IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On

[arcos]

IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On

Just six years ago, the web was dominated by one browser: Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer), specifically Internet Explorer 6. Without Netscape to compete against it and the ability to bundle its browser with Windows XP, Microsoft experienced superior market share – up to 95% at the peak. Today though, we have far superior browsers like Firefox (Firefox), Safari (Safari), Opera (Opera), and Chrome (Chrome), as well as Internet Explorer 8.

So why is 15 to 25 percent of the world’s browsing still done in a browser created in the digital Stone Age (aka 2001)? As a coder, designer, and UI guy, it’s difficult to put into words how many extra man hours I and others have dedicated to make websites compatible with the outdated browser.

...

Now, if you’re wondering why people still use the outdated IE6 browser, there are two primary reasons most people point to: the fact that it is the standard browser of Windows XP (which is still the most used operating system around), and the fact that many corporate IT departments don’t see the need to upgrade – and find upgrading to be too much of a hassle. Without a significant event like Google not loading in IE6, people have stayed content with their current browser.

...

http://mashable.com/2009/07/16/ie6-must-die/

[hlthe2b]

1. Most vulnerable browser from standpoint of security...

That alone, should have made most people upgrade (or switch).

[SoCalDem]

5. My friend lost $538 from her checking account last week

She called me, all upset, wondering how it happened since I installed firewall & virus software for her when she got the computer.. Then she told me how she browses..

AOL
IE
Yahoo
Facebook
MySpace


I put Firefox in for her..even gave her a desktop icon, but she usually goes straight to aol, and then bypasses Firefox, to use IE..

Her bank was great about it, and she'll get her money back..but sheeeeez...

[Eryemil]

43. This is how the universe punishes stupidity. n|t

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. The second paragraph is the payload...

"..As a coder, designer, and UI guy, it’s difficult to put into words how many extra man hours I and others have dedicated to make websites compatible with the outdated browser..."

Been there, seen that, done that. I had CSS drop-down menus as a site requirement for a client about a year ago. She used IE6 as her primary browser. The time to find and implement a suitable IE6 hack was three to four times the amount of time it took to code the entire menu. I have 14 CSS books on my reference shelf, and I scoured the Web.

In the end, I found the solution, but IE6 MUST die.

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. People still use IE6 because IE 7 sucks rancid mule ass?

Just a guess? I tried IE7 once and removed it from my computer 5 minutes later. But then I only use IE6 on new Windows XP installations, just long enough to download a copy of Firefox. Haven't used anything but Firefox for a regular browser since it was called "Firebird"

[Deja Q]

7. Firefox and opera are great... but IE7 is loads better than IE8, which ain't so great

buggy, crashes all the time... new XP install too... And it's not considered a beta for some reason...

[orwell]

27. Plus IE8...

...noticeably slowed my computer...even Firefox was slower.

I have removed it from every computer I administer.

It was not ready for primetime. I can't believe Microsoft pushes it out through Windows Automatic Updates.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. same wth me. I have IE 7 at work, but still use 6 at home. dunno what to

do when youtube won't support it

what happens when you go to firefox from IE?

I'm skeered....

[RoyGBiv]

24. It's just software ...

Install it. Use it. If you don't like it, stop.

There's nothing to be scare about simply installing a new web browser.

[Sebastian Doyle]

28. If you installed Firefox right now

You would have the option of importing all your bookmarks, cookies, whatever from IE over so you would barely notice the change. Except for the better browser part.

And if you find that you still miss IE6, you can always add this on, and fake it.....

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8885

[bananas]

4. Webmonkeys Must Die for the Web to Move On.

Long Live NoScript!

[RoyGBiv]

13. This is not about javascript ...

It's about conforming to HTML and CSS standards.

[bananas]

21. Most of it is unnecessary glitz

that just makes pages slower to load and more difficult to navigate.

[RoyGBiv]

22. Not necessarily ...

Granted there's a lot of eye-candy that isn't in fact necessary, but that's the pages that are heavy with scripting languages, like javascript, and Flash based pages.

Conforming to HTML and CSS standards *reduces* the amount of time it takes to render a web page properly. All the hacks necessary for backward compatibility cause them to render more slowly.

HTML and CSS are not the problem in any way, shape, or form.

[charlie]

41. Yeppers. CSS killed the weedy undergrowth of the web

Frames, fonts, and tables, to name a few. And attributes in general. In dialup days, probably 80% of bandwidth in page delivery was the ooze of markup spackle needed to make it "look right."

