Google To End Support For IE6

Finally by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-30 02:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's about time high traffic sites stop supporting that abomination of a browser.

Die IE6 die.

Re:Ding Dong by Ant+P. · 2010-01-30 02:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Now if only they'd kill off IE7 and 8 too.

Good riddance! by lukas84 · 2010-01-30 02:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's time to see IE6 go. Unfortunately, Microsoft will support IE6 until support for XP runs out - this model needs to change, badly.

SP3 for XP should've made IE7 mandatory. Unfortunately, the right decisions are not always good for business.

Re:Good riddance! by arth1 · 2010-01-30 02:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's time to see IE6 go. Unfortunately, Microsoft will support IE6 until support for XP runs out - this model needs to change, badly.
The problem is that many large companies have internal systems that were written back when Microsoft pushed ActiveX as the solution to all the world's problems. They can't upgrade their users' browsers until and unless the in-house software they rely on has been upgraded. And sometimes that's difficult, because of the dot-com-bubble bursting, taking with it the companies that made the badware.
I know one Very Large company that just upgraded its internal users from IE4 to IE6. IE7 isn't feasible, and IE8 even less so.
Personally, if I have to use an IE browser, I prefer IE7. IE8 has too many problems, like Z ordering (just try using it without click-to-raise) or incompatibility with non-default high DPI settings.
But better yet is Seamonkey, the true inheritor to the Netscape Communicator legacy. Same rendering engine as Firefox, but a much smaller memory footprint, and configuration menus that haven't been dumbed down for the masses. Plus the built-in HTML composer comes in handy every now and then.
Re:Good riddance! by Kjella · 2010-01-30 02:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's time to see IE6 go. Unfortunately, Microsoft will support IE6 until support for XP runs out - this model needs to change, badly.
SP3 for XP should've made IE7 mandatory. Unfortunately, the right decisions are not always good for business.
Yeah, because forced upgrades also go over so well with this crowd. Should a RHEL/SLES/Ubuntu LTS release of Linux force upgrades to Firefox? Is it okay to do that just because the next major version is free? There's a lot you can blame Microsoft for, but it's the companies that don't want to upgrade which is the problem here. Or would you rather Microsoft moves more in the direction of Apple too, making decisions for you than to leave it to the users?

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Re:Good riddance! by lukas84 · 2010-01-30 02:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, because forced upgrades also go over so well with this crowd.
This isn't DRM-style remote content removal, it's about support. Microsoft has decided that they will support IE6 until support for XP runs out, which is in 2014 - plenty of time to go. The same will happen with IE7, which will be supported until support for Vista runs out, which IMO is also unnecessary.
I can understand why Microsoft does it and i also understand why large corporations don't like to do upgrades (because they mostly use crappy, unmaintained software written for a single use case by idiot developers that got rich by delivering a shitty product).
IE8 is usuable. It works. It's much more secure than IE6. The only people that haven't upgraded yet need a hard incentive to justify an upgrade to their management - "support runs out" is about the hardest incentive you can get.
Re:Good riddance! by lukas84 · 2010-01-30 02:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

The problem is that many large companies have internal systems that were written back when Microsoft pushed ActiveX as the solution to all the world's problems.

And there's a very simple solution to this, that i've seen in a large corporation here. Upgrade all the clients to IE7/8, and publish links to those legacy applications using Citrix, which runs IE6 ontop of Windows Server 2003. Make sure that IE6 in Citrix can only reach the legacy apps, and not the Internet in general. Problem solved.
Re:Good riddance! by dissy · 2010-01-30 03:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

There's a lot you can blame Microsoft for, but it's the companies that don't want to upgrade which is the problem here.
Exactly!
These companies are faced with a choice.
A) They keep IE6 so their internal "webapps" (IE6 apps really) and such don't need upgraded, but since only IE6 is installed they have no web browser.
or B) They install a web browser app, and need to spend money to fix/update those IE6-apps to work with a web browser instead.
If the company chooses 'A', they willingly and knowingly have chosen not to have web browsing capabilities on those computers.
Sure, Microsoft has made some choices that make life harder for people needing to make that choice. But lack of forced upgrades is not one of those poor decisions.
Designing IE in such a way that multiple versions can't be installed along side would be a valid complaint, but it should be clear by now it is a complaint they will never address.
Re:Good riddance! by jafiwam · 2010-01-30 03:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

