandate IE6 in their workplace. No upgrading to IE7/8, no other browsers than IE6, etc.

So they'll upgrade finally now too, right?

Nope - those are also the same companies that probably block access to YouTube for bandwidth/time wasting reasons.

Re:Slight problem...

[whisper_jeff]

Most workplaces that mandate IE6 probably do not allow employees to browse youtube (nor a host of other sites) when at work.

Re:Slight problem...

[thisnamestoolong]

This is definitely a valid argument -- but I think if we extrapolate this a bit into the future this announcement will encourage many more webmasters to stop supporting IE6 as well. Eventually, a site that many of these people use will go down and we will see the demise of IE6.

Re:Slight problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of said companies need to revise their incredibly stupid, lazy IT policies, and hire some professionals who know how to keep their computers secure and roll out new software as necessary. Except perhaps for that leftover 1% with bizarre requirements, they have absolutely no reason to be running software that is eight years old and two major versions out of date. Insert Debian joke here.

Re:Slight problem...

[MaskedSlacker]

IE6 is only used by employers who block youtube anyway.

If only all /. comments after the first post just reworded the last line of their parent.

A man can dream.

Re:Slight problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

So they'll upgrade finally now too, right?

Not to use YouTube, but to use the websites that will follow YouTube. Also PHBs will finally upgrade at home, and thus become amenable to upgrade advice at work.

But what's interesting is Google is co-ordinating assets to deal with The Pestilence. Drop support at YouTube, while offering their own well-hyped standards-compliant Chrome.

Re:Slight problem...

[Schnapple]

Also PHBs will finally upgrade at home, and thus become amenable to upgrade advice at work.

PHB's have no influence whatsoever on the IT department.

Why even support a browser?

[nurb432]

Why not just support the official html standard and be done with it?

Re:Why even support a browser?

[Dynedain]

Assuming you're not just trolling...

As a developer, you support the browsers, not the standard, because the standards are vague and contradictory in places, which leads to different browsers implementing the standard in different ways.

Oh, and because no browser fully supports any version of the HTML, XHTML, or CSS standards.

Re:Why even support a browser?

[Daniel_Staal]

Because at one point IE 6 had over 70% of the browser market share, and it doesn't support the official HTML standard. So you either had to ignore 70+% of the people on the net, or you had to code to support it. Neither was a good choice.

Re:Why even support a browser?

[CannonballHead]

Some people like reaching a much of their potential audience as possible. Even if that means extra coding.

Re:Why even support a browser?

[nurb432]

No i wasn't trolling i was asking a serious question.

If everyone ONLY supported standards and didn't instead cater to the idiosyncrasies of each browser, a lot of these problems would go up in smoke. We are in effect "enablers".

Re:Why even support a browser?

[b4dc0d3r]

"website enablers" you mean. If we code to just the standards, it most likely won't look right in all of the target browsers.

That's how this whole thing evolved in the first place. We write standards-compliant stuff, it doesn't look right, boss or client makes us change it, then we get the browser-sniffing and box model hacks... now you just copy code or styles or whatever because it works.

The site has to work, otherwise there's no point.

Re:Why even support a browser?

[jones_supa]

Why not just support the official html standard and be done with it?

I guess that's what we're heading towards.

Flash

[R.Mo_Robert]

Now, if YouTube would only phase out support for Flash...

I know, I know, wishful thinking. But I do secretly think that YouTube could single-handedly decide which video format(s) become supported (or, if not in the specification, at least popular) for HTML 5. Chrome supports both Theora and H.264, but their HTML 5 test page uses H.264. Not my personal first choice, but certainly a lot better than Flash.

In any case, I can't wait for this imaginary day when YouTube goes Flash-less. :)

Re:Flash

[Yvan256]

YouTube has always been Flash-less on iPhone/iPod touch.

Re:Flash

[R.Mo_Robert]

I almost forgot about that, but you're right: and they use H.264 for that, which is probably also the reason they wrote the HTML 5 test page with H.264 as well.

Unfortunately, some videos just aren't available on the iPhone/iPod touch. But more importantly, these non-Flash videos are accessible only to iPhones and iPod touches: there's no way to view YouTube with H.264 from your desktop browser.

