Google Ends Internet Explorer 9 Support In Google Apps

An anonymous reader writes "Google has announced it is discontinuing support for Internet Explorer 9 in Google Apps, including its Business, Education, and Government editions. Google says it has stopped all testing and engineering work related to IE9, given that IE11 was released on October 17 along with Windows 8.1. This means that IE9 users who access Gmail and other Google Apps services will be notified 'within the next few weeks' that they need to upgrade to a more modern browser. Google says this will either happen through an in-product notification message or an interstitial page."

Comments

We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that anyone uses IE except for when they have to

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[The MAZZTer]

Here in businessland they just block Gmail and Google Drive anyway...

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[MickyTheIdiot]

Okay... really... I have a hard time feeling bad about that.

The fact is that those companies bought into web apps that worked on ONE browser. That's stupid. As a matter of fact, if you are going to build an app that works on ONE browser on ONE platform why not write the thing in an actual language because the advantage is supposed to be using it on multiple platforms.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Not quite that bad here, i've gotten rid of almost all of our XP, but we have apps that work in IE9, but not IE10. One app won't work in IE9 yet, and unfortunately it's not our app - we're a contractor and the customer's flight booking app is IE8 or previous only.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Well in business land, no other browser is actually supportable. Want reliable proxy autodetect? Most other browsers break on DHCP based WPAD. Want to deploy links, manage security zones, etc via group policy? Good luck. IE runs in the business world because it is actually administer-able via group policy. Mozilla is not.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Sometimes it isn't YOUR company's app you need to use. In the real world, businesses deal with OTHER BUSINESSES.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

There are addons to manage most if not all browsers. Nor are GPOs the only way to do this.

What you are really saying is incompetent admins can easily do these things with IE so they use it.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Add ons? Why would I want to: roll add-ons to thousands of machines, deal with the breakage when the browser is upgraded, add another fucking configuration tool other than group policy and deal with the associated replication issues between my 60 site multinational network?

Never mind re-testing every application in the enterprise for compatibility with the additional browser, and dealing with 2 configuration items instead of one?

When I can just not deploy another browser, secure the one I have and configure it via policy along with everything else?

It's a non-starter mate. I hate windows as much as anyone, but there are things you can reasonably do, and things that are just a fucking waste of time.

Securing IE, which is on every box by default, so needs to be secured anyway, is not rocket science. Like it or not, many line of business applications are only tested or supported in IE. Does it suck? Sure. But it is the reality we face.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

What do security zones actually do to help you, except allow programmers to get away with abysmally sloppy design within the confines of your "local intranet"? IE contains tons of so-called "security" in order to plaster over crap that should have been handled properly elsewhere. Oh, and do your WPAD over DNS if you really think you need that over a transparent proxy.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

If you need gmail guess what you do?

It depends on what your company needs. In mine not providing firefox and all those addons would lead me to the unemployment line.

Securing IE is easy if you are not using it. Point it to a proxy that does not exist.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

If it does not do what you need then, yes.
Believing the built in one is the only one, yes. Not finding a solution to a business need, yes. All of those would make you incompetent.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

WPAD over DNS is a lot more INSECURE than via DHCP, if you have machines that roam from your network.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

You run those things via Remote Desktop or use multiple IE installs. I know those suck, but they suck less than using IE8 everywhere.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[vitaflo]

Sometimes it isn't YOUR company's app you need to use. In the real world, businesses deal with OTHER BUSINESSES.

And if you want to use Google's app's you'll need IE10 or a modern browser. It goes both ways.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[cyber-vandal]

Because it's far easier to deploy a web app than an native app. You only need to update it in one place and as long as the user has the right browser they can access it from wherever. This is of course completely screwed by the arrival of tablets but then that's what happens when monopolies go unpunished.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you don't do WPAD at all. Use a transparent proxy and have your roamers VPN in.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[tepples]

My employer must not be in "businessland" then, because it uses Google Apps mail, and Google Apps mail uses the same codebase as Gmail.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Chrome less so, at least they provide ADM templates. But you still need to deal with automatic updates breaking your certification process (again, IE = easy via WSUS) and the fact that IE is already there. If there is a BUSINESS NEED for Google apps, then maybe the sensible thing to do is to run IE 10 for those users who need it. If there is no business need for an app that WILL NOT RUN in IEx then there's very little sense in deploying an additional browser.

And no, you can't just secure IE by pointing it at a dummy proxy - because the components in it are used throughout Windows and Office for rendering HTML and other stuff. So you need to secure it properly. Adding another browser on top is just adding complexity and additional workload. Unless there is a valid business case for it (I'm yet to see one in the real world) then it is a waste of time (and thus, the company's money) going there.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[bradley.meck]

I don't always rely on group security policies; but when I do, I make sure they are not in the kernel.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

Yes I have a valid business case. Preventing automatic updates is not hard.

You can't secure IE or Office by that metric at all. Just today I read about another zero day using tiffs.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Security zones allow you to lock the browser down tighter for all sites that are not trusted. Chrome and Firefox do not have anywhere near the flexibility in terms of per-zone or per-site configuration that IE does.

