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The Man At Microsoft Charged With Destroying IE6
Barence writes "The man in charge of Internet Explorer has told PC Pro that he's been tasked with destroying IE6. Internet Explorer 6 continues to be the most used browser version in the world at the ripe old age of nine. IE6's position as the default browser in Windows XP means many companies still cling to the browser. 'Part of my job is to get IE6 share down to zero as soon as possible,' said Ryan Gavin, head of the Internet Explorer business group. Microsoft has also been giving further previews of Internet Explorer 9, with demonstrations showing two 720p HD videos running simultaneously on a netbook, thanks to IE9's GPU-accelerated graphics."
IE8 is: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=3
"...I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease." - Linus Torvalds
How about an automatic update that uninstalls IE6 and replaces it with another browser?!
To kill IE6, kill XP. Here's how.
1. End all security updates for XP.
2. Wait for the first botnet to come up with a XP hack.
3. Say "Sorry, you need to upgrade. Now!" to the crying victims.
How is HW acceleration of graphics going to help anything on a netbook unless you have a ION chipset?
Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't backup all the... little emoticons. In... you see, in their last moments, browsers show you who they really are. So in a way, I know IE, Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera better than Ryan Gavin ever did. Would you like to know which of them were crashers?
Part of my job is to get IE6 share down to zero as soon as possible
We love you already, man!
If IE9 is supposed to destroy the previous versions of IE then they better support IE9 on XP.
XP is still a solid operating system and currently has the highest market share.
No one is going to upgrade their OS just because there is a new browser from Microsoft.
What statistics show it as most used browser? All the ones I've seen it's way below firefox.
If they really want IE6 usage to reach zero, the people at MS will have to swallow some pride and realize that there are some of us who refuse to 'upgrade" like little sheep. Otherwise, IE6 will still be around for quite some time. Oh, wait, Firefox 3.6 runs on Win2k...never mind...
Somehow I don't think nvidia ion(2) is going to be 'bog standard'.
I'll be surprised if they can do that on an an intel (only) board, which will likely be 'bog standard'.
GPU-accelerated graphics? What a concept!!!
The problem, in the simplest terms, is that there are too many IE6 only sites and applications that are currently working "well enough", particularly internal to companies, and mucking with something that works already is a non-starter for many management types. No matter how much sense it makes to us, to them it's just money spent and risk taken to get back to where they currently are, functionality wise.
Could IE introduce a sort of "browser virtual machine" where IE9 would start up what would internally amount to a sandboxed version of IE6 if it ran into an IE6 only site? (Of course, that begs the question of recognizing such a site, but presumably Microsoft would stand some chance of recognizing such behaviors since they created IE6 to begin with.) If you can't kill the old applications, you've got to work with them if you want to kill IE6 - perhaps IE9 could borrow a page from the VMWare/VirtualBox world and sort of do a "browser within a browser" to try and maintain compatibility while isolating the IE6 badness from any sane webpage? OSX provided a bridge for old Mac applications when they appeared on the scene which amounted to an old Mac within the new environment, so perhaps that's another possible model.
Dunno if it's workable even in principle, but I don't see how else to move stubborn IE6 users.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
But google, facebook, twitter, hulu, netflix, and sure as shit can.
I had hard time believing those stats as FireFox had only about 25% market share and IE appears to be used by over half the people. Both of these figures sounded very odd compared to what I've seen. But I guess that is true for the world, then. Anyways, I googled browser share by country and Firefox has about 55% share in Finland and has stayed constant for at least a year. IE on the other hand is used by one third of the population and has been in slow but steady decline for the whole year.
IE6 will die ... eventually. When WinXP dies.
But Microsoft pushed for too many IE6-specific extensions for their development products.
Now companies NEED to run IE6 or spend time and money (and pain) re-writing the crappy apps that have evolved over the last 9 years.
To replace IE6, you need to wait for WinXP to die or you need to offer IE6 compatibility in the new browser.
simple...
... you get the idea...
Send out a security update that renames it to Virus Inviter or Security hole, or Pwned or
We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that got us there - A Einstein(paraphrased)
I keep hearing about how IE9 will support HTML 5. I would much rather hear about how it will fully support HTML 4 and CSS 2. I'll even settle for its supporting 95% of HTML 4 and CSS 2.
I keep hearing about how IE9 will support HTML 5 media elements like <video> and <audio>. I'd much rather hear about IE9 correctly rendering nested, cascading <object> elements as HTML 4 describes.