The problem comes from two not-so-problematical things working together;
1. That IE can only exist as one version on the machine.
2. That corporate users are so fucking afraid of using a real browser. (I am looking at you, you pathetic corporate dick sucking IT guys that can't seem to handle an easy to install free Browser.)
Put these two together, and you get a large crowd of self-righteous "I am working so I must get to use my shitty equipment on any web site I want" people that subject IE6 on the rest of the Internet that has have moved on. They use IE6 because someone made a bad decision and won't own up to it. And really, what exactly ARE these mysterious and absolutely critical ActiveX apps? Are you fucking serious? If they are that critical, maybe write some VB to do the same thing. Wouldn't that be fancy? Or is this just another lame job protection thing that you are afraid your rickety shitty ass app being replaced by a 16 line batch file will put you out on the street.
It is this attitude that truly makes these corporate idiots deserve a baseball bat to the back of the head.
IE6 doesn't even render DIV tags properly. Which pretty much means two versions of every web site. (It renders them like tables, with all of their limitations. Why even support it at all if you can't layer your DIVs?)
We don't let horse and buggy on the interstate anymore, no matter HOW rich the idiot is. There's no reason to put up with IE6's shit anymore either. The fucking thing is NINE GODDAMN YEARS OLD, and is FOUR FULL OPERATING SYSTEMS BEHIND.
Kill it. Kill IE6. Kill anybody that still uses it, their fault or not.
Re:Good riddance! by TheRaven64 · 2010-01-30 03:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think you are underestimating ActiveX. An ActiveX control is basically a Windows shared library. These are not really web apps, they're windows apps that use the browser for deployment (which, for Intranet use, isn't a completely terrible idea). Making them not use ActiveX basically means completely rewriting the client.

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Re:Good riddance! by TheRaven64 · 2010-01-30 03:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft only made it difficult if you want IE7 or 8 as your browser for external apps. If you want FireFox, Chrome, or Safari for the Internet and IE 6 for the Intranet, it's pretty simple...

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Good riddance! by lukas84 · 2010-01-30 03:19 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Re:Good riddance! by stang · 2010-01-30 03:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
...problem is that many large companies have internal systems that were written back when Microsoft pushed ActiveX as the solution...
Actually, if these companies had written their internal system software as a big ActiveX component, they wouldn't have this problem. ActiveX is (as far as IE's concerned) simply a plugin architecture. Note that the Flash plugin for IE (an ActiveX control) works the same in IE6-IE8.
The problem with ActiveX is that it's just not an appropriate plugin technology for browsers. It has no inherent sandboxing capabilities; there's no way to differentiate between a browser plugin and any other ActiveX control; and Windows comes with several ActiveX controls that should never be allowed to be used in a browser (FileSystemObject, anyone)? For what it was designed for -- resuable components for desktop applications -- it's great, but MS should have put a little more thought into what they were unleashing when they decided to make ActiveX the plugin standard for IE. And no, I don't count "signed" and "marked safe for scripting" features as thought.
No, the problem is that these business systems were all put together using HTML/CSS content that was only ever written for, or tested with, IE. Companies that needed these systems took their bizapps people and told 'em to "make a web version". As is typical with internal apps, they were written to meet the company's needs as quickly and cheaply as possible; which means "works in our current environment", not "is ready for the future". Add in years of ad-hoc tweaks, changes, subsystem additions, and you've got a crufty piece of web tech that barely works in the originally spec'ed envrionment.
Asking for cross-browser/web standards output from a bunch of stuff written by programmers who:
- Are used to working with client-side/Winforms VB or C# .Net (or VB6) and SQL Server/MS Access databases for their bizapps
- Who may or may not be any good at their jobs
- Who may not be the same people who originally wrote the code
- Who were told to pick "fast and cheap" as the two out of three (fast, cheap, good)
- Who were told all of this 10 years ago
is optimistic, at best.
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Re:Good riddance! by symbolset · 2010-01-30 03:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

There's a lot you can blame Microsoft for, but it's the companies that don't want to upgrade which is the problem here.
The companies stuck on IE6 are the very ones that want to upgrade to the next versions - they're "Microsoft shops" and have been for a decade. They're into Software Assurance bigtime. Unfortunately for them they got committed, and built their core mission critical apps on a platform with no compatible migration strategy. They were entitled to expect a compatible migration strategy, and they didn't get one. It's fair to blame Microsoft for that lack.
Unfortunately, they can and will eventually migrate to a newer version of the Microsoft browser and services which also lack a compatible migration strategy, thus getting stuck in the same trap more than once. You would think they would learn and embrace this novel concept of "standards", but no.