Re:Flash

[AndrewNeo]

There is an option for the uploader to disable their video from being played off the Youtube website itself, that's more than likely what you're running into. Also, that is kind of incorrect, all HQ/HD videos -are- h264 content (find a Youtube downloader, you'll get an .mp4 file, but the non HQ/HD are .flv) but the problem you're referring to is it's being played through Flash instead of directly through the browser.

let's go further

[toby]

Windows is the real problem.

Re:let's go further

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain.

Re:let's go further

[CannonballHead]

There may be a time to debate whether or not Windows should exist at all. People also argue that automatic transmissions are stupid. (car analogy purpose: people argue about a lot of really stupid things :) ). IMO, Windows should exist because a company should be allowed to build software and should be allowed to not care about a standards committee.

But saying that Windows is the problem behind IE6 not being standards compliant seems a little far fetched. I suppose you could argue that MS is trying to get a vendor lock-in for their operating system or something like that... that's what the EU appeared to be trying to say and made a pretty stupid argument out of it, IMO.

IE6 is separate from Windows. You can upgrade to IE8. Or IE9 when it comes out. Or use Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. Windows is not the problem behind IE6. No more than Linux is the problem behind KDE4.

WAIT A SECOND!!!

[yurtinus]

Twitter search? Really? I mean.... Really?!?

Re:WAIT A SECOND!!!

[owlnation]

Twitter search? Really? I mean.... Really?!?

What? Don't you want to know what Demi Moore thinks about this?

Corporate Intranets

[musicon]

Don't start celebrating prematurely. There's a good article on Quirksmode about why IE6 will continue to live on corporate intranets.

Re:Corporate Intranets

[mike260]

Eh, it may live on but it'll be a miserable zombie-like existence. The article suggests that businesses will be forced to adopt a second browser for real web-surfing, relegating IE6 to running their crappy internal apps and nothing else. And since you can't have multiple IE versions on one machine, the 'real' browser will necessarily be non-IE.

Good enough for me.

BRAVO. Earns my respect double on this...

[CFD339]

First, actions like this from massively broad based sites are critical to finally wiping the scourge of IE6 development off the planet. So initial Kudos to YouTube for taking the step.

Of course, YouTube == Google; so no shock that they're willing to disparage IE6, right?

But here's the difference between Google and Microsoft --

The banner shown here, on YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't JUST list Chrome as the upgrade path. It clearly gives equal exposure to Chrome, Firefox, and IE8 -- the biggest competing product to its own browser.

That's the right way to do be competitive in a social networking context. I think we know that if this was say, Bing! or Hotmail, it would show a link to IE8 but that's it. Well, ok, we don't KNOW that, but most of us assume it. I certainly do.

Actually - IE6 has over 15% market share

[caffeinejolt]

This graph shows market share trends for relevant browser versions. Of course, I REALLY wish it was "in the single digits".

Okay I'll do it!

[nilbog]

I saw this message today an decided to upgrade my browser. That's the internet, right? I called AOL and told them to upgrade my internet please. They happily obliged. It seems like the same internet to me and I still get the message on youtube.

Re:Okay I'll do it!

[nilbog]

When asked "Which browser do you use?" Most people respond "Google." Telling people to upgrade their Google is only going to confuse them.

I'm afraid the only way to truly get rid of IE6 is wait for all the old people to die.

Re:Okay I'll do it!

[AndrewNeo]

My grandparents still call their internet AOL despite the fact that I haven't let them install AOL on any of their computers in years since they got DSL.

For Fuck's sake!!!

[Ractive]

Die already IE6!

Not that MS's newer browsers are much better in standards compliance but definitely IE6 = Developers Hell.

But the real problem is that many developers ignorant of the importance of standards as well as ignorant users (and of course MS itself) did a lot of damage creating and supporting IE (6) only sites, and many years later we are still facing the consequences of such poorly designed products, that's a heads up for future browser development this has to stop

Interoperability is a must!

Any explanation why?

[John Napkintosh]

Not that they need to justify it, but did they explain their position at any point?

My own stats...

[BigBadBus]

show that support for IE6 is not quite dead yet...see here

In other news - cubicle productivity soars

[Zantetsuken]

In other news, office cubicle productivity has coincidentally soared to heights not seen since before the launch of Youtube... Next up...

Doesn't bother me.