Get the HTML 4 stuff working before trumpeting about HTML 5 functionality, please. God knows you've had enough time.
The Internet is full. Go away.
There are other browsers that run well on XP. I never use IE unless I get some boneheaded web site that requires IE.
Best regards.
Karma is a bitch...
I expect they are now regretting that the barriers they put in place to prevent IE6 being displaced by Firefox, Opera, and other browsers is now effective at preventing IE6 from being displaced by another browser from themselves.
-- Terry
starseeker wrote; "but presumably Microsoft would stand some chance of recognizing such behaviors since they created IE6 to begin with."
Since when did Microsoft start caring about backward compatibility? Do you even know who we are discussing here? Microsoft has been rather craven about forcing users of its applications to upgrade. They don't make money by allowing people to stay with older operating systems and applications. And now that Apple has passed them in market capitalization, the heat is on to improve profitability. They don't know of any other way to make money than to force people to upgrade.
Best regards.
he can work his way up through the newer versions...
Do you have ESP?
If only we have the more efficient software of the past running on the hardware of today, it might not feel that the user experience is slowing down.
There is a saying, "if its not broke don't fix it" but teh software industry doesn't follow that. Instead the software industry figures that any more speed and resources is only for teh developers, not the users.
demonstrations showing two 720p HD videos running simultaneously on a netbook, thanks to IE9's GPU-accelerated graphics
How about demonstrating flawless backwards compatibility with ancient activeX plugins on Oracle financials running under winXP...
M$ spend YEARS ignoring browsers. "IE is good enough." Now that they have competition they care again about their browser. IE9 will be the bestest browser EVER! (What happened to IE8?) Will businesses finally see the light and realize that M$ is ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY. I hear the iPeople out there saying "Apple. Apple is better". No they are WORSE. Proprietary software and PROPRIETARY HARDWARE. Think IBM Mainframes baby.
Destroy IE6. How about money back to all the copies of Vista you forced on people who had to buy a new computer? Don't thrust them, microsoft, they will stop caring as soon as the market share is back up to 99.999999999%. Mr. Charged with destroying IE6 will be out of a job. Ready the "This site best viewed in IE9" banners so called webmasters. The internet will suck once more.
Tell this twit, before he destroys IE6 that SOME of us use it because our CLIENTS use QUICK BOOKS 5, and while we might want them to upgrade, if they fail to, and upgrade IE, QUICKBOOKS NO LONGER WORKS. If Microsoft was in the OS business instead of generating a cash cow both for themselves and the software companies that play according to their rules, they would take steps to allow others to upgrade as they could afford to, instead of being FORCED, in the middle of a recession, so they can make more bank.
Think he'll get off?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
trying to figure out how to get his product to ZERO MARKET SHARE! What a challenge!
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
demonstrations showing two 720p HD videos running simultaneously on a netbook, thanks to IE9's GPU-accelerated graphics
How about demonstrating flawless backwards compatibility with ancient activeX plugins on Oracle financials running under winXP...
How about not. How about we let that crap die and then dance on its grave.
If your company was foolish enough to build its infrastructure on proprietary vendor-specific crap, then you deserve to get bitten in the ass when those proprietary vendors change their minds. Perhaps in the future you'll think more carefully. If not, well, there's always the VM option.
IE6 is horrible enough to eventually die on its own, even in the corporate world. What more could Gavin do besides personally encourage websites worldwide to eliminate any IE6-specific HTML code? Oh, he could also kill off ActiveX since that's where the real impediment to abandon IE6 for the corporate world seems to be, all their kludgey in-house ActiveX stuff.
This is obviously a shameless plug for IE9, otherwise why even mention it?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
go here, select China:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-CN-monthly-200904-201005-bar
64% of china use ie6. in the USA it's 7%.
So "most used browser in the world" really means: a shit load of Chinese are using it and no one else.
I don't get it - the article refers to IE6 being the most used browser (version?)
According to these stats it is not:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
What is the source of the statistic quoted in the information? Why such a great differen
1. Go to the head of the Office business group.
2. Make sure they drop support for XP in the next version of Office.
IE 6 won't die until XP dies. XP won't die until Office won't run on it.
I really wonder what this guy's strategy is for convincing a country where 60% of Internet users still use IE6 to upgrade
GO after vendors that still require there users to us IE6 in the work place.
Once it's not in the work place, it will leave the home.
