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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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: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...

[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: 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: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:Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade

[Lendrick]

Firefox does.

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".

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.

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?"

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.

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: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: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.

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: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.