Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Kills Apps Support For Internet Explorer 8

Posted by timothy on from the start-at-the-feet-and-kill-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google today [Friday] announced it is discontinuing support for Internet Explorer 8 in Google Apps, including its Business, Education, and Government editions. The kill date is November 15, 2012. After that, IE8 users accessing Google Apps will see a message recommending that they upgrade their browser."

21 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Lucky bastards by maroberts · · Score: 5, Funny

    I still have to support IE6 :-(

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon

    1. Re:Lucky bastards by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The codebase he supports is supposed to work with a given COBOL system.

      Whereas said web crap that has to support IE6, also has to work with IE7, and IE8, and IE9, and Firefox, and Chrome, and Safari. And it has to "look good" in the recent browsers without looking like crap in IE6.

    2. Re:Lucky bastards by toejam13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Our company still supports older browsers such as IE5 - IE7, but we strip a huge amount of functionality away. No CSS, no images and as little scripting on the client-side as possible. It is basically provided as-is. And people use it.

      The next big thing for us is to switch from bitmap (PNG, JPG) to vector (SVG) graphics for static images. That means that IE8 and Android Browser 2.x are on the chopping block unless we want to use <object> tags to embed bitmaps as a fallback.

      We're aware that means the end of support for IE on XP. But the OS is over a decade old. Windows 7 is fairly reliable and can run on some fairly geriatric hardware (I've gotten to a W7 desktop with both P2/450 and K6-2/500 systems). The corporate sector is slowly being pushed to W7 kicking and screaming because XP driver support for new laptops is starting to wither. For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap. If they can't fork out for an OS upgrade once a decade, how else will they be like on the consumer side?

      But then you have the Android issue. I'm using Cyanogenmod 7.1 on my own handset, but that's still Gingerbread 2.3.7. And I consider myself lucky to be even that far. There are some fairly recent handsets that are still using Gingerbread. So do we want to relegate them to the legacy site or keep Gingerbread support? Most of those devices are too small to take advantage of SVG anyways. The tablets could, and most of them run 3.x or 4.x which includes full SVG support in the Android Browser.

      Eventually it'll come down to numbers. Is SVG worth it? How much do we save by no longer certifying those legacy browsers? What other gains do we get from retiring support for legacy browsers? How many people are willing to use the legacy site? We just don't know yet.

    3. Re:Lucky bastards by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't need to migrate them off XP. You just need to migrate them off IE and to Chrome.

      But, frankly, if you're still on XP, the only lazy around is you. Stop bitching about people not bothering to support your antique setup - they don't have any obligation to do so, and I've heard enough from web developers to know just how painful supporting IE below 9 is.

    4. Re:Lucky bastards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IE 8 is not the only browser that runs on XP

      Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera...

      Google is choosing to require a modern environment so that they can deliver a quality user experience.

      IE 8 is three years old, HTML 5 support is wonky, and it's javascript engine is slow. All reasons why Google released Chrome, to provide an environment that delivers a quality experience to their users.

    5. Re:Lucky bastards by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually Win 7 is the first one since Win2K Pro (great OS that one was) where I can point to real honest to God improvements and say "THAT, that right there, that's worth upgrading for", such as MUCH better memory management where Windows will actually use available memory for caching instead of slamming the page file when you still have memory free, jumplists and breadcrumbs make it butt simple to get back to where you were working the day before, readyboost can give a real kick in the pants to older systems by moving small I/Os onto a spare flash stick, its simply a much better OS all around.

      So if you are keeping your users on XP you really are doing them a disservice, it was alright back in the day but its over a decade old now and the tech has made it obsolete, time to move on. Heck I've got several customers running it on a midrange (2.2GHz-3.2GHz) P4 with 2Gb of RAM so it isn't like you even have to toss the boxes. Just let it go man, let it go.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:Lucky bastards by toejam13 · · Score: 3, Informative

      XP runs just fine thank you very much! Why change for the sake of change ... XP runs fine and perfectly well on computers and it makes no sense to upgrade such a great system for eye candy.

      Except that it does not. Try using Windows XP on a recent Thinkpad or Inspiron laptop. Constant issues with power saving, USB devices and wireless connectivity, just to name a few. Hardware developers simply are not putting their XP drivers through the same level of QA as their W7 drivers, and it shows.