And like it or not, business are built on, and depend on shitty web apps. Both shitty web apps that are written in house, shitty web apps that are used in house, and shitty web apps that are required to interact with third parties that you have zero control over and were not selected based on any metric the IT department cares about.

Deal with it.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

To clarify, we have webapps that for obvious reasons do not run on IE. It was cheaper to make firefox work for us than to make all the IE needed workarounds.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is basically unusable in a corporate environment because it gets updated every few days (sometimes more) and Google doesn't give a fuck if they break things in minor updates. Nobody outside of Google gives a shit if some shitty ad tracking JavaScript runs 0.02% faster when the last update also broke proxy configuration for the twentieth time and the site they need to actually do their job no longer works because of some obscure bug that gets reintroduced every third update because they don't do any regression testing before shitting out releases.

Most companies also don't care about 99% of the new features Google is pushing. They simply need a stable browser with security updates.

Firefox is manageable though.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If it does not do what you need then, yes.

You're missing the (valid) underlying point. These administrative tools do work for busy corporate sysadmins, as long as they use IE as their standard in-house browser.

If Mozilla and Google want to play at moving things around every few weeks and not offering meaningful long-term stability, they are simply not as good as Microsoft for business users who need a stable platform to run their intranets and custom apps.

If Mozilla and Google want to circumvent normal security policies and provide potential vulnerabilities in corporate networks as a result, then again they are simply not as good as relying on IE.

Serious organisations have more requirements than supporting some half-baked beta version of a new CSS feature that no-one with real web sites will be using for a few years. IE caters to those requirements. In several cases, Firefox and Chrome do not. That means IE is the better browser for those people. It might not be a popular sentiment with web-design-blog-reading-geeks, but it's a self-evident reality to the guys who are actually running IT for these organisations, and denying it won't change that.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[cpicon92]

I'm not saying that this is really comparable to IE's group policy settings, but it's actually possible to lock down Firefox through GP without any add-ons. Firefox can take configuration defaults and lockdown instructions from two files placed in the same folder as the executable. At that point it's a simple matter of writing the files and then deploying them using GP or even a login script.

Somewhat harder than IE, but definitely not a non-starter.

You can actually lock down anything that is configurable from about:config. It's pretty cool. See here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

I am a busy corporate sysadmin.
That is why I am saying this. I am using firefox for a lot of folks as IE cannot properly render the web sites these employees have to use.

Serious organization normally means lots of deadwood and you and I both know it.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You obviously have to cater for your own users, but if they really are running into work-related sites that don't work on recent versions of IE with any regularity, your case is an outlier.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

So now I am relying on a login script to be run to push any changes, which may or may not happen if the user does the typical thing of powering up their laptop, logging in, realizing they forgot to plug the lan cable in and then plugging into the network.

And it is still 2x the work, because IE needs to be configured/secured irrespective of whether it is the default browser because it is installed on every box.

And now I need to test all of our apps against 2 browsers, and every support call related to browsers must establish whether the user is running IE or Browser X.

I'm not saying any of this is impossible or even exceptionally difficult. I'm saying it is needless additional complexity and a waste of time and money. EVEN IF THE BROWSER IS FREE, the cost to the company of supporting it is not.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[datapharmer]

Clearly you have never tried to add a trusted root certificate for your internal domain to firefox. As someone who has, let me tell you firefox is not enterprise ready. Chrome at least uses the windows certificate store and has started adding group policy templates. That said, this is just a powergrab at trying to increase market share by forcing xp users to chrome.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Guspaz]

Even businessland has largely abandoned IE6 in most of the world... the marketshare of IE6 in North America is 0.2%. China is the only country with any significant use of IE6.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[tepples]

To what extent do modern web browsers for Windows respect the web policies deployed through Windows group policy?

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[krups gusto]

Hmm... like most work that's done in "business land" - this sounds like work that simply should be discontinued. Ie - if you need to manage access to the internet for your employees - control your network.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[datapharmer]

Chrome updates are quite easy to control by using their ADM templates and deploying their enterprise msi via your favorite method. Just think of the smaller version increments as hotfixes. Microsoft pushes them all the time. At least with chrome it is more obvious what they are changing and what it might break by looking at the release notes versus digging through a million kb articles because the microsoft patch say "fixes a problem with internet explorer on some systems" or similar useless crap.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Good for you. however I would wager that your case is pretty atypical vs. the rest of the business world. Any reason you didn't go for chrome-frame instead?

Zero days aren't exclusive to IE.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[su5so10]

> Any reason you didn't go for chrome-frame instead? Chrome frame is being retired Jan 2014. http://blog.chromium.org/2013/06/retiring-chrome-frame.html

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

This is pretty much the underlying case, yes. However I would add to this: additional complexity in your environment is bad, and should be avoided if possible.

Whether you decide to standardize on Linux + Firefox or Windows + IE or whatever your platform is - keep the absolute minimum of items required to do the job you need it to do.

Every additional item you add to your platform is another round of testing, another set of patch maintenance, another threat surface to secure, etc. Even if the program is FREE, supporting it will cost you time and therefore money.

In my case, for example (and I suspect we are not unusual as far as enterprise customers go) we have to deal with several applications (both inside and outside of the company) which are supported in IE, and actually break in Chrome or Firefox. We have zero business applications which we can not make work in IE, so for us it is a no brainer.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

We started this a long time ago. Chrome was not an option then. It only came out in 2008.

Nope, but IE has more than its fair share.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Haha i forgot about that. Yes, Firefox has a number of areas where they have decided against using the OS-provided method of doing things, and invented their own way of doing it. From network proxy settings, to certificate store, etc. At least both Safari and Chrome appear to try and make use of the existing configuration within the host OS.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

Sure but your use case is not everyones use case.

Heck, we have a department that runs IE and Firefox for the dumbest reason ever: They need two separate browser sessions and having two copies of any one browser open at a time confused them. Yes, we changed the title bar, and colors and anything else you can imagine. They literally were confused because they look similar.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

I'm not just talking about apps within my walls. Exhibit a: we are a mining contractor, and we need to fly staff to and from remote sites. A number of our clients use a min-site management system that does accomation bookings, flight bookings, etc. To get on/off site we need to use it. It runs in IE only.

We don't use it, we don't get on site. We don't get on site, we don't earn any money.

It's not our app. We have no control over it and no ability to make decisions regarding it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for web standards and ripping out broken crap, but you don't always have a choice, and you play the hand you're dealt.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[MobyDisk]

You listed IE-specific solutions, then complain that only IE supports them.

Want reliable proxy autodetect? Most other browsers break on DHCP based WPAD.

Use a transparent proxy. Those stupid proxy servers that you have to configure in each application suck. Most applications don't support it. Secure download sites don't work, secure FTP is unreliable. Even Microsoft's own MSDN download manager doesn't support a proxy server.

Want to deploy links, manage security zones, etc via group policy?

By "deploy links" I take that to mean "shove bookmarks into people's browsers" which is better handled by putting those links on the intranet site. That works with any browser, any OS, with less work. No special corporate policy required.

The primary purpose of security zones is so you can run ActiveX controls. No other browser needs special security settings for ActiveX.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

We don't use gmail.

Anytime you use email that is a reality. Either from the scanning hardware you use, or service to outside hosting.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[cpicon92]

You don't need to use a login script. GP supports pushing files to client machines seamlessly and natively. It's also less than twice the work, because generally Firefox is going to be their "general" web browser, not the one they use for the intranet. You just need to configure some defaults, and possibly force a proxy or something like that.

The complexity is also not needless. Giving your users a choice of browser is a good thing, not necessarily a waste.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Oh neat. Another "fuck you, enterprise customers" from google then.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Tiger4]

Right on the nose! Coming to you live from IE8 ! I can't wait to get back to my Firefox machine. It is only stuck on FF ESR 17

Between ultra conservative policies and massive filtering, I'm surprised I can even see /. let alone get it to work.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Sounds like you need to change the users.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

we have webapps that for obvious reasons do not run on IE

For what obvious reasons would you be referring? IE9 and especially IE10/11 are easily as standards compliant for HTML5 and CSS3+ as Firefox is (with the possible exception of transitions not working as specified... but who uses those for business apps?)

It's clear that you're just a typical /. anti-MS hater, there's no need for you to couch that in erroneous / inaccurate technical double-speak The fact that you espouse looking for and using 3rd party applications to redundantly apply functions that already exist within the OS/vendor stack aptly demonstrates that your animosity exceeds your common sense...

-AC

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

Ahem, brother.

We even for a lark tried two firefox sessions and made massive changes, like different color schemes. They still claimed it was confusing. How can you confuse the windows that are numbered and one is bright pink the other green?

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

IE8 is not is it?
IE10/11 I will grant you are fine, but even IE9 is not.

It is clear you are just an idiot. I might hate MS, but their AD management tools are first rate, if you never go outside their little world. Sometimes you have to travel off the reservation.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

red/green colorblind? :D

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[danomac]

But firefox increases the version number every week, so you're only ten weeks behind!

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Nah, we just blocked IE9 from the couple of PCs that need it. Pretty much everything is on Win7 x64/IE9 at the moment, testing IE11/Win8.1 at the moment as the PHBs are wanting to "run office on my tablet" (excel mostly, and numbers won't do it). Looked into doing it with View + iPad, but it obviously wont work without connectivity. So currently evaluating Windows tablets. Possibly something like a Lenovo Helix which can replace their laptop as well.

Interesting times, I really do wish for the day when everything is written in standards-compliant HTML and we can just make the end device irrelevant, but we've got far too much legacy bullshit that "works" and thus won't get funding to change.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[h4rr4r]

30 people? Half of them female?

We tried other garish colors as well. None were acceptable. They simply could not tell the difference they claimed. Only having different looking browsers would do.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, if you use Firefox only for external browsing (with no access to the intranet) and IE only for internal applications (with no access to the internet), this also gives additional security because an external attacker with internal knowledge (e.g. an ex-employee) cannot get access to your intranet by adding malicious code to an external web site (e.g. by performing a redirect to an internal application with GET parameters triggering a malicious action).

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[POWRSURG]

Then I guess it's a good thing that IE8+ actually lets you specify which version of IE (from 7 on up) to display a website (though it is harder in IE11). Microsoft learned from the backlash they received for breaking intranets when they released IE7 so this really should not be an issue for anyone anymore.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[lgw]

Google's arrogance with this stuff is pushing me to finally leave gmail for outlook.com. As much as the same sort or arrogance annoys me with Windows 8, somehow outlook.com has escaped the terrors of "designers" and is the simple, clean UI that gmail was 10 years ago.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[MobyDisk]

Now I cam curious: could you expand on that? What else does one disable/enable on different security zones?

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[mwvdlee]

Are you also allowed to access your private Gmail account?

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Billly Gates]

Time to switch to Office 365 then.

They value our time and costs it takes after millions to get IE 8 just year. WTF

Google wont have customers anymore at this rate. The 22 year old programmers there have never worked in a production environment. Google doesnt count as they money to burn and its not labeled a cost center

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood the fascination with GPO's and IE.

So you have a proxy? Why? Proxies are an antiquated means of dealing with problems we've forgotten we had.

So you require certain ActiveX objects? I'm pretty sure IE prompts you when you visit a page that tries to use one. Let your users click "OK" to load it.

Which gets us to the real issue: LET your users use their computers. Anything else is bullshit and counterproductive. Want to know why the IT department is reviled by the rest of the company? That's why.

Security is made up of layers of various types of protection, but locking the user down to an insecure program and then taking away their ability to use it because it's shit is just amateurish. You can either do better, or you can GTFO. Nobody is going to support your tin-pot dictatorship.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Who is going to pay for the complexity, and is there a business case for spending the money to support it is the question.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Its not about difficult vs. hard. It is about cost. Offering end users a choice of browser just because is a waste of time and money. Unless there's a business case for it, wasting time and money just because is not a real intelligent thing to do.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Administrator access for everybody! Right? Good luck with that.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

Security settings that affect scripting settings (beyond just active x crap), how submission of credentials are done, and various other subtleties (disabling downloads,etc) that an enterprise may want or need to control.

While I may not use IE as my preferred browser there is no getting around the fact that IE is the most enterprise friendly from a management\configuration\maintenance perspective browser that exists. Both Chrome and FireFox have an absolute ton of work to do on that front to be in the same league. At least the developers Chrome seem to understand this even though they have much work to do, the folks putting out FF seem to not give much of a sh1t and never have.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[silenc3r]

"Socialism is a system which heroically overcomes the difficulties not known in any other system!" --Stefan Kisielewski

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that if you've ever been responsible for sysadmin at all, it was only for a relatively small organisation. If you're responsible for a large organisation with many members of staff who aren't necessarily technically skilled, locking down your average staffer to a controlled, secured system is exactly what you want to do, and then maybe you also allow case-by-case exceptions for people who do know what they're doing.

If you allow more options, your help desk costs will be through the roof, not least because the ability for non-technical staff to become accustomed to established processes and then help each other goes way down.

In the specific case of browsers, you also have to consider the cost of maintaining your intranet applications and retesting every new version of a browser before it deploys. This is never going to happen on a six-weekly schedule for each major browser, because that would impose an absurd level of overhead on everyone maintaining those applications. But right now, Mozilla think a period of roughly a year constitutes long-term support, which clearly places them on a different planet from the professionals who actually have responsibility for these things.

Also, the cost of recovering from a successful attack on your infrastructure is horrible. The fewer chances that unskilled users have to screw up and let something bad in, the more you reduce the risk. One of the highest risk groups in the enterprise is the kind of user who thinks they know what they're doing and then opens up vulnerabilities you wouldn't otherwise have. They'll be the first to complain that your draconian restrictions are stopping them from doing something that in reality saves them a few seconds per day, and the last to take responsibility for that $100,000 outage while every infected machine in the department is restored from known good images or the painful fines for regulatory compliance violations because you can't audit your outgoing traffic for data leakage any more. (Well, the last except for anyone in management, who for some reason tend to assume rules don't apply to them despite lacking the technical understanding to even make that kind of judgement rationally.)

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I'm allowed access to anything I want. You see, the company I work at understands that its employees are all adults and are capable of exercising self-control. That's why they don't try to control us like children as your company apparently does.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[styrotech]

Chrome has (or at least had last time I looked) an 'enterprise' download that could be managed via Group Policy and do updates on a centralised schedule.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[znrt]

http://i.imgur.com/H4lcN.jpg
fuck businessland! xD

i have to assume you are a shill. if you actually were a sysadmin declaring himself incapable of managing a business network without [software_x:=internet_explorer] you would be simply ridiculing yourself. that's not just incompetence, it's absurd. actually ... dwight, is that you?

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Bacon Bits]

The real problem is the application. Why do they need two windows open? Why do both windows need to be different browser windows instead of having the web application do that? If legitimate tasks the user needs to do and the application was designed to perform require the user to be in two places at once, the problem is not with the user.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[OrangeTide]

You're not really a Google customer, you're the product.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[BradleyUffner]

Because using the internet and illegal drug use are the same thing.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[viperidaenz]

What do you do if a security update breaks your third party management software?
Stop managing your software or stop applying security updates?
If you use the service supported by the vendor supplying your security updates, you lower the risk.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[RobertinXinyang]

Also stuck with IE 8 here (and XP). The silly thing is that I frequently need a machine that will run a modern browser for normal business activities.

