Slashdot Mirror
Google To End Support For IE6
itwbennett writes "Google announced Friday that it will be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6, more than two weeks after the attacks on Google's servers that targeted a vulnerability in IE6. In a blog post, Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager, said that support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that 'key functionality' won't work properly. Sheth suggested that customers upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else."
It should be noted though that Firefox/Chrome/Opera are not alternatives in a large environment, and the reason for this is that none of these three browsers have thought a lot about deployment.
Chrome uses it's own custom "install into userprofile" thing, which can be pretty nice for standalone computers at home without admin rights.
Firefox comes with it's own installer, but doesn't bring any update tools for large enterprises, and it doesn't use the standard MSI format.
Opera can't be updated by non-admin users either.
Not of these three browsers can be managed centrally using group policies, like IE can. Sure, there's the Frontmotion Firefox packages, but this isn't Mozilla providing them and they're not very good either.
Microsoft's WSUS has the ability to use 3rd party patches. Not one of the competitors browsers allow updates to be installed through WSUS/WU. WSUS is very popular in small-to-midsized companies where a full software deployment solution like SCCM is overkill and too expensive, but automatic distrubtion of security patches is still key to a secure work environment.
That's why i still recommend all our clients to run IE8 - because it requires less effort, is easier to keep secure (A fully patched IE8 is better than a 16 months old version of Firefox) and is preinstalled anyway.
Indeed. And not only the front-end, but the back-end too.
Then there's the whole API issue -- they may not even have it. And porting existing data to a new platform may be a quite involved job, especially if the solution was bought as a black box back when.
Yes, companies today are paying for the mistakes done by managers during the dot-com boom.
> The ability to be remotely installed, and managed is a huge feature that is unique to IE.
The remote installation is unique to IE because any other browser will happily run from a network share. If you want it locally, you just need to set up the shortcut and synchronise some files. No integration with the OS, no "installation" necessary.
The management part is true, although it also depends on the browser being linked in with the OS. So you can only ever have one version of IE installed, and it will obey the restrictions put down by policies. Other browsers can be restricted up to a point, but you could always run your own portable version from a memory stick.