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Re:Good riddance! by arth1 · 2010-01-30 03:34 · Score: 4, Informative

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.
Re:Good riddance! by hairyfeet · 2010-01-30 04:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Or you could just use the nice MSIs made by Frontmotion. They have a community edition with GPO support, even one that allows you to pass it out with preconfigured extensions. One of the nice things about FOSS is if the parent group refuses to see to a need someone else can step up.

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Re:Good riddance! by Rich0 · 2010-01-30 05:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Look at it from the company's perspective.
You sell widgets. Somebody offers you a new widget processing application for $3M. It runs on IE6 - great, that's the corporate standard (in 2005)! Sure, the price seems high, but then again if we save $500k per year for 10 years even with time-value-of-money it works out as a great deal.
Now we're in year 5, and just starting to make money back on the deal, and a bunch of IT geeks tell us that we can't use IE6, but we don't have an upgrade path. Oh, the company that sold us the original software is still around, and for another $2M we can upgrade and fix the browser problem. But, the whole basis for selling the original project to management was the 10-year investment, and now it looks like a 5-year investment. Plus, the original product still "works fine," so how exactly are we supposed to sell them on an upgrade?
Now, consider that in addition to the widget processing app you have a general ledger app, an HR app, a bunch of sales CRM apps, some widget R&D apps, and 47 other things like that which all cost a fortune to deploy and are now obsolete - but only technically.
At our company they had a similar mess with win2k and NT. Company buys a dozen $500k machines whose controllers run on NT (slightly stale, but still pretty common back then). Those machines have 15-year depreciation schedules. 5-7 years later the company that makes the machines doesn't offer new controller software - so you're stuck on NT. IT points out, hey - we checked and you can just buy their newer $500k machines and those work great with XP. Only problem is that the machines were financed based on a 15-year investment and the ONLY reason for getting rid of them is the controller OS. So, we firewall the network they are on and cross our fingers. What are we going to do - get into the machine business?
Before you ask - of course we try to avoid this stuff when we make buying decisions! However, when you get into serious amounts of capital you'll find you have 2-3 serious vendors at best, and it is in their interest to build in technical obsolescence. Then you add in the fact that the buying decision usually rests with the people using the machines, which is almost never IT. They'll listen to you, but given a choice between having more features now, or not leaving their successor's successor a big problem, they'll pick the former.
Re:Good riddance! by gbjbaanb · 2010-01-30 06:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

just wait - the re-implementation will be 'one-click' .net apps, and the problems will simply continue from one broken MS technology into another.
Re:Good riddance! by The+End+Of+Days · 2010-01-30 06:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Redesigning a web interface is NOT that hard, even if it's all activeX shit
Everything is easy when there's no chance you'll ever have to be the one to do it.
Re:Good riddance! by richlv · 2010-01-30 10:05 · Score: 2, Funny

I know one Very Large company that just upgraded its internal users from IE4 to IE6.
ergh. could you name the company ? as an ac, if required. just so that... you know... i could avoid their products as much as possible.
"serious mismanagement" doesn't even sound right for that decision.

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Rich
Re:Good riddance! by arth1 · 2010-01-30 16:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

The IT people can't just "get their act together". They have no means to replace complete systems. If a company depends on systems that only works with IE6, not only do they need replacement systems, but they also need data migration paths. That's not something IT can do, and in the case of "black box" type producs, it can be exceedingly difficult, time consuming and costly.
The inconvenience of some users who browse the internet isn't enough for the CEOs to open the wallets and fund replacements, as long as the old systems still work. The IT departments don't get a vote on this.
Legacy systems will only be replaced when they become too costly to maintain or lack needed functionality that can't be patched on. Which is why you not only find IE6 in many companies, but quite likely a bunch of old NT machines in a corner that run specific vital functions, not to mention 3270/CICS and old COBOL apps with code from the 70s.
And interestingly enough, one of the main reasons for virtualization (like VMware, citrix, xen, kvm, qm, 370-compatible LPARs) isn't better resource management or consolidation, but because the legacy systems won't run on new hardware, and you just can't buy the old hardware anymore.