The company answer is to "just use your personal machine." I see it as a way of unloading another business expense on to the employee.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[Salgat]

The only thing you have to be concerned with is that if you use personal e-mail at work they can in the event of a lawsuit have access to your personal e-mail as part of a subpoena.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[sd4f]

Stubborn IE users should be treated as addicts and sent to rehab.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[tepples]

My boss is perfectly fine with my use of caffeine.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[jrumney]

The company answer is to "just use your personal machine.

If that's an official company answer, then go home, use your machine for the 5 minutes it takes, and come back, on company time and make sure you claim for the travel expenses.

Re:We're stuck on IE 6 or 8 here in business land

[smash]

Yeah, need to see if it will work with that site. But the easy fix for the time being was to just back out the upgrade for those machines.

Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

why do IE9 need any "special support" at all? standards-incompatible browser?

Re:Well,

[gravis777]

Google apps doesn't want to support obsolete software. Microsoft doesn't want to support obsolete software. Run Firefox or Opera (I think Chrome still supports XP as well).

When Firefox and others stop supporting XP, and people find that XP no longer meets their needs, they will upgrade.

Tough shit, XP is 12 years old. Get over it.

Your corporation still runs XP as many of your apps are not compatable with newer versions and you also use Google Apps in the workplace? Sucks to be you - you have known for years that Microsoft was EOLing XP. You should have suspected that others would stop supporting it as well. Looks like you are going to have to roll out Windows 7, and setup a Citrix enviornment to run your legacy apps - or setup virtual machines.

Seriously, corporations, learn about Citrix.App virtualization

Re:Well,

[cdrudge]

It doesn't need special support necessarily. It's just a way for a company to officially say that they are discontinuing support for that browser to guarantee that it works. You still may be able to use the previous version to the full app's potential, but if you do have a problem, do go crying to Google about it.

The exact same policy that exists for IE exists for Firefox and Safari as well. They support the current and second most recent version, and discontinue the 3rd most recent. It's less of a big deal with Firefox and Safari as they usually can be updated to the latest version automatically or at least with little issue with pretty much any OS version. Current versions of IE on the other hand only work with the latest versions of their OS. IE8 was the last version to work on XP. IE9 was the last version to work on Vista. There are still a lot of computers that run XP and Vista that could have unsupported problems now or in the future with Google Apps unless they switch to a modern browser.

Re:Well,

[bradley.meck]

"bleeding edge"? Please don't start until you define "bleeding edge" DOM (not Javascript it lands in all DOM implementations too!) features, read when various "bleeding edge" features started to get support in other browsers, and when their candidate recommendations occured.

Re:Well,

[viperidaenz]

I'm making money while wasting time on slashdot.

Not quite sure what the requirement is

[Anonymous Coward]

For my basic email needs, I would have stayed with office 97 were it not for the rest of the package being incompatible with modern file formats.

I write word docs and spreadsheets the same way, and draw the same things in Visio.

I guess I just don't understand this entire web app thing. I don't WANT my stuff stored and running on the Internet, and I have clients that are absolutely nothing but google apps. Having to upgrade my computer to read their stuff (they send links--not attachments--requiring a login to look at what they sent me in email -- what is that?)

Next thing you know the reason will be that they can't easily display autoplay html5 ads without it. I don't need html5 ads when writing documentation, you know? And it already is hard enough to disable autoplay without ruining everything. I should not need to install an application to prevent other applications from running, but then I am not an internet mogul.

Re:Not quite sure what the requirement is

[bill_mcgonigle]

I guess I just don't understand this entire web app thing. I don't WANT my stuff stored and running on the Internet, and I have clients that are absolutely nothing but google apps. Having to upgrade my computer to read their stuff (they send links--not attachments--requiring a login to look at what they sent me in email -- what is that?)

It's pretty simple, really - they're externalizing their IT costs onto you, and other people they work with. Sorry there's not a happy answer.

Walled Garden

[0xG]

Although IE* is crap, I can see that Google is heading for the walled garden approach, like Apple.
Use our apps. Best with Chrome...

Re:Walled Garden

[i kan reed]

Yeah, at some point recentyish Google crossed into completely unlikable territory. While that might drive technically adept people away, their momentum and existing user base can be mined for as much money as possible in the meantime. 10 years ago google was awesome. Today, I wouldn't bat an eye if they got wiped from the face of the planet.

Re:Walled Garden

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, I started using Apps for nonprofits for a local group, and sometime in the early summer, the spreadsheets stopped working for anything but Chrom[e,ium], as far as columns lining up with the row markers. There's an open issue on it, lots of people bitching about current Firefox being broken, but no fixes or response from Google.

Obviously, I need to switch to a different solution, since I can't force all my volunteers to use a particular browser.

Re:Walled Garden

[smash]

If by recently you mean in say, 2004 then you would be correct.

Re:Walled Garden

[Nerdfest]

They've done a couple of out of character things lately (youtube play button signing people up for Google+, and XMPP support), but I don't think dropping support for a browser that doesn't follow standards is particularly bad. I think they're still a lesser evil than any of their competitors in most markets. I'm not saying that it's a high bar or anything ...

Re:Walled Garden

[i kan reed]

IE 9 is not very far from standards compliance, in any sort of pragmatic sense. I usually don't have to worry about CSS/javascript issues causing problems anymore when I develop code for websites(because I ignore IE 7 and before).

Re:Walled Garden

[Bogtha]

This is no indication of that. One of the biggest problems web developers face is people using old browsers that aren't as technically capable. It increase the effort required to implement and maintain features, particularly for large, complex web applications.

Google have a long-standing policy to support the most recent major version of browsers and the previous major version. What prompted the dropping of support for Internet Explorer 9 was the release of Internet Explorer 11 a couple of weeks ago.

They described this policy - which applies to all browsers, not just Internet Explorer - a couple of years ago. When they did so, they explicitly provided links to download the latest versions of major browsers, including Internet Explorer.

This is not a conspiracy to punish Internet Explorer users. This is an effort to reduce unnecessary work for their engineering teams.

Re:Walled Garden

[Gravis Zero]

only supporting standards compliant browsers is NOT a walled garden because anyone can implement a working browser as it's well defined and spec'd out standard with compliance tests and all. dont want to follow the agreed upon standard? fine but dont come back with crocodile tears. no browser (not even Chrome) should have any exceptions made for their bad behavior. it's a standard, not a suggestion.

Re:Walled Garden

[i kan reed]

Yeah, I guess the 2-3 extra lines to support XMLHttpRequest on i.e. are a pain. It just doesn't seem like something to throw up your arms and give up on, like say the box model was in IE 6.

Re:Walled Garden

[Gravis Zero]

There's an open issue on it, lots of people bitching about current Firefox being broken, but no fixes or response from Google.

Obviously, I need to switch to a different solution,

the only thing obvious here is that firefox is not following the w3c standard.

since I can't force all my volunteers to use a particular browser.

you dont have to force developers to fix an issue but they are much more likely to oblige if you offer them money in return for their services. now if only there was a place where you could do such a thing.

Re:Walled Garden

[bill_mcgonigle]

the only thing obvious here is that firefox is not following the w3c standard.

Strong claim - which one would that be?

they are much more likely to oblige if you offer them money in return for their services

Google Apps devs are participating?

Re:Walled Garden

[the_greywolf]

It's more than 2-3 extra lines. IE8 and IE9 don't have XHR2, so you have to use the XDomainRequest ActiveX control, which behaves differently, doesn't support anything other than GET and POST, and is riddled with silly bugs like, "if the progress handler isn't set, requests won't be processed at all in IE9, with no errors."

Never mind the fact that the XHR object in IE8/9 is broken as all hell.

Re:Walled Garden

[Bogtha]

Are you referring to this issue? It seems to me that the problem is caused by Firefox making some text disproportionately big compared with other text due to its minimum font size settings, and you can fix the problem by changing Firefox's settings to not interfere with the font size.

Re:Walled Garden

[bill_mcgonigle]

Interesting, I'll have to check it out. The complaints I was seeing were on the Google product forums, vs. mozilla.org. The trick here is that half of my volunteers are retirees. The per-site minimum font size extension mentioned on that page will be worth looking at.

Re:Walled Garden

[viperidaenz]

Microsoft should have called it IE10.1, since IE10 was bundled with Windows8, why shouldn't the IE for Windows 8.1 be IE10.1?

Then Google would be supporting IE9 until Windows 9 comes out.

Re:Walled Garden

[viperidaenz]

IE8 is the latest IE available on XP. Google dropped support for IE8 a long time ago.

Re:Walled Garden

[Billly Gates]

Please IE 9!= IE 6. You dont need to spend 50% of your time on just that one version unlike IE 6.

Google is clueless as the schools they market to still run IE 6 with Windows 2000. Corps run IE 8 and that is considered modern! These users will just go to Office 365 instead. Not everyone is a 22 year old blogger and Google cant see that

Release March 2011

[Anonymous Coward]

It was released March 2011. Google is dropping support after 2.5 years. This is nothing more than another vector to advertise Chrome.

We're stuck on 9

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Hell, we moved off of 6 sometime this year. We don't personally run Google Apps, but we can't be unique in having IE restrictions such as that.

We're also a Linux firm, and the latest Firefox you can run on our Linux (RedHat AS 5, moving to 6) is Firefox 17. Chrome/Chromium won't even run at all.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Big Hairy Ian]

Ahh Google shooting itself in the userbase again. RIP IGoogle

Re:We're stuck on 9

[bill_mcgonigle]

What's the polite way to say "Google doesn't want you as a customer"?

Re:We're stuck on 9

[h4rr4r]

You might as well wait for RHEL 7 by now.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[vladmihaisima]

We're also a Linux firm, and the latest Firefox you can run on our Linux (RedHat AS 5, moving to 6) is Firefox 17.

You make it sound like it is very old. Firefox 17 first release was around one year ago and is quite modern browser when compared with IE 9.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Lendrick]

> "Google doesn't want you as a customer if supporting your old browser costs more than the revenue you bring in"?