I would love to get rid of it at work, but vendors(I'm looking at YOU Oracle) still have apps that require it.
There slated to get rid of it, but not for 2 more years.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's quite simple. IE6 is there due to application compatibility (or IT laziness) on the most widely deployed version of Windows that has ever existed. Microsoft needs to make IE9 have a Chrome-frame like approach that can include IE6's rendering engine for Intranet apps (not my idea) AND build it for Windows XP.
If they don't build it for XP, and they don't add an IE6 shim, this guy will fail. Windows 7 may be great. But the world isn't going to throw out tens of millions of PC's just to upgrade to a newer version of IE. And insisting that IE8 on XP is "good enough" is bullshit. They're damning themselves.
IE6 will eventually get down to 0 marketshare. Because Firefox and Google Chrome will have shut out IE across the board.
As I understand it, that won't work. IE 6 won't run on anything newer than Windows XP, and IE 9 won't run on anything older than Windows Vista. XP runs IE 6 through 8; Vista runs IE 7 through 9.
[Lack of IE 9 on XP is] devastating to we developers who now confront the reality that the so-called "HTML5" revolution is, in reality, going to take 3 - 4 years more to arrive
Google provides a downloadable browser helper object that enables all HTML5 features in Internet Explorer. It's called Google Chrome Frame.
IE6's position as the default browser in Windows XP means many companies still cling to the browser.
If that's the approach they take, they're going to be faced with little (to no) results. Why? They'll be looking at a demographic approaching "0".
Unless people (as in, individuals) XP machines they bought almost 4 or more years ago and have never been updated via Windows Update, they're not going to have IE6. They're going to have IE7, on account of it being a "mandatory" update.
And if they've not updated since then, well... chances are they're not even on the Internet anymore: the computer is off, in the back of their closet, collecting dust - on account of being infected with malware to the point of uselessness.
The one (and ONLY) reason IE6 exists anymore is because:
1) Microsoft pushed (hard!) the development specifics for IE6 "web apps" to development shops.
2) Companies built to those specs within the EMR, ERP, etc. markets. Other companies bought said products.
3) Microsoft abandoned said specs with IE7.
4) Companies went out of business and/or changed their platforms so drastically that an upgrade path would not be practical/financially possible. (Ironically, we've got the same problem potentially on the horizon with Sharepoint/Silverlight systems - we will see).
Hell, even some organizations which didn't want to upgrade from IE6 (due to these legacy issues) did: IE7 got pushed by WSUS, and due to the immense problem of rolling back non-standardized machines, they thought it was better to just fork out to get their crap systems changed (on account of man hours + etc. involved with rolling all the XP machines back).
In short, it's corporations, banks, and hospitals which are still using IE6. Considering the giant security hole that IE6 represents, that's damn scary; as a Windows administrator, it should (IMO) be of the utmost importance to get rid of it; if getting rid of it isn't possible, then at least make sure there's a loooong document trail showing your efforts to do so. Your ass (and your job) is on the line.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
IE 6 is definitely not the most used browser version by any stats site I've seen.
IE8 is. Depending on which stats site you look at, either FF 3.6 or IE 6 is second.
http://gs.statcounter.com/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#browser_version-ww-monthly-201005-201005-bar
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2
There is one place IE 6 is still king: Corporate networks. They no longer make up the largest share of web browsing though, which is why the other browsers have higher market share.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I certainly didn't think that x86 was proprietary hardware either.
Then explain the trouble that NVIDIA has been having in making chipsets for Intel x86 CPUs. There are patents on i686 architecture, and a patent lasts roughly 12 Moore doublings.
Dear Ryan Gavin,
This will inform you that I've done MY PART to rid my systems of IE6!
I installed Linux which eradicated all the other crap and crud on my systems and others.
So you can take 20 installs of IE6 off the list.
PS: Let that chair throwing monkey boss of yours know his OS got the boot too!
1311393600 - Back to Black
The Man At Microsoft Charged With Destroying IE6
For a second there I thought this guy was being brought in on charges of third degree browser-slaughter. Sad to see I misread. :(
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
As the offsets in IE 8/9/10 will be different those ActiveX controls that use WriteProcessMemory to patch MSIE in RAM will no longer work.
Create a mode in IE8 (on XP as well as Vista/7) and IE9 that renders web pages identically to IE6.
Make it possible for IT to set this mode via group policy so that corporate intranet pages are rendered with the mode by default.