[Cro Magnon]

AFAIK, the only people who use IE6 (including me) do so because their job uses it. Very few jobs (including mine) allow Youtubing at work anyway, so why SHOULD they continue to support it?

The enterprise desktop browser - even more so?

[Anonymous Coward]

This could in fact make IE6 last longer in some enterprises. No youtube support, No digg support. Your pointy-hair boss might like it.

They don't support firefox fully either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the user page that has been upgraded to "the new design" and click the javascript-link called: "comments". It is placed just below the video. That link doesn't work in firefox. Example: http://www.youtube.com/user/youtube

It's a friggin video site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what superfantastic functions of a 'new' browser does youtube need to play flash videos?

If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[Pepebuho]

If you get rid of IE6 like this, you are forcing people to upgrade also to Win7!!! Remember, there is no Internet Explorer 7 for Win2k, All of us who have stayed away from Win XP and and Vista due to its dumb activation code will have to upgrade to Win7, because Mozilla is not always the answer.

July 13, 2010 is D-Day for IE6

[techvet]

July 13, 2010 is when Microsoft stops releasing security updates for Win2000/IE6. By the time that dates arrives or when the first unfixed issue appears after that, a lot of companies who were sand-bagging the upgrades will suddenly get their "Come to Jesus" moment and will do the upgrades.

If they are smart, they will skip IE7 and go straight to IE8. I agree with the previous poster, as the same companies sitting on IE6 are also the same ones blocking YouTube and the like.

Finally

[slasho81]

Finally Google found a use for YouTube - an incentive to phase out old browsers in preparation for their web software.

Digg wants to phase IE6 out too.

[antdude]

Read here.

So people with old Windows like 98, 2000, etc. will have to other Web browsers like old Firefox v2.

Re:Digg wants to phase IE6 out too.

[jimjamjoh]

Current Firefox 3.5 runs fine on Win2k, though that may not be true for future releases.

Twitter

[Pulse_Instance]

This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net

All that twitter search shows is that people who use twitter are commenting on it. It does not show jubilation breaking out all over the Net.

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[Miladinoski]

If you get rid of IE6 like this, you are forcing people to upgrade also to Win7!!! Remember, there is no Internet Explorer 7 for Win2k, All of us who have stayed away from Win XP and and Vista due to its dumb activation code will have to upgrade to Win7, because Mozilla is not always the answer.

Nobody is forcing you to upgrade to Windows 7, Opera runs mighty fine not only on Win2k but on win9x versions too without a huge memory leak...

You should consider using that instead of some crappy 8 years old browser that doesn't support something essential as PNG transparency.

Obligatory reference

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia IE6 phases out support FOR YOU!!

Fixed it for ya

[Anonymous Coward]

s/please/, bro/

browser types for my sites:

[stimpleton]

I am a webmaster for a company that primarily serves agriculteral sector websites.

We have 60 sites and proportion is

1. 54.14% - Internet Explorer 7.0
2. 8.14% - Internet Explorer 6.0
3. 7.90% - Firefox 3.0

Re:browser types for my sites:

[n30na]

what's the rest? that doesnt nearly add up to 100%.

Re:browser types for my sites:

[stimpleton]

Yes quite right, I had in my mind to ignore proportions below 3%...IE5 is 2.5%, and IE8 2.5%. The rest are scrapers. They rip out the genetic data and breeding data for beef herds.

Re:browser types for my sites:

[n30na]

aha, interesting. Thats a lot of crawlers o.o;

Web 3.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Where surfing (read: suffering) with three browsers simultaneously is required. I mean, how else do we get it to be 3-dimensional?

Re:Web 3.0

[RobertLTux]

yah know there a company thats working on thats called Liden Labs.

all the fun of Myspace and Facebook NOW IN 3D!!!

Re:Web 3.0

[datapharmer]

So that's what Vista's transparency was all about. No one told me I was supposed to put the browsers on *top* of each other! Now where did I put my red and blue glasses...

An IE6 emulator plugin for Firefox.

[John Hasler]

That's the solution.

Re:An IE6 emulator plugin for Firefox.