FTFY

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Saethan]

We still have to support a site that we built back when IE6 was the norm, though I don't know of anybody around here who uses it. A guy who sits 7 feet away from me is using IE8, though. Well, not 'using'... more like... 'pulls up occasionally to test compatibility'

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Gravis Zero]

We're stuck on 9

incorrect! your firm is simply refusing to upgrade. there is a BIG difference.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[tgd]

> "Google doesn't want you as a customer if supporting your old browser costs more than the revenue you bring in"?

FTFY

That's not a huge cost relative to tens or hundreds of millions of users. Google isn't click-testing its software -- you can be sure of that. Once you've got the automated tests, its a matter of updating them. The cost is low.

While the "three latest versions" rule is a good rule of thumb, IE9/10/11 are all virtually identical relative to the functionality that Google is using.

I think this is more about getting people on XP to use Chrome instead of upgrading to Windows 8.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Billly Gates]

Why should a firm be forced to upgrade? IE 9 runs fine. IT has projects and deadlines to do and upgrading for the sake of upgrading is not one of them?

  If it aint broke dont fix it

Re:We're stuck on 9

[gregmac]

Why do you have *restrictions* on using IE9? If your sites/app are built correctly (using standards), then your users should be able to freely upgrade and even use other browsers. If the people that build your sites/apps are not supporting the current versions of browsers, or are doing things that are against standards and only work in IE9, then they're idiots. Or the person preventing testing of anything other than IE9 is an idiot.

It's fine for you you have a requirement of IE9+ support, but ignoring current versions is dumb. You're just recreating the mess of IE6-only apps that the world-at-large is only just getting over. Did you not learn the lesson?

It's slightly more expensive to support more versions today, but it's anywhere from much more expensive to complete-rewrite expensive when you have no choice a few years from now.

Re:We're stuck on 9

[Gravis Zero]

Why should a firm be forced to upgrade?

nobody is forcing them to do anything. if they dont want to upgrade, the consequences of their [in]actions are their own doing.

IE 9 runs fine. ...
  If it aint broke dont fix it

if IE9 is not broken, then there isnt a problem. the problem is that IE9 is broken which is why it needs special support.

this is the cost of involving your business with microsoft. adapt or die.

As a Web Designer...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a web designer, I can only heartily support any effort to push people towards the newer versions of IE (or, better yet, away from it entirely...).

Re:As a Web Designer...

[hcs_$reboot]

Of course. And I'm glad to hear such news, IE9 upgrade to be encouraged... But there are still many companies using IE7, or even the unfamous IE6.
In what world do they live?

Re:As a Web Designer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the regulated world of medical diagnostics. So in my world any hardware or software change including web browser upgrades require a painful and time consuming (ie expensive) validation process. Add this to the huge number of companies that had all of there internal intranet apps written specifically for old versions of IE updating these apps can cost millions of dollars some times to update.

  So its easy to understand why old out dated browsers are still being used... The new ones are too expensive to start using even though they are free.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As a web developer, I can only heartily support any effort to push people away from Google. YMMV, but I don't think they are a net positive contributor to the industry for either developers or users any more. I think they are more running on momentum earned from doing some good/useful things a few years ago than they are doing new good/useful things today.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[Bogtha]

there are still many companies using IE7, or even the unfamous IE6.

Not really.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a web developer, I can only heartily support any effort to push people away from Google. YMMV, but I don't think they are a net positive contributor to the industry for either developers or users any more.

Really? I've been doing web application development for 19 years, and when I'm looking to play with new standards-compliant features, the first browser I reach for is Chrome, because it generally has a superset of the features implemented in Firefox (by about 1%) and IE (by about 20%.) Far less headache and wasted time than starting with Firefox or IE for that very reason.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Unfortunately, many of these "standards-compliant" features aren't really standardised in any meaningful way yet. Of those that are, the quality of implementation across browsers is variable.

Chrome is very good at ticking more boxes than other browsers or winning on cute test pages, but personally I'd rather they fix the numerous layout bugs they seem to have when everyday features interact, or sort out the quality of their text rendering, or improve the performance of SVGs. There's little value in implementing a new feature well ahead of other browsers unless your users are in an intranet environment and can dictate that everyone must access those systems only with Chrome. There's not much more value in implementing a new feature, but doing it so badly that it's not suitable for production use.

In practice, it's often the least common denominator that determines whether new features are useful for real projects. That usually means recent versions of IE, which obviously lag in introducing features, but on the other hand they generally do provide a reasonably complete and robust implementation once they claim to support something.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[tgd]

there are still many companies using IE7, or even the unfamous IE6.

Not really.

And why would you think that accurately represents corporate usage?

Re:As a Web Designer...

[darnkitten]

Not really [statcounter.com].

We don't use IE6, but when the library I run applies for E-rate funding (a thrice-annual ordeal for the smallest of libraries), the company that handles the applications uses IE6 and only offers an IE6-compliant website, despite years of complaints. Their site will only work with IE, 6 preferred; though modern versions of IE or Firefox with IE Tab will make it through a form, albeit usually with a page load error or two, which require you to clear the cache and log in again before you can finish.

So, even though we don't directly use IE6, and thus are not counted in the statistics, we and the hundreds of other libraries using the application process, have to deal with it several times a year.

Re:As a Web Designer...