      And if you want to use more than 4GB of memory, you're put in something of an awkward position with XP. The x86-64 edition was based on Server 2003 and not XP Professional. It is the red-headed stepchild of the Windows world. I used it for a couple of years with my desktop and it had its share of... quirks.

      Then you have the problem with security updates for XP coming to an end. That isn't eye candy, that's core stability.

      There is no reason why IE 9 can't work on XP nor why IE 8 can't do everything other browsers can do.

      Lazy just plain lazy. IE 8 is something still so cutting edge and new that companies are spending 10s of millions upgrading from IE 6 as I write this! You are telling them they can't even support the browser they spend 10 million porting their apps to?!! WTF

      Google is out of touch

      I don't think you understand. Microsoft is a for-profit corporation. They want you to move off of XP and onto W7 or W8. Porting DX11 and IE10 back to XP removes incentives for you to upgrade. That isn't lazy, that's just smart business sense.

    7. Re:Lucky bastards by justforgetme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IMHO chrome has become too much of a behemoth. I'd migrate them to Firefox. A fresh OS with chrome on a 7 year old laptop grinds to a halt on the first page. The same setup is perfectly usable with an up to date Firefox

      --
      -- no sig today
    8. Re:Lucky bastards by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Where I work there are dozens of COBOL programmers, it's abanking system, very old.

      Unlike IE, COBOL is a standards-compliant platform designed for a long lifespan.

    9. Re:Lucky bastards by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Can you outline this in more detail? Everyone I know that was dragged kicking and screaming in to using Win7 stopped bickering within a day or so of using it. Win7 was the first Microsoft OS my linux buddy liked enough to switch back from linux to Windows for. Your experience is the complete opposite of every other story I've heard out there. I dislike Microsoft for the most part just as much as most people on this site.... but Win 7 is actually pretty nice... reliable even.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    10. Re:Lucky bastards by vlueboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap. If they can't fork out for an OS upgrade once a decade, how else will they be like on the consumer side?

      Home users do not differentiate an OS from their TANGIBLE hardware enough to care to upgrade it separately from their ancient machines; they just settle for whatever new one pops up with a new purchase. The fact is you rarely see noob users looking for an OS to buy in a software store anyway. Part of the issue is that OS's are *not* sold on TV --think of the I'm a Mac ads aimed at selling new machines and the Droid campaign, at selling NEW cell subscriptions. The few that upgrade the ancient Windows machines I mentioned up top see OS versions as akin to over-the-air IOS upgrades, and won't feel the need to pay a cent for change. They'll pirate only half-aware that the are supposed to go to a computer store.

  2. Another nail for XP by juventasone · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary leaves out the interesting part: IE8 is the latest version available for Windows XP. And there's no place that XP exists more than business, education, and government. This is Google's way to get sysadmins comfortable with Chrome in the workplace.

    1. Re:Another nail for XP by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Businesses don't tend to use the OS install that comes with the machine, they load their own builds they have made and tested themselves.

      Support = security fixes.Come 11 April 2014, no more security fixes for XP. Good luck getting Office 2014* that will install on XP as well.

      * or 2015, 2016, 2017....

  3. The article seemed somewhat negative... by gQuigs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    whereas I am quite positive about this move. It was Microsoft's choice to not port their more recent browser to XP in an attempt to kill it.

    It's quite amazing how much marketshare IE has lost over the last 4 years (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-ww-monthly-200807-201209). Firefox has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 4%, while IE has lost 30%+ mostly to Chrome.

    It's moslty the US, Australia, and China holding up IE usage (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-ww-monthly-201209-201209-map)

    *Note all of this is according to statcounter, while other sources give different results, still with the same trends though.

  4. Big businesses won't move by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It takes a LONG time for big businesses to move to new versions of anything. They are just now moving off of Windows XP and IE 7. Many major software systems used by big companies (such as GE Centricity) still don't even support IE 9, so customers of such software can't move forward even if they wanted to!