Problem solved. Most of the web is rendered with IE8 in regular IE8 mode. The few IE6-only intranet sites get rendered with "IE6 mode" and work identically to how they worked in IE6.
Microsoft gets more sales of Windows (as companies previously stuck on IE6 can move to Windows 7 or Vista with IE8 and still have their intranet sites work in "IE6 mode") plus they dont have to spend as much money keeping IE6 going (the cost to maintain "IE6 mode" would be less than the cost to maintain IE6)
Corporations can install IE8 (and even upgrade to Vista or Windows 7) and they dont need to spend thousands of dollars on a new version of that is certified with IE8 (or pay someone to rewrite an in-house web app, sometimes one where source code, technical documents or other items have been lost)
Wait, wait, wait just a darn minute...
So Microsoft is *paying* someone to do what Mozilla and FireFox evangelists are already doing.. for free?
The lights are on, but it's looking like no one's home at MS...
Including IE in Windows and making it the default browser isn't a barrier to using another browser. If it were nobody would be using other browsers today.
People continue to use IE6 because it runs IE6 apps best. There is a ton of code out there written to the "IE6 API" instead of the Web API, so it's not portable. And IE6 was the latest version for over 5 years, or more than 25% of the life of the Web. XP was the latest Windows version for 6 years. It's a pit they crashed their whole platform plus the Web into. They should be giving all XP users a free upgrade to Windows 7, but instead, you cannot even pay to upgrade in-place. Just terrible platform management all around.
IE9 is so late. It looks like they're finally trying the unusual (for them) strategy of making an upgrade that is more desirable than the previous version. If it doesn't render the same content as Safari and Chrome, users will switch.
From the title I thought that he'd been charged with a crime when, in fact, he's doing the world a favour.
> ...thanks to IE9's GPU-accelerated graphics.
You mean "thanks to the netbook's GPU-accelerated graphics", don't you?
Careful or these crooks will patent acceleration and sue Toyota for abuse...
All they need is a good converter software that CORRECTLY convert most web pages from IE6 to IE9. Everyone will just use it and convert most content to IE9. IE6 will be dead. But of course Microsoft is too cheap to do that instead spend just a little bit of money to tell people to use IE9.
And of course, software can never be equivalent to a used car since the bits don't age. This is one case where the car analogy is even more fundamentally flawed than usual.
Give away FREE Windows XP Professional to everyone. The CD should be completely updated with all security patches and have MSIE8 integrated. Giving the browser away for free isn't enough. They need to give the OS away for free as well.
http://saveie6.com/
If only Microsoft were to make an IE6 skin for IE8, then all would be well.
If I didn't know better, I say IE8 was made to scare people away to other browsers, to relieve Microsoft from some of the pressure their high market share gives them. That is, a high market share means their browser will be targetted.
Although, I'm not sure how secure IE8 is. If anything, we need to focus on safe surfing methods rather than just using the defaults of which we are given. Personally, ActiveX and javascript enabled on all sites by default seems like a dumb idea.
I remember back when Microsoft was begging people to use IE6 and write apps to its API. In spite of all of the advice not to go down that path, some IT people did just that. They staked their reputation on that move. And now Microsoft expects these people to go to the BOD and say, "Remember how I begged you to go with IE6 a few years ago? And even though it was going to cost us a bundle in training, tools and development costs, it was going to be worth it. Because Microsoft promised us it was. Well, now they say we've got to spend a bundle more to undo all the crap we did. I know. They lied to us once. But we can trust them this time. Really. They wouldn't do it again, would they?"
The people responsible for tying their companies to IE6 have made it a few steps up the management ladder. If you thought they had some pull back when they made that fateful IE6 decision, what sort of power do you think they have now? Microsoft wants these people to make what could be a carer limiting (or ending) move. They'll have to admit that they bought the Microsoft sales pitch back then, cost the company a bundle of money, and now it looks like it was money down a rat hole. Gavin needs the trust and good will of these people if he ever expects them to buy the next Microsoft package. This doesn't look like a smart way of doing it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Office 2010 will run (happily) on Windows XP SP3 ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2010
Sent from my desktop computer
That's why I switched. Flash in ie7 doesn't work? Let's try it in chrome... ahhh there we go.... internet goodlyness.
Neither IE7 or IE8 allows me to have a briefcase folder opened and at the same time view a file from the briefcase folder. Due to this problem, as far as IE is concerned, I cannot upgrade.
Other browser brands work fine though.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Wow, so Dean Hachamovitch is the head of Ryan Gavin, as well as the head of IE? And you thought Zaphod had it bad. That must be pretty confusing. Maybe that's why the summary got a bit muddled.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
How did this even get such a high mod points. This guy obviously was never part of the Webkit team. Apple did a very limited job with Webkit. Had they not forked, KHTML would have been the great engine that Webkit(apple's trademark btw) claims to be.
http://www.google.com/chrome
http://www.getfirefox.com
http://www.opera.com
Seo Serives India I have the same problem with i6 browser
All benchmarks i've seen so far show nearly identical
performance from Vista and 7. With 7 beeing only
slightly faster. And XP beeing fastest in most cases.
In a slightly less imperfect world, Microsoft would use
nLite and release a bloat-trimmed XP4 without IE6.
And let users optionally choose browser, but not IE6.
IE6 is just fine for 90% of what goes on on the internet. The problem lazy developers and pretend designers who can't be bothered to do even the slightest bit of thinking. If you desperately need something in HTML5, fine, but rendering tables, text, and images in IE4 and HTML 3.2 is no Herculean feat. I can't stand idiots who think adding a Twitter ID to your message board profile is innovative and requires every user everywhere to have the latest alpha build of Firefox. Get the fuck over yourselves already.
Dear Sir,
Whoever you are put to the task of killing off IE6, you are not working nearly hard enough. My employer still insits on using iE6 on all new machines. We have a corporate practice of updating hardware for all employees every three years. Yet with each new itteration of hardware, everything is still backdated to XP and IE6 and locking out access to any alternatives. Godspeed to you, as we rely on your success for an improved browsing experience.
XP won't die until enterprise sized customers feel comfortable to upgrade to a new OS.
They are always late adopters anyway, you should see the archaic crap I am typing on right now. XP - Check. Office 2003 - check. IE6 - check. Etc...
I am wondering if I get a NEW computer in 2010 what it will be running. I would bet 100$ that it will still be XP.
I think Windows 7 is still too new for most large enterprise IT managers to feel comfortable to start switching everything over.
You're allowed to replace the shell in Windows as well.
And the current well developed, well maintained, often updated, with not too many bugs and quircks, etc. alternatives are ?...
The Win32 port of KDE4 and that's pretty much everything !
(Well, just joking: I do know about LiteStep and SharpE, but they are far from being as well developed and full featured as the main well-developed Linux desktop environment)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
But alas they are not....if they REALLY wanted to be smart about it, they would have offered a free update for windows WITHOUT THE VALIDATOR for windows xp, and they would have been able to replace the old browser completely from all copies of windows whether legit or not without making a stink about legitimate copies. If they did this, this would bring the number way down, but I guess they do not think that a pirated copy of their software counts towards THE PERCENTAGE of web browsers....like some how magically all pirated copies of windows will not be browsing the web at the time they do their calculations.....
For the longest time i have said they would make more money if they were to stop focusing so much on the free not free, instead focusing on the product and offering for small fee (like 5$) for each service or add on
but all of this is moot....because there is no intelligence over at M$ anymore...
... Or thereabouts [citation needed]
Anyway,
Good luck trying to change that and watch the countless websites and intranets IE6-compatible only come all crumbling down.
NHS = National Health Service (United Kingdom)
I can think of 2 companies that they could start with and that would actually fix one of my clients issues too.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
XP is not now and never was a solid Operating System. For Windows 2000 there is no upgrade, not even the EU browser ballot screen.
10. I can't seem to be able to "right click" on a taskbar item and select move to bring it back on screen if it happens to be off.
- As already mentioned, hold down shift. There are lots of cool ctrl- and shift- options available throughout the UI. And there are plenty of resources for finding them. Heck, head over to LifeHacker.com and search for Win7 tips and tricks... some very good resources there. There's no need to sit in ignorance and be frustrated.
Or, the user could just hold down the Windows key (that's Super (thanks for asking) for those of us coming from other worlds) and just use the arrow keys on the keyboard to walk a window back onto the display.
Up: Restore/Maximize
Down: Restore/Minimize
Left: Tile Horizontally, Maximize Vertically, snap to left side
Right: Tile Horizontally, Maximize Vertically, snap to right side
It's great for walking a window from one display to another when you're using a multi-monitor display and don't want to deal with dragging between windows.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.