Epitaph by johnw · 2010-01-30 02:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else

What an appropriate assessment of IE6.

Re:Epitaph by jellomizer · 2010-01-30 02:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

I am sure you get get firefox at least to work with it and you are still better off then ie6

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Epitaph by dissy · 2010-01-30 02:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

I have windows 2000, with IE6. IE7 and IE8 can't be installed. Moreover, the latest version of google toolbar won't install anyhow since during install it complains that it can't find some DLL interface name.
I think I see the root of your problem...
Now I'm the last person to knock old hardware and software, but comon dude, you are willingly running 10 year old software!
That complaint is about as valid as being angry an Apple//e from the 80s can't do that new fangled 'http' thing.

Subject line is way too broad by shoppa · 2010-01-30 02:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

I personally use Lynx and for 99% of my Google use, it works just as well as it did 14 years ago.

I know that for some, Google = Google Docs or Google Site, but honestly I don't even know what those are.

Google, to me, is just Google search.

Re:Ding Dong by DJRumpy · 2010-01-30 02:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Did anyone else just fall out of their chair when they read this? I was a little disappointed that in TFA, they mention they would suggest users upgrade to IE7.

"Support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1, Sheth said in the post. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that "key functionality" won't work properly, he said.

Sheth suggested that customers upgrade to Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox 3.0, Google Chrome 4.0 or Safari 3.0, or more recent versions of those browsers. "

Why would they even suggest IE7?

I'm also wondering how this will affect corporate infrastructures who rely on Docs or Sites. My company is one of those stuck in IE6 ZombieLand, but we are already in the certification process for Windows 7 and IE8. Unfortunately, for an organization our size, it takes 1-2 years to move to a new version of windows. I can't imagine we're all that unique. This time line seems very aggressive (don't get me wrong, I understand Google's perspective completely).

Re:Ding Dong by Thoreauly+Nuts · 2010-01-30 02:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

its not the best browser alright but its a huge step in right direction

The only reason it's a step in the right direction is because every other browser has dragged Microsoft kicking and screaming into the present. They certainly wouldn't have done it on their own...

--
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. " ---Henry David Thoreau

Re:Ding Dong by DJRumpy · 2010-01-30 02:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Apologies. I should have been more clear. Why wouldn't they just suggest the latest release version for the IE browser (IE8) to begin with? I'm not going to debate it's merits or cons, and I don't use IE, but it doesn't make sense, or seem very responsible to suggest an older browser version that is arguably less standards compliant than IE8. It would seem like Google is just shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Everyone should do this by bhunachchicken · 2010-01-30 02:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Seriously, it might sound really "anti-Microsoft" or being pathetic, but everyone should really either be blacklisting or reducing the available functionality of websites to users still browsing with MSIE 6.0

Reducing functionality and putting up a message to let users know that they need to upgrade, would be the best decision.

After all, it's not as if there aren't any alternatives available...

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Re:I think Google is being reactionary here by olsmeister · 2010-01-30 02:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

IE6 has long been known to be non-standards compliant and insecure, and quite frankly these companies should have had the foresight to be moving away from it years ago.

Microsoft themselves wants companies to abandon IE6.

Consider it a little tough love from Google. If they announced they'd end support for IE6 in 18 months, nobody would do anything for the next 15 months.

Re:I think Google is being reactionary here by AdmiralXyz · 2010-01-30 02:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

No way. The writing has been on the wall for IE6 for years, both from Google (many of their more advanced products, like Wave, state very explicitly that something more modern than IE6 is needed if you want to partake), and across the internet (Digg, YouTube, etc.). Any IT shop that hasn't already begun plans to migrate away from IE6 by now is just being stubborn, and needs a kick in the pants.