    It looks like Google is taking a page out of Apple's book. It's stunts like this that keep Apple out of the office (for the most part). Microsoft, on the other hand, has a reputation for supporting legacy software just about forever...lots of old DOS programs still work! Microsoft has been rewarded by businesses in a big way.

    Is this an opening for Yahoo?

  5. It's well deserved. by mosb1000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone still using IE 8 deserves to be left out in the cold. Modern browsers are free, and work much better than that ancient piece of crap. If your IT department doesn't have it's shit together enough to let you run a real web browser, you can't expect most of the internet to work for you either. Don't complain to Google, you should seriously be considering replacing whoever it is who is making your IT decisions for you.

    1. Re:It's well deserved. by mosb1000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You are wrong. There are a number of HTML 5 technologies (especially canvas objects) that IE 8 doesn't support. Many special concessions must be made to support IE 8 from a modern web-based application. It often means writing two versions of you code, one for IE 8 and one for everything else. Supporting IE 8 means limiting the functionality of you application while adding complexity to your code. I'm sure there was a collective sigh of relief among web developers when they heard Google was dropping IE 8, it means their employers will soon follow suit.

      They aren't blocking IE 8 users, they're just dropping support for the browser. That means some features won't work correctly or at all, and as time goes on the whole site will stop working as the continue to roll out new features that aren't supported in IE 8.

    2. Re:It's well deserved. by KingMotley · · Score: 4, Informative

      Off the top of my head:
      Opacity (real opacity, including opacity on PNGs with an alpha channel).
      Being able to define colors using RGBA
      CSS3 transforms
      Fully supporting @font-face for real web fonts
      HTML5 video support with H.264/MPEG4 so we can drop flash video players finally
      WOFF font support instead of the EOT (IE-only font format)
      Box shadows
      multiple backgrounds on a single object
      CSS3 selectors (:last-child, :nth-child, etc)

      Stuff even IE9 doesn't support:
      text-shadows
      3d transforms
      aync on script tags
      web sockets
      Filereader API (Smarter upload buttons)
      CSS3 transitions
      CSS3 gradients
      HTML5 form elements (date picker, range, integer, etc)

      Yes, those are all things that we use on our web site, or wanted to use and either had to write custom fallbacks just for IE, rewrite to use a different (more difficult, less efficient, larger) technique, or just let IE look like crap.

    3. Re:It's well deserved. by repvik · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

      So we deserve to be left out in the cold, because we have a need for applications that have yet to be upgraded to support IE9+? Our IT department employs 260+ people, and while you may claim that they "haven't got their shit together" I know these people pretty well, and they're pretty competent. IE8 is three years old. That isn't stoneage. And since IE breaks compatibility every single release, that means that more than 600 of the applications we provide (most external, some internal) have to be updated, re-tested and pushed. Almost once a year. Are you f*cking kidding me?
      Chrome with their incremental upgrade model is a complete no-go. We can't have the browser suddenly upgrading and breaking a critical system either. Firefox has major revisions every other week, which is even worse for an enterprise setup.

      In a small IT shop with Office and little else, being stuck on XP and IE8 would be gross incompetence. For a large company supporting more than 3k applications, it's not so much a choice. And it's not as easy as switching to other applications either, since many of these are specialist apps for which no alternative applications are available.

  6. Re:As they should by Sir_Sri · · Score: 3, Informative

    Only support current browsers

    8 was released in 2009. IE9 last year. I'm not really sure it matters for google, but if you do custom web applications 3 years isn't really a long time to have to keep it alive.

    The big thing with IE8 is that it's the last IE for windows XP. Which is why it has a larger markeshare than IE9 still. marketshare from June and more marketshare by a lot. (25% vs 18%).

    If windows 8 looked like it was about to take off like a rocket and Windows XP was on a rapid trajectory to obsolescence then sure, but that isn't really what's happening. Windows XP is slowly dying away, but it's still slowly, and especially in the business market lots of potential customers are locked into the browser on XP for the moment.

    Granted, google probably has a lot of metrics and they probably know this isn't a problem for *their* products, but for the us little guys it's a different problem.

  7. Thank you by maroberts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Couldn't have put it better myself, except you missed out supporting phone browsing too. :-)

    I can program in COBOL and its easier than supporting several generations of browsers.

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon