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MS — Dropping IE6 Support "Not an Option"
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft wants to see IE6 gone as much as anyone else, but the company isn't going to make the decision for its users anytime soon. The software giant has been pushing IE6 and IE7 users to move to IE8 ever since it arrived in March 2009, but it's still up to the user to make the final decision to upgrade: 'The engineering point of view on IE6 starts as an operating systems supplier. Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product. We keep our commitments. Many people expect what they originally got with their operating system to keep working whatever release cadence particular subsystems have. As engineers, we want people to upgrade to the latest version. We make it as easy as possible for them to upgrade. Ultimately, the choice to upgrade belongs to the person responsible for the PC.'" Of course some big Web sites aren't waiting for Microsoft. Reader Yamir writes, "Google's Orkut, a social networking service popular in Brazil and India, has started warning IE6 users that the browser will no longer be supported. Just last month, YouTube started showing a similar message."
Supporting it is not an option.
I don't want to upgrade from IE6 for one very simple reason: I think the interfaces of the later IE versions suck donkey balls.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
What is missed is that IE7 will never be offered for windows 2000- so IE 6 support is tied to Windows 2000 life cycle.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The first link is about MSFT's logo, not about IE6. What am I missing here?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Come on, Microsoft, if you're trying to end-of-life an operating system that's actively being deployed on Netbooks, what's the problem with turning off support for IE6?
Where's the article? It just links to something about Microsoft's new logo for their stores.
It's hard to believe IE6 is still holding the Internet back as much as it is. I'll be so glad when I no longer need to consider it in my web development process.
I still see about 1 in 6 people using it on my Canadian sites, so I still have to waste dev time on it.
Hopefully this push from Google will really help the situation.
Since we rarely upgrade software here until it's officially EoL'd, that MS isn't dropping this means no real chance for IE 7 or 8 for another year.
Which means I have to explain to the using class why their browser at work looks different from the one at home. Somehow, "It's a different version" only sinks in for about a week; after that, it's passed through the other end, and they have to be reminded again.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Of course not, what about Windows 95/Me/2000 users? One of those systems cannot run IE7 if I recall correctly.
o_O
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft are *happy* that these websites are dropping support and guiding their users in the right direction. That'll make things easier for Microsoft to move forward too. They put their focus behind Internet Explorer 8 now, and of course want to do that. But I can understand their stance -- their customers would raise hell if they just plain made an exception from their product lifecycle policy for the web browser, that just happens to be among the most used products in Windows there is.
So all in all, this feels like a non-story to me.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I have some ancient version of MS Money that I've used for 10 years or so and it has been working perfectly even on IE7, but IE8 breaks it, so I'm staying on IE7 until I find an OSS money management program that is as good or better than Money and/or Quicken that has Money data file import features. Not much luck so far, sadly. Any good suggestions?
I can't find any engadget.com pages, but I did find this.
Microsoft: "dropping support for IE6 is not an option" - Ars Technica
Also, Engineering POV: IE6 - IEBlog.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
A quick search shows that this is the article being quoted: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-dropping-support-for-ie6-is-not-an-option.ars
I have to tell you, IE8 runs horribly on my desktop computer. When I installed XP over 2000, I upgraded right from 6 to 8 and hated it. The startup time was ridiculous, something like 30 seconds or 60 seconds, and opening a new tab took just as long as starting a new instance of IE8. Even after starting it once, starting it again wasn't must faster. That's my reason that I "downgraded" Internet Explorer to version 7, which really was an upgrade from version 8 in terms of performance, starting in about 3 seconds instead. I suppose that I can't be alone in this - there must be others for whom 7 or 6 runs better than 8 for whatever reason.
I know as far as I'm concerned IE7 fixed a lot of bad things with Internet Explorer that made it a big difference over 6, whereas 8 just seems to be an incremental improvement over 7 that really should not be pushed by Microsoft as a Critical Update. MS is probably coming out with frequent updates like this now just to try to stay competitive with Firefox and Safari and Chrome. I know that the Steam Overlay browser which embeds IE's Trident engine certainly got a speed boost from me going with 7 over 8, and that's the way it's going to stay unless and until Microsoft releases something newer for me to try on Windows XP. With Vista and soon Windows 7 out in retail, I don't think anything else is coming for XP users though.
Good thing I don't even use Internet Explorer as my primary browser then. Long live my mighty combo of Firefox, Opera, and Konqueror!
Most men are not thought unwise until they speak.
and by sorce i meant source, sorry one-handed typing
they would simply stop accepting the browser at ALL OF THEIR SITES. If they did that, nearly all of the rest of the world would follow suite. NOBODY in the development world wants this demoniacal abortion. BUT, while MS continues to accept, then everybody else is forced to accept it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
... so many /.ers don't RTFA, that the moderators have decided they don't even need to post a link to the FA!
Tears running from my eyes...
"We keep our commitments."
Gods.... Like, did they keep commitments to deliver the vaporware they used to gas to death a slew of companies over the past 20+ years that offered an add-on to or superior product than ms' wares? That spokesperson must not have seriously studied ms' history, or is too enamored with the company to be honest about it.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Just so you know the "Extended Support" of windows XP will end 08/04/2014 ... are we gonna be stuck with ie6 in government until then ?