I know why there are so many businesses that won't upgrade from IE6, with their legacy web apps that they refuse to upgrade, but for God's sake, IE8 has compatibility mode. For the good of humanity, upgrade!

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Comment removed by account_deleted · 2010-01-30 02:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Firefox 3.6 works just fine with windows 2000 by voss · 2010-01-30 02:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html

Re:I think Google is being reactionary here by bobdinkel · 2010-01-30 03:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

It may seem reactionary, but I suspect the debate about whether to end support for IE6 has been going on for quite some time.

I would be very interested to know what percentage of Google Docs users are still using IE6. I would also be very interested in knowing how much it costs Google to support IE6 (the recent attacks notwithstanding). The development costs of supporting IE6 in any sort of web application are not insignificant. I suspect the percentage of the development budget that Google uses to support IE6 is disproportionate to the percentage of IE6 users.

Dropping IE6 is inevitable. Sure it leaves some people behind, but I'll bet the benefits of doing so significantly outweigh the drawbacks.

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A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.

Re:I think Google is being reactionary here by kbrasee · 2010-01-30 03:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Corporate policies can - or are you suggesting ingore your company's policy?

If a company has issues with you "breaking corporate policy" because you install Firefox on your machine, then that's one more reason to quit.

Re:Ding Dong by jellomizer · 2010-01-30 03:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

You say it is a bad thing...

Microsoft goal for winning the browser war back in the late 90's was so they could have control of the standards and make the web their own so it would be useless to use the web without windows and Internet Explorer.

Yes they won the war but they failed in their objective. Why...

1. ActiveX security issues and the rise of internet skum...
When ActiveX was competing against Java Applets they made some things that made the users at the time happy but was short sited... ActiveX while faster also allowed writing to the system and its only security measure was a warning. Thinking their user base will say no when they go to that porn site and it asked to install this app so they can watch the movie... Then this spread and went across thew the advertisers channels so even legit sites with shady advertising companies found ways to install crap on your computer without you knowing. In essence limiting ActiveX to intranet applications. And shortly after that flash took over the spot as it did cooler graphics.

2. Linux and Apache web server.
IIS had a few big security problems at the wrong time of internet development where a lot of companies went with apache and linux for its server. Now that doesn't really mean that it will directly stop microsoft plans however the Developers who worked on those system initally did their testing with Netscape, Mozilla firefox and others to make sure they got the stuff to work then they finally tested and did cleanup work in IE. So the new post 2001 developers wanted to be more platform independent.

3. Mac Popularity + Linux desktop too... IE5 was the last Mac Browser Microsoft made. Then during last decade there was a surge in the popularity in macs. They were popular enough for developers and companies to take notice. As well Linux users who added to the problems so developers learned there is a lot of pain leaving out 5% market share.

4. Firefox and Webkit browseers... At the time it was the small light and fast browser that gave IE a run for its money on speed. (Today IE is one of the slowest) Back then IE loaded and rendered so much more quickly that using others will feel painful. Then they also had better CSS standard support allowing developers a reason to get rid of IE6.

5. Mobile devices... Microsoft floundered in mobile devices there were doing Ok until the blackberry with opera and the iPhone. And now with android webkit chome based. Developers who want to get that market need to make sure other browers get use too.

6. IE6 Bugs and Security... A big set security problems targeted at IE6 really got a lot of people to switch to firefox and demand that their new browser works for the app

7. High Speed Internet... Back when IE6 was new most people were still on dialup download Netscape, Mozilla or Opera was a big task that took a long time. Today it is easy to get the browser and be up rather quickly.

8. Flash... Micromeda then Adobe made flash and they made it for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris... and for all the major browsers. What it did was make a lot of browers made the web look cool.

9. Integrated web browser wasn't used very well. After all that legal battles and anti-trust fines microsoft paid... No one really used the inegrated browser the was it was meant to be. They still downloaded normal apps or clicked on the e to get to the internet the integration didn't add to the experience.

10.The Vista/IE 7 Flop... I dont know what was going on with microsoft back 4 years ago. But they were not putting on their A-Game competing against the wrong competitors making lofty goals and not meeting them what ever was the problem Vista/IE 7 made people want to stay with IE6/XP for a bit longer until they can get a good version. Making IE Get even more out of date.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Microsoft phases out support for Netscape 4 by David+Gerard · 2010-01-30 03:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Microsoft is phasing out support for Netscape 4, in retaliation for Google declaring Internet Explorer 6 a "pustulent syphilitic drunken crack whore with no mates. And bad breath. Who smells funny."

Google has given up bothering to support IE6 on its sites, directing the doubtless hideously virus-infected users of the browser to download another browser. Any other browser. "Lynx will give you a vastly superior YouTube experience. Now it will, anyway."

"The Mozilla Foundation has completely failed to fix problems in Netscape 4 that have been around for years," said Microsoft marketing marketer Jonathan Ness. "Furthermore, Firefox gets just as many hacks as Internet Explorer, and pay no attention to my lengthening nose."

In December, Chinese hackers exploited a weak spot in IE6 that Microsoft had only known about since September. Following this, governments worldwide told people to get the hell off IE6, except Britain, which relies on IE6 to leak data when there are insufficient funds for USB sticks or train journeys for civil servants.

Web designers around the world welcomed Google's move, but have not given up their Bill Gates dartboards just yet. "'That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.' Steve Ballmer said that, you know."

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Re:I think Google is being reactionary here by espamo · 2010-01-30 03:41 · Score: 2, Informative

I know why there are so many businesses that won't upgrade from IE6, with their legacy web apps that they refuse to upgrade, but for God's sake, IE8 has compatibility mode. For the good of humanity, upgrade!

If by compatibibility mode, you mean compatibility view, according to Microsoft it will "display the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7", not ie6.

Re:Ding Dong by LordNimon · 2010-01-30 03:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why wouldn't they just suggest the latest release version for the IE browser (IE8) to begin with?

Because there are people who are currently using IE7, so why should they upgrade? In fact, my company *just* announced an upgrade to IE7 for IT-managed systems. No, that's not a typo.

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To mold a new reality... closer to the heart

Re:Why there is no virtual IE6 in sandboxes? by lukas84 · 2010-01-30 04:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why is not there a product that will run IE6 inside a virtual machine?

There are plenty of tools to do this (MED-V, XP Mode, etc.), but there's no business case for it, except "being more secure".

This can be very hard to sell, so it's not only a technology problem but an organizational one too, because upgrading from "IE6 on XP" to "IE6 in a VM accessed by XP" or "IE6 on a TS accessed by XP" means you'll need to spend a lot of money. You'll need a very good CIO to sell this to the rest of management why this should be done. And if the CIO doesn't think this is a good idea, then there's no chance in hell that this will ever happen.

Re:Ding Dong by Low+Ranked+Craig · 2010-01-30 04:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

Even the hugest step is not all that helpful when you're 80 steps behind already. You'd think that a company with an $8 billion R&D budget could build a web browser that is 100% standards compliant, performs well, and adds enough value for their users to make it the browser of choice on Windows. Apple and Google can did it, so it's definitely doable. Both Chrome and Safari on my Mac score 100/100 on the acid 3 test. Firefox: 93, Opera: 85.

IE 8 on Window 7? 20. After getting stuck at 12 for 6 seconds.

In the real world this is not that apparent, an I can generally get pages to display identically in FF, Safari, Chrome, Opera and IE8, but I do need to modify CSS that renders fine in the other 4 to make IE8 work, particularly in the area of margins and padding.

There is no good excuse for a company with Microsoft's resources to build such shitty software. I'm a little apprehensive about how crappy their implementation of HTML 5 will be; IE 9 will be the new IE 6. Bet on it.

--
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...

Re:Why there is no virtual IE6 in sandboxes? by VortexCortex · 2010-01-30 04:25 · Score: 2, Informative

Does it have to be virtual? If you just want to sandbox IE why not just use Sandboxie?

Re:Ding Dong by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-30 04:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

And why should they? I mean how exactly does IE8 build shareholder value or add value to the Windows platform?

Intentionally or not, I think you've managed to highlight one of the biggest problems in modern-day business. There's a lot of emphasis of "building or adding value", but there really doesn't seem to be much consideration of how to manage its evil twin, which is the erosion of value.