[hairyfeet]

The problem is there is no way to emulate all that ActiveX crap that legacy Intranet sites seem to always be built on. A better solution IMHO would be "IE6....in a box". You would have something like Virtualbox loaded with a stripped down Win2K image, leaving just enough to run the browser, have the image read only so you wouldn't have to worry about malware, you could even put in on a thumbdrive for "IE6....in a box...on a stick".

Sadly MSFT and their army of Orc lawyers would descend upon you like locusts if you ever tried offering this, even though it gives companies a reason to let go of their legacy crap. But as long as there are tons of IE6 ActiveX crapola Intranet sites I don't see IE6 dying out, at least not until they simply can't find a box that will run it anymore.

Why link to IE 8?

[SnapShot]

I wonder why they included a link to IE 8 in the banner? Why not Opera or Safari instead? If nothing else, they probably could have gotten a call (or a thrown chair) from Steve.

Re:Why link to IE 8?

[EvanED]

I wonder why they included a link to IE 8 in the banner?

Short answers:

1. Because they don't want to help people accusing MS of abusing a monopoly more

2. People who are still using IE6 are probably more likely to upgrade if they see a banner for IE8 (and really, what matters is it's a banner with the "IE" logo) then on for a bunch of strange software.

Why not Opera or Safari instead?

Opera would have been a good one to include, but donkey crap is a better piece of software than Safari on Windows. At least when you clean up the mess it leaves it doesn't come back on its own.

Some corrections to that list

[Anonymous Coward]

The ActiveX has been solved, it now essentially does the same thing as plugins do in Firefox and is just as (in)secure.
Non-standard HTML rendering: other browser do that to (the rounded corners for example weren't part of the standard when introduced) - the problem wasn't that it was non-standard, the problem was that it was buggy, and that it used a different box model than everyone else was using.
My current browser (Iron) has tabs, as had Firefox, and they're a pain in the ass.
Bad PNG support was annoying, but just an inconvenience. By the way even modern browsers tend to have a much more annoying lack of (complete) support for SVG, MathML, Postscript, and so on and so forth.
The crashing problem was mostly fixed. At the end of its lifetime the only site it crashed on I found in a long time was... wait for it... Slashdot! Of course, no browser renders Slashdot okay, but IE6 reliably crashed just because the window wasn't wide enough...
Oh, and the ActiveX problem has been fixed.

Uh..

[SaDan]

"Don't phase me, bro!"

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[jimjamjoh]

Mozilla IS always the answer when the question is "What actively-developed Web 2.0-capable browser can I use on my Win2k box?"

IE6 users will miss out...

[Delicious Loli]

...on stuff like this.

Sucks for them.

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[RichM]

Doesn't Opera 9 work on Windows 2000?
Yes, yes it does.
Even Windows 95.

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[mike260]

You refuse to use XP, Vista, Linux, Opera and Firefox, but IE6 is peachy-keen?
Lol.

Mod Informative, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree.

I prefer to use a web browser, not an add-on, extension fluffed "application display system." HTML. No CSS, no mime-types, no scripting.

I can't say when, but /. changed something to make using this site painful 6-12 months ago.

Re:Mod Informative, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

not an add-on, extension fluffed "application display system."

It doesn't work right in firefox either.

Eh?

[mister_playboy]

You can get security fixes for Windows even if your copy can't pass WGA... so even n00b pirates can be secure.

Any real pirate will, of course, be using one of the many available ways to circumvent WGA, and they can upgrade just as the legit users can.

Re:Eh?

[gid]

Although the did cut pirates off from IE7 when it first came out because it wasn't a critical update. Eventually they made it critical when adoptions rates dropped off.

IE6 definitely dieing

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a financial institution, where everything runs by rigid corporate guidelines, you can imagine ....
Like many mentioned before me, we are also running IE6 and our timesheets and other webstuff runs solely on IE6, nottin' else.
So Fridays we have to use IE for a few minutes ... and on a few select, short intervals ... Darn it.

That said, they are legacy stuff and will get replaced sooner or later.
All our developers develop in first line for firefox, almost exclusively. And I can't see any CIO surviving in our place ever again making anything IE as the base platform for our applications.
When it comes to code completion, usually the guys spend a sliver of time if it also works on that other 'dinosaur browser' from Redmond.
Just to make the new stuff also also works on their browser, knowing the M$ creativity to make things incompatible ...