My company works with several 3rd party vendors* who are locked into IE6. They haven't even ported their software to IE7, much less 8.
It's horrible. The good news is a couple of those 3rd party vendor programs do work in firefox.
*yeah, yeah. I know. It's a horrible business practice, but the good news for us and them is we're a rabbit's whisker away from dropping them for additional vendors.
Sent from your iPad.
Yeah, sure it was great for MS to support a product that was made obsolete 3 years ago by the release of IE7, and then doubly-obsolete by the release of IE8.
Do people really expect product support for a release of software 8 years old that has been superseded by two version upgrades? I hope not. Especially since they got it for 'free' with their operating system. (Ha!)
I suspect that's the case for many people, at least in the US. It's on my company PC, which I have no control over. The scary part? I work for a gov't contractor. A big one. And the IT people have no interest whatsoever in trying something new.
Even my 11 year old laptop, which is still alive, runs FireFox on Win98. Not very quickly, mind you, but faster than it ran IE.
For reference, it's a Gateway (Gateway 2000 at the time) original Pentium 200 MHz "MMX" with 48 MB of RAM. And it only has a 10-base wired ethernet card anyway, so it's not like browser speed matters much.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
M$ is full of shit once again. "we want people to upgrade to the latest version. We make it as easy as possible for them to upgrade. Ultimately, the choice to upgrade belongs to the person responsible for the PC"
Can they say the same when it comes to windows messenger or live or whatever the fuck they wanna call it these days?? they FORCE you to upgrade to latest version and make sure the "older" version cant connect online
I find it sad that a decision by a single company can create small, flaming hoops for the Internet to jump through. I'm happy that the browser (r)evolution we're experiencing is helping this, though. With all this sudden competition, it's not only forcing the browsers to whip up into Interwebs standards but also get rid of the monopoly that Microsoft has over the browser market. Hopefully, we'll never be at this strange crossroads again. Gogo capitalism!
Hell, I'm amazed Microsoft doesn't just annoy the IE6'ers into submission. That doesn't seem out of their league.
I'm not a doctor, but I've seen one on TV.
TMI man, TMI.
.
Quite to the contrary. Microsoft makes it very difficult for users to upgrade to the latest version. FireFox and Opera both still support the current versions of their browsers on Windows 2000. Yet Microsoft had dropped Windows 2000 from their list of OS's supported by their newer browsers long ago, even when Windows 2000 was supported by Microsoft.
Have you ever wondered why all the other browser developers can support Windows 2000 while Microsoft is completely unable to? I mean, if the Microsoft engineers say they want to make it easy for people to upgrade, then I'm sure there must be some fundamental technical issue with IE that stymies the engineers, and prevents them from doing what they say they want to do. What is the problem that prevents Microsoft from bringing newer versions of IE to Windows 2000?
I work for one of the largest media companies in the UK which is owned by the largest media company in the world - We still use IE6 :(.
It's madness. Though Firefox 3+ is used primarily
Seriously, if they did go ahead and somehow force IE6 to stop working, or refuse to provide support for it, this thread would be filled with people screaming about MS screwing the end user, and waiting impatiently for the DOJ to come swooping in.
At work we are forced to use IE6 because JD Edwards EnterpriseOne appears to have been coded specifically for the steaming piece of shit. Firefox and Opera both will not function properly. My job makes me want to kill myself.
Think about that...
Ubuntu LTS is to be supported for 5 years, but only with limited backported software, not even the most important software package like major upgrade of gnome, firefox, open office are always available in the backport repro.
while Every release of Windows is LTS, and as long as 10 years! Also, new core software upgrade are usually offered even after a long time. (IE8, Live Messenger 9, Office 2007 on XP, a 6 years old product!)
On Linux? Even if you get the source, the chance of compiling the latest software bits on a 6 years old box is unlikely...Either kernel updates are needed, or glibc, or missing libraries, or the dependent libraries needs new GCC...usually end up upgrading GCC+Glibc+Kernel+whatsoever to get some new software. Or to put it simply, either spend a few days to figure that out, compile and install the dependencies else where, or to upgrade the distro.
Hey but I just want that new software, but keeping all my old software and configure...they didn't break and I don't want to touch them.
Besides unstable hardware support, I have been using Linux for 10+ years and this is the single thing that I hate most...when will debian package support libraries of different version installed side by side...?
Think about it...I think Microsoft is really doing an excellent job here. Although DLL Hell induced problem sometimes do happen (but a lot less since XP...), but still when they are still adding new features for a 6 years old OS. What else can you expect?
Several very large corporation (the one I work for included) still use IE6 purely because some in-house web based systems were designed to run in IE6, and work very poorly with IE7/8, Firefox etc. Upgrading these systems to work properly on modern and more compliant browsers is an extremely costly exercise, and this is a market MS would like to keep happy.
Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!
Here goes: "I don't want to upgrade from IE6 for one very simple reason: I don't want to install IE6 in the first place."
Do I win?