[hcs_$reboot]

Some applications are made for XP or even for older OSes, ok. But IE is a browser... It is meant to browse and view the Internet world.
Considering IE6 to be mandatory on a PC because its upgrade would cost an arm and a leg, ok - but in this case, companies should allow a modern browser, eg chrome, to be installed and used for anything other than that medical application.

Re:IE 9?

[Horshu]

Because they're the latest versions, and they're free?

Re:Choice

[smash]

Given that IE10 and up are Windows 7 onwards only, I suspect a large proportion of the XP diehards will "GTFO".

Re:Choice

[bpechter]

Or run Chrome or Mozilla at a reasonable rev.

No bueno

[Nimey]

We've got a number of programs and a few outside websites that require IE9 or older. Good thing that we're cool with letting our users have Firefox and Chrome, though some of them really like IE and would rather use that instead.

Re:No bueno

[N0Man74]

IE 9 requires at least Vista. Making IE 10 the requirement means you can't even use Vista, you have to have at least Windows 7 (or switch browsers).

Re:No bueno

[SleazyRidr]

Well, at least Chrome will work on XP for another couple of years: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/17/0311247/

Re:IE 9?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

They're only the latest version if you're on a recent version of Windows. Many people aren't.

Re:IE 9?

[tepples]

IE 10 is not free if your PC runs Windows Vista.

And yet...

[FuzzNugget]

Slashdot still shows the IE8 icon.

Re:Internet Explorer on Windows Vista?

[mwvdlee]

Or you could upgrade to FireFox, Opera, Chrome or some other browser.
This is also a viable option for anybody currently stuck on IE10 or soon to be stuck on IE11.

IE 10 breaks 80% of apps!

[Billly Gates]

Apps that were made just 2 years ago! IE 8 owned 90% of the IE market when it takes 2 years to write. You cant expect these packages to be certified.

Re:IE 9?

[jeffmflanagan]

If your PC still runs Windows Vista, you have bigger problems than your ancient browser. Clinging to terrible old technologies is no way to live your life.

Must one buy each Windows OS as it is released?

[tepples]

A PC purchased four years and one month ago would have shipped with Windows Vista Service Pack 2. Is it common practice to install paid upgrades to Windows on an existing PC rather than to use the operating system for which the PC's hardware was certified and just apply updates until the PC's hardware itself is ready to be retired?

Re:Must one buy each Windows OS as it is released?

[viperidaenz]

Not to mention Vista is still supported by security patches until April 11, 2017

Re:IE 9?

[Excelsior]

My father's computer is running Vista. I tried to upgrade him to Win 7, but lack of drivers for his Samsung laptop meant that his USB dropped to USB 1.0, no drivers for his printer, no drivers for his scanner, and no drivers for his wifi. The color calibration system he uses wouldn't work on Win 7. Upgrading to Win 7 also forced him to upgrade his Creative Suite, which then wouldn't support the RAW format on his very expensive DSLR.

This isn't just a matter of "clinging to old technologies". To support high end photography, he buys expensive cameras, scanners, printers, color calibration systems, and more. Upgrading isn't just an afternoon of work. It would involve throwing out thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software, and starting over.

Businesses run into these kind of situation all the time. Multiply it to thousands of employees, and the costs can be staggering.

Re:IE 9?

[tepples]

Then continue using Windows Vista on that computer for editing photographs and use either Chrome, Firefox, Windows 7 in a VM, or Windows 7 on another computer for Google Apps.

I'll be leaving after xmas

[fast turtle]

I'm already looking into alternatives to Gmail and all of their other products as they've already dropped support for my browser. I'm even going to dump my Nexus 7 on my brother since it never did allow me to compose emails while off-line. Same thing for docs or even adding a calendar entry (main reason we'd got it - doctor appointments).

Once I wipe my gmail/g+/calendar/docs and groups I'm going to finish blocking Google completely in my hosts file. Don't need em and don't want them wasting my bandwidth.

Re:IE 9?

[darnkitten]

Vista?

As a rural librarian, I have seen patrons that use Win95 (actually, I haven't seen them in about a year--they may have passed away), Win98 (saw that one last month), Win XP, Vista and Win7. I haven't seen ME or 2000, but I would bet they are out there. I keep a small library of obsolete basic software so I can handle corrupted installs or such like, but...

,,,some folks can't afford to upgrade.

Hell, I have patrons who can't afford electricity or indoor plumbing!

As far as anyone call tell

[gelfling]

The only requirement on earth for IE at all, any version, is Windows update.

Re:IE 9?

[jrumney]

Or one day you wake up and realise that testing 100% is a waste of your company's money and exposing it to a much greater cost from the security holes in the ancient browsers you are keeping people on to "save on support costs from untested upgrades".

Re:IE 9?

[Blaskowicz]

That's really pointless and a waste of precious CPU, memory and hard disk resources. Not to mention you now have to let happen two different sets of OS, antivirus, application updates happen. What if both Windows are updating at the same time, over wifi, while dad is working on his photos while uploading a few of them in the background. :D congrats you've turned a powerful computer to a 486 with dial up and PIO hard drive.

Better to keep one Windows, fully patched, install Firefox and delete all IE shortcuts.. Vista is a slight variant of Windows 7 anyway, with some of it backported even.