The future on the web is seriously out of the hands of Redmond! Good riddance!

It's not just corporate Intranets.

[shippo]

Only a few weeks ago I was given a URL by a recruitment agency for an on-line skills test which needed to be completed as part of a job application.

That particular site was coded to reject all login attempts if the user agent wasn't IE. Furthermore there were severe rendering problems if I used anything other than IE6, making the test impossible to complete. As I don't run Windows here by choice this was fairly annoying.

I ended up having to install a copy of XP under a VM just to complete the test.

Re:It's not just corporate Intranets.

[jonwil]

Really though that site is just an extention of a corporate intranet (Extranet is one buzzword I heard to describe it)

Corporations are probably to blame

[DJRumpy]

I would guess that many corporations are the one's clinging to IE6 and they haven't upgraded due to compatibility concerns. I know my current workplace is in this same boat as well. All of these non-standard browser apps that simply won't run on a newer browser. I suspect most home users have long ago upgraded themselves or automatically via update or OS upgrade.

Re:Corporations are probably to blame

[Cimexus]

Yep - I work for Oracle which is about as anti-Microsoft a company as you can get (they don't even let you run Office unless you have a real reason to ... it's OpenOffice for the rest of us). Yet its corporate base image still includes IE6 (alongside FF3). Why? Well that'd be because ... their own online conferencing/training/timesheet systems require it! (lol...seriously)

Windows2000 nooes

[u64]

I keep IE for backward compatibility, for those extremly rare sites that Opera dont handle well. Those sites are growing so few that i cant even give an example. If i could Uninstall IE6 before installing more IE bloat. Most people i know refuse to switch up to Opera since it 'looks' different. I'm going to switch the Opera icon shortcut to IE-icon and rename it Internet Explorer 9... Or just 'Internet'. since that's what people think it is.

Legacy systems

[sjbe]

And who cares about corporations who refuse to move on from a tool that even the creator has killed off?

You do. Forget Windows and IE - do you have ANY idea how many POS (Point Of Sale) systems there are out there that still rely on DOS? The answer will scare you. "Upgrading" software is an expense and a potential business risk. Sometimes the rewards are not worth the expense. I have clients that have computer systems that are 10, 15 and even 25 years old and not about the be replaced anytime soon. You can make a very profitable living maintaining and integrating legacy systems and there are lots out there.

Survival of the fittest always wins, always.

And what, pray tell, is your definition of fittest? Unfortunately I can think of many definitions of fittest that don't equal best, modern, up-to-date, robust or (sadly) secure.

Why the hell don't some companies allow the use of another browser?

Cost mostly. Typically they have some old code that will cost money to update and they can't make a business case to do it yet. Usually they'll upgrade in due time but it might take years or even decades.

Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[j741]

So I had a look at the banner mentioned, and I find it odd that it states "Please upgrade to one of these modern browsers" followed by only IE8, FF3.5, and Google Chrome. Why not mention (or even hint at) the fact that other "modern browsers" also exist. You know, browsers like Opera or Safari (the OS default for MAC users), or any others. Simply re-wording the banner to something like "Please upgrade to a modern browser such as the following" would be much more polite.

IE and malware

[Anonymous Coward]

After IE managed to dump and install literaly hunderds of malware files in the span of a minute onto my Windows box a couple years back, Ive used Firefox exclusively at home.

Except IE is the only one that works with YouTube

[mdwh2]

I *do* use a modern browser - except as of a certain version, the Flash plug-in crashes, taking out my browser. So if I want to view a YouTube video, I have to fire up IE 6, as it's the only one that it works in.

Now YouTube have the cheek to tell me to use a "modern browser", when they're the one using a proprietary format that doesn't work in my modern browser!

Perhaps IE 8 will work with YouTube, I don't know, but I fail to see why I should have to upgrade to Microsoft's latest just because YouTube and Adobe can't get their act together.

People crying "about time" are missing the point. In my opinion, it's phasing out Flash that would be "about time".

Amazing how IE 6 is still used!

[motang]

I can't believe IE 6 is still being used after all these years.

Re:Amazing how IE 6 is still used!

[smash]

It's the default install on both Windows XP and Windows 2003.

Many corporate users have websites built for it, and consider internet access to be "non business" use (and may even filter/block internet entirely) hence, they see no "need" to upgrade from IE6.

Alternatives, such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc are all not supported by Windows update services (WSUS) whereas IE is, hence IE, and in particular, IE6 is browser of choice for many corporate windows desktops. Having the ability to centrally manage and control patch deployment with a single tool (WSUS) is a god-send if you have a network of more than a few hundred desktops to take care of. Deploying another browser, that can't use WSUS for patch deployment doubles your workload for patch maintenance (two tools to mess with). Or more even, as I haven't seen ANY centrally managed patch deployment tool for any of the alternative browsers. Which means you're relying on end users to patch/not patch as THEY see fit, and you lose all control of your SOE - no ability to do pre-release testing against your intranet apps, etc. Or, you block updates at your firewall, and end up with ancient insecure browsers eventually anyway.

Yes, it sucks, but IE7 and IE8 are both slower (on say, a typical 3 year old, 512mb ram corporate XP desktop) and are an unknown with regards to many corporate intranet apps, etc.

While XP is in use in the business world, IE6 is likely to remain in use in that environment.

If any of the alternative browsers want to be taken seriously on the corporate desktop, they need to address centralised patch management, or they won't get a look in.

Re:Amazing how IE 6 is still used!

[Loopy1492]

Maybe. I'm just hoping that this is only the beginning. Hopefully more and more people and companies will decide that their applications no longer support IE6 and Microsoft will make the final decision not to support IE6. As a web developer, fortunately it would make my job easier, but unfortunately, it would also make my job easier. IE6 = great job security.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[koreaman]

http://www.youtube.com/html5

Companies refusing to upgrade

[Tekoneiric]

It'd be nice if where I work would either upgrade our IE6 or install Firefox. I'd prefer they install Firefox but they see that as some kind of sin. People have gotten witten up for installing it when alot of people had admin rights. Needless to say they took the admin rights away.

How about all IEs?

[Hurricane78]

If I were a big site like YouTube, I'd phase out all non-standard rendering, and go full standard.

Then I would direct all the heat straight to Microsoft (and others just as much if they do something non-standard or have bugs).

I could imagine making it more comfortable, by pre-testing the site with all browsers, and then redirect to a site that makes it all clear in less than 7 seconds, who it is that is to blame for this, and why. I would also display a browser-dependent e-mail address and redirect all mails that go to that address right to the bug trackers / mailing lists of that browser management or development team.

Ok, this is easier in Germany, with the IE (all versions) having close to 28 percent with a strong trend downwards.

I have IE 6...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have IE 6 on my computer and don't know how to get rid of it lol. MSN keeps randomly opening it when i try to check emails even though my DEFAULT browser is firefox.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[wardred]

If you're running IE6 is it likely that you're using a modern Mac with Safari on it? Wouldn't it already have this installed? I'm guessing Opera isn't on the list because it isn't free...but that's just a guess. Yes, rewording things would've been more polite.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[A Friendly Troll]

If you're running IE6 is it likely that you're using a modern Mac with Safari on it? Wouldn't it already have this installed? I'm guessing Opera isn't on the list because it isn't free...but that's just a guess. Yes, rewording things would've been more polite.

There's Safari for Windows, and Opera has been free for many years now.

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[ArthurDA]

I'd say that you likely have bigger issues...

Re:BRAVO. Earns my respect double on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The banner shown here, on YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't JUST list Chrome as the upgrade path. It clearly gives equal exposure to Chrome, Firefox, and IE8 -- the biggest competing product to its own browser.

What I find funny is it doesn't offer Opera. Opera started the EU lawsuit against Microsoft, in attempt to make Windows include Opera as a browser choice, but it seems it's not just Microsoft that ignores them.

Re:BRAVO. Earns my respect double on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

First, actions like this from massively broad based sites are critical to finally wiping the scourge of IE6 development off the planet. So initial Kudos to YouTube for taking the step.

Of course, YouTube == Google; so no shock that they're willing to disparage IE6, right?

But here's the difference between Google and Microsoft --

The banner shown here, on YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't JUST list Chrome as the upgrade path. It clearly gives equal exposure to Chrome, Firefox, and IE8 -- the biggest competing product to its own browser.