When you only look at things that show tangible and immediate gains, you're doing the equivalent of nurturing the leaves of a plant and ignoring its root system. When support is an "expense" or "cost center", when the money you save by routing customers - and potential customers - into Phone Menu Hell, when, by a thousand cuts you make the people who send in the money (whether directly or indirectly) feel abused, neglected and resentful, that's all eroding value. Like a weak root system, it may not immediately be apparent what's wrong, but the "plant" as a whole cannot flourish.

None of which matters to the grab-the-money-and-run crowd, but once you've grabbed the money, you're best off not investing it in places like that.

Re:Huge developer time savings. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-30 05:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm calling bullshit on this one.

Some companies will consider this change a bonus by Goldenhawk · 2010-01-30 05:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Some large corporation sysadmins will be thrilled that certain Google apps won't work correctly anymore.

My computing environment is heavily managed with group policy and very few user rights, and my company has many many thousands of users worldwide. We cannot even use thumb drives or install any software or hardware. For web connection, we are firmly stuck with IE6 and other outdated web software, mainly because of poorly-programmed corporate web apps with ultra-high security requirements (ironically) that the admins cannot afford to update for fear of the unknowns in new browsers. (For crying out loud, we still have a mandatory installation of Netscape!)

So the admins are always blocking off as many non-work-related sites as possible, and having such sites NOT work correctly will only further discourage users from trying them. For example, we can't use GMail or any other popular webmail sites. And I'm honestly surprised they haven't blocked Google Docs or Google Calendar yet, as they could "leak" data to the outside world.

I'd be that most large corporations are also in a similar fight against their users' desires for newer browsers and freer internet access. So I doubt that this move will really encourage many companies to ditch IE6 faster, and may in fact have the opposite effect in some cases.

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--Brandon / Split Infinity Music

Re:Ding Dong by uassholes · 2010-01-30 05:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Of course, with their resources, they could be 100% compliant if they wanted to be so.

If they wanted to be so; if it was in their financial best interest. If it fit their business model; which it does not.

Apparently it is difficult to be standards compliant, and yet provide a different experience from the other browsers when the user is accessing Outlook Web Access, or other M$ web applications.

Re:Huge developer time savings. by mister_playboy · 2010-01-30 05:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not only that, but we talked them into dropping support for IE completely, including IE7 and IE8. We got them to standardize on Chrome, and we're currently in the process of deploying it company-wide. Our lives will be much more enjoyable from this point onwards, I think.

It was believable up until this part. No IE support at all? That seems wildly unlikely.

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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will

Re:Huge developer time savings. by Idimmu+Xul · 2010-01-30 06:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Exactly. Completely FUD from the GP. And still moderators modded it up.. sad.

For non general Internet facing sites not supporting IE isn't that uncommon. For the web services that we resell we only support Firefox and our clients are happy with that.

The general reason for the IE 6 problem isn't home users scared to upgrade but that mega corporations have an existing outdated Intranet that works with IE6 and are slow at trumping up cash for R&D on redeveloping their sites and workstation environments.

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The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!

Re:Ding Dong by thsths · 2010-01-30 06:14 · Score: 4, Informative

> 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.

Re:Huge developer time savings. by 6Yankee · 2010-01-30 06:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

Like the developer mentioned in the parent post, I tend to get the horrible stuff. I'm the "UI guy" on the project, and most experienced in HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

I knew IE6 was bad news and was sucking up far too much of my time, and kept saying this to those above me. But we "had to" support it. So I started keeping track of just how much time it was costing me. It did vary but, for a given issue or work package, I would spend anywhere between 30 and 70 percent of my time on IE6 work-arounds, kludges, hacks. Then you factor in that someone has usually struggled with the problem before bringing it to me...

Those numbers, writ large in PowerPoint and projected in front of the people who pay my wages, finally convinced them to drop IE6 support. I'd said it was a problem for two years, but it took actual numbers to convince them of the cost.

Re:Ding Dong by mystikkman · 2010-01-30 06:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

The bigger question which I think everyone's missing is, why was Google using IE6 inhouse when it hacked???

Re:Ding Dong by ya+really · 2010-01-30 06:41 · Score: 3, Informative

Latest stable Opera 10 scores 100, no idea where you got 85.