That's the right way to do be competitive in a social networking context. I think we know that if this was say, Bing! or Hotmail, it would show a link to IE8 but that's it. Well, ok, we don't KNOW that, but most of us assume it. I certainly do.

but no Safari or Opera...

Don't phase me bro?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that what the romulan said just before Kirk set his phaser on stun?

I am a single digit ...

[JustLikeToSay]

... because I work for a UK Govt Dept and we still use IE6.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[FireFury03]

Perhaps IE 8 will work with YouTube, I don't know, but I fail to see why I should have to upgrade to Microsoft's latest just because YouTube and Adobe can't get their act together.

You don't - there are plenty of other browsers not written by Microsoft that can handle YouTube just fine (ignoring the fact that Flash is the most inefficient video player ever invented). Or you could just stop using YouTube. No one is "forcing" you to do anything.

Bite them in the ass

[mcrbids]

This is not a good move for Google.

Youtube is getting lots of hits, but it's quickly being passed up by the likes of Hulu and Netflix in the war for the online Living Room. See, Internet "TV" has proven itself - Hulu is able to charge as much or more for an ad than the networks in many cases. Hulu advertisers can target their audience much more closely because ads are tied to shows, not to networks or times of day. And, they *can* be filtered by geographical area, just like the networks.

So Google needs to get off their duff and do something with YT besides throw cash at it. I watch hours of 'net TV on Hulu, netflix, and casttv.com every week. I watch perhaps 10 minutes of YT videos in a week.

If Google isn't careful, YT will become forever entrenched as the domain of home videos, tweenie masterpieces and conspiracy theories.

Market Share.

[CFD339]

Opera just doesn't have that much market share. Neither does Chrome, but well, that is the home field favorite on YouTube/Google. As far as Safari, how many non-mac people even know what it is, let alone that there's a PC version? I have it, I like it and think it's excellent, but it's pretty unusual to find on a PC.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[Mystra_x64]

I'm guessing Opera isn't on the list because it isn't free

Being in the state of suspended animation is sure hard on you these days...

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[bemymonkey]

Is that supposed to work? All I get is a Youtube page with all the thumbnails and videos empty/black (FF3.5).

As for regular Youtube not working on any browser other than IE6 - get the newest Flash, update your "modern browser" to the latest version, and if that doesn't work, just stop using Youtube... that's pretty much what I did when all Flash video stopped playing sound for some reason (on a fresh XP install)...

Someone aught to tell O2

[LRayZor]

Orange UK exiles Firefox from call centres.
250 quid threat sends rogue reps back to IE6

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/orange_and_ie6/

Re:Someone aught to tell ORANGE

[LRayZor]

Ok so I can't even manage to get the title right.

Orange it should be.

Safari?

[DaveyJJ]

Where's the link to Safari???

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[Anonymous Coward]

...because Mozilla is not always the answer.

Ooh, ooh, I know! Is the question "Name a sucky, insecure browser that was difficult to code for because little attempt was made for it to follow standards as competitive policy of the company that wrote it?"

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[smash]

Whilst that is true, why don't they mention K-Meleon, Seamonkey or Flock? Or Lynx, Links, etc?

Any of those run on windows too, but my bet is its because they had limited banner space for the type of idiot still on IE6 running in 800x600 screen res, and decided that 3 options was enough.

IE8 - because its the Microsoft option for the Microsoft OS, Chrome - because google apps such as youtube will no doubt be optimised for it, and Mozilla, because Google are friendly with them and its a popular alternative. Safari on PC, whilst good in version 4, doesn't even rate on PC as far as popularity goes yet.

IE7 and up issues

[GrBear]

Two reasons why we haven't upgraded to IE 7/8 at our offices.

a) Everyone has Firefox as their primary web browser and
b) IE7 breaks Office 2000.

There's been no economical reason to upgrade past Office 2000 so far, and IE 7 causes our Access 2000 databases to no longer open. There are other other issues as well, but this one seems to be the greatest.

Why the hell an OS is built so unstable that upgrading a web browser can cause other applications to stop working is retarded.. especially when the OS and both apps are by the same vendor.

Re:BRAVO. Earns my respect double on this...

[nyctopterus]

I think we know that if this was say, Bing! or Hotmail, it would show a link to IE8 but that's it. Well, ok, we don't KNOW that, but most of us assume it. I certainly do.

... and indeed, you're wrong. Hotmail provides links to Safari and Firefox.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[Ilgaz]

Funny is they don't figure what actually made youtube succsessful.

Youtube would work in any browser which manages to run Flash in it. That is the trick. Nothing else needed. If Flash runs, Youtube is there even including mobile browsers (e.g. Nokia).

Can't IE really display comments and Google ads? That is all needed for youtube. Flash works in its own way, glory days of "live script" is over really. Sad but true.

IE 6 is still used on large corporations and there is no chance you will be able to "upgrade to chrome" unless you want a visit from BOFH with your manager asking what the hell you are trying to achieve. Yes, a managed client these days won't just stop you, it will also alert admin via security solution, "attempt to install unauthorised software" in recession would be a nice excuse for them.

Oh BTW, unless some miracle happens and a open source/standard commitee invents something which will be a 1.1 MB download, without any dictation of software, completely supported in number 1 pro design suite and various pro video authoring/serving solutions, Flash is there to stay.

HTML5 video would have a huge chance if they were wise to adopt H264 as standard and Dirac as optional codec. Also publicly bitching/whining/attacking both Apple and Adobe which are called "mecca of multimedia" won't really help.

elinks works, really

[Ilgaz]

Besides Telnet joke, the best browser for Slashdot these days is elinks browser. I am not doing a lynx joke.

Slashdot renders beautifully, you can easily scroll discussions.

If you got some sort of *NIX, try elinks (not links) http://slashdot.org/ , you may be surprised.

Re:elinks works, really

[cyphercell]

Hey, I see they've got support for javascript if it is enabled. How is that working, or have you used it yet?

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[redJag]

Works for me in Safari 4.0.2. Pretty cool, no Flash!

No support for IE on YouTube?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, that is one more reason for corporations to stick to IE6?

Re:No support for IE on YouTube?

[DanJ_UK]

No way, it's mostly management that sit on their arse watching videos on youtube / using facebook all day.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[Just Some Guy]

There's Safari for Windows, and Opera has been free for many years now.

I imagine the intersect of ("people forced to use IE6 at work" union "people using IE6 at home because they don't know better") with "people willing and able to install something other than IE or Firefox" is pretty tiny.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[Loopy1492]

I watch youtube in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari and they work fine. I think some of you people just need to not be allowed to touch your computers.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[Loopy1492]

I understand, though. I, personally, don't code for Opera because... uh... it's Opera and I don't care if Opera users can see my site properly. Safari, I think I can understand because form elements can render real funky in Safari and sometimes some javascript events explode in Safari. I am sure they're working on it, but it'll take time.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[sveinungkv]

All I get is a Youtube page with all the thumbnails and videos empty/black (FF3.5).

Unfortunately Youtube currently uses H.264, a codec that don't work with Firefox 3.5. H.264 probably won't work in Firefox until the patent situation around it changes.

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[pod]

IE 6 is still used on large corporations and there is no chance you will be able to "upgrade to chrome" unless you want a visit from BOFH with your manager asking what the hell you are trying to achieve. Yes, a managed client these days won't just stop you, it will also alert admin via security solution, "attempt to install unauthorised software" in recession would be a nice excuse for them.

Perhaps, in a recession, you refrain from looking at YouTube during work hours on company resources.

Re:Nice banner. What about other browsers?

[fastasleep]

how about lynx?

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[bemymonkey]

Hmmm, thanks for the info. I thought the whole point of HTML5 video was to have it work in every standards-compliant browser... *facepalm*

Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu

[sveinungkv]

I thought the whole point of HTML5 video was to have it work in every standards-compliant browser...

It was. It was specified that browsers playing HTML 5 video should support Ogg Theora, the codec that Firefox 3.5 among others uses. But it was removed after pressure from Apple and Nokia.

On the bright side Ogg Theora is supported by Firefox 3.5, Opera say they will support it, Google Chrome is on board, Safari can be made to support it by installing Theora codecs for QiuctTime and there are ways to make other browsers support it as well. So the problem is solved on the publisher side: publish in Ogg Theora. Hopefully this will put enough content coded in Ogg Theora out there to make it a de facto standard that solves the problem on the viewer side as well by pressuring webpages like Youtube to offer it and Safari and IE to implement it.