Re:Some companies will consider this change a bonu by ElVee · 2010-01-30 06:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

I swear, we must work for the same faceless corporate overlords.

The huge, supposedly tech-savvy corporation I slave away for has reacted to the mass abandonment of IE6 with outright fear and panic. The upper management of our Data Security division came straight out of the mainframe era, and act like the word 'Firefox' is a horribly offensive expletive. It's just not an option.

As could be expected, we have some rather important corporate systems that were developed back in the big-budget heyday of the prior decade and, of course, only work on IE6. There's no money to pay for a rework, and the original vendor has long since gone bust. We have Citrix in-house, but, again, there's mass fear and panic going on there about having a mass influx of users for these outdated corporate systems, when there's no money for new servers.

We're testing IE8 for 'select' users (i.e. upper management, sales and marketing), but most of those users are poor choices for testing, as most of the important work they do seems to involve ESPN, Facebook and Craigslist.

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- Pithy comment goes here.

Re:Huge developer time savings. by schnablebg · 2010-01-30 07:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Unfortunately, not all developers can drop IE6 support. If you have an e-commerce site, especially one that might target older or less tech savvy customers, any unsupported browser is a lost sale, and IE6 use is still high enough that this is significant.

I also question the wisdom of targeting a single browser. What if there is a huge security vulnerability in Chrome, a showstopper bug (like, it stops working on the next Windows service pack or OS X update), or Google drops development for some reason? This is almost as bad as back in the old days when devs targeted IE6 exclusively.

Re:Ding Dong by NotBorg · 2010-01-30 07:49 · Score: 2, Informative

Your "feature" merely exposes a deficiency in the OS tool set. That Microsoft's software update process is exclusive to Microsoft products. It would be nice if I could run update and get a new flash, java, etc. Instead every application has to write it's own update software to check for updates and install them. It leads to all sorts of annoying crap from vendors like tray icons and background processes that run all the time just to see if there's an update.

Contrast with your typical Linux distribution where all software can be installed and updated with the same package management system. A third party could provide a repository that the user could just add to their package management system for seamless and "native" update support.

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I want this account deleted.

Better Yet! by esmrg · 2010-01-30 09:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

A drive by remote code execution for IE that replaces mshtml.dll with a compatible wrapper for the gecko engine. Problem solved! Now all those IE6 users are using firefox without even knowing it.

Re:Ding Dong by Radhruin · 2010-01-30 09:19 · Score: 3, Informative

Not even close. Acid 3 tests various behaviors across nearly 20 different standards, most of which are hundreds of pages long.

Re:Yes by 6Yankee · 2010-01-30 10:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

And instead of calling me names, you might have taken the time to explain what that point was. ;)

OK, yes. AC has a point. And indeed, much of the grief in my current job comes from the fact that we're writing a web-based application, forcing web pages to do things that it was never envisaged they would do. But the world has moved on, and that's how it is; you move with it, or you stick to the old ways and you die. Regardless, that has little or nothing to do with whether the page is "resolution independently [sic]" - and my HTML is semantic and valid, which is as close to "normal and proper" as it's ever likely to get.

And AC's assertion that the problem began with the invention of stylesheets is laughable. People were slapping "Best viewed with Netscape 3 at 800x600" icons on their pages long before those came along. Table-based layout, anyone? Whatever the tools available, some people will use them well and others won't. (You should have seen some of my hideous creations in high-school woodwork.)

The kind of "webdevelopers" AC is so angry about get right up my nose, too. They give the rest of us a bad name. I get very annoyed when I'm tarred with the same brush - especially when it's by someone who's never seen my work and doesn't have the balls to identify himself.

why have the net connection? by r00t · 2010-01-30 12:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you have "ultra-high security requirements" then you need to get those computers off the net.

Physically unplug them. Uninstall any wireless drivers and remove any wireless antennas.

Somebody needs the internet? Get them an iPhone.

Re:Huge developer time savings. by Ngarrang · 2010-01-31 06:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

My company has zero support for IE. We support FireFox and Chrome on our desktops only. And our web site is guaranteed to work in Firefox and Chrome, only. Outside vendors that bring in products that require IE are simply not purchased.

Since we instituted this policy, I've had fewer occurences of malware to contend with.

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Bearded Dragon

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