All gone. And good riddance.

CSS is gnarly in it's own right, but it's leagues better than the old way.

[RoyGBiv]

42. Frames ...

Don't get me started on frames.

I have PTSD from frames I think.

[charlie]

45. NN4 and frames!

You might remember this aggravating "feature."

Frames were great for a static navigation bar. Or they should've been. Make a frame in absolute pixels and you're set, unless NN4 got ahold of it. A 350px frame would be 348px in NN4. Or 356px. Or right on the money, you never knew. So, to accomodate the stupid browser, you inserted an ugly "fudge" space below the content so NN4 could mindlessly expand and contract and not clip anything important.

It was so annoying, some guy grabbed the source the week it was released to find that blasted bug. It turned out that for some nutty reason, a pixel measure in a frame would be converted to percentages for internal use, then converted back to absolute before rendering. Rounding errors ahoy! The sort of brainless scamboogery you could get away with before open source caught on.

[Matariki]

52. Are you from the past?

[Deja Q]

6. IT departments have no clue about 'security'

besides, IE7 is okay... but IE8 is a real joke. I have it on my PC at work and it's a bloody nightmare...

[raventattoo]

8. In order for IE6 to die...

you coders/web page designers must

STOP WRITING CODE AND PUTTING IN ALL THE HOURS TO MAKE IT IE6 COMPATIBLE!!!!

You want it to die, yet you have the power to make it so.

When someone using IE6 becomes unable view or interact with a web page, they WILL UPGRADE.


Intel MacBook, OS 10.5.7, Safari 4.0 (and thanks for the mention of Safari in the op)

[arcos]

11. Most coders have to do what the clients asks them to do...

And most clients are not willing to give up 15%-25% of their potential customers.

[RoyGBiv]

12. It's not the coders ...

Coders and designers would by and large be thrilled not to have to cater to IE6.

Coders are cogs in a wheel that is driven by large business interests who, for whatever reason, see a competitive advantage in maintaining backward compatibility.

The manager of the IT department where I work, who has a degree in mathematics and not a shred of coding experience, thinks IE6 is just fine. He also thinks the PNG graphics format is obsolete and that GIMP is "illegal software." He has one of our major systems built around IE6 compatibility, so much so that attempting to use Safari to access it is impossible, and in Firefox, it's all wonky.

The people who work under him know he's an idiot, but there's nothing short of simply refusing to do their jobs, and getting fired, that they can do about it.

[eppur_se_muova]

56. Replace the phrase "backward compatible" with "compatibly backwards" ...

in all your emails/conversations with such people. :)

[RoyGBiv]

57. That's an excellent idea ...

:)

Consider that phrase appropriated.

[LoZoccolo]

14. And they'd do that...why? n/t

[Subdivisions]

15. Or, in my case, if my site explodes in their IE6 browser,

they'll just go to a competitor's site that doesn't.

[Sebastian Doyle]

16. There's a "warning" up over at You Tube right now for IE6 users

Saying that they won't be supporting it any longer and "strongly suggesting" that you upgrade to IE8, Firefox 3 or (no doubt their preference) Google Chrome.

Now since Google does own YouTube, the cynical explanation would be that they're trying to push their own product. But if that was the case, they would probably find a way to stop Firefox from working on their site.

[RoyGBiv]

20. They're promoting standards ...

But, yes, they are moving toward promoting their own product.

They are on the cusp of deploying their own operating system to interact with their web-based apps and properties, first to be used on netbooks, later, if they succeed at this, on home "terminal" systems. In order to do this efficiently, they will be forced to remove compatibility for older web browsers that are not standards compliant.

[Engineer4Obama]

59. But that is our secret plot

To take over the world with Skynet, using IE6 internet code! Wikipedia is also heavily involved in this plot.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

9. I'm not going to defend M$ and IE, but Firefox is overrated IMO.

It crashes more often then IE(and I only use one add-in, the google toolbar). I also think IE has better bookmark management. I want to like it, but it doesn't really impress me.

[DireStrike]

17. Firefox has been getting worse

It loads slower and slower with each update. It's bloating...

[RoyGBiv]

19. 3.5 does load slower ...

I'm not entirely sure why that is.

But, it is quite a bit faster at page rendering than any of its predecessors and faster than all of the current browsers except Chrome and Safari.

[ohheckyeah]

29. How about security

using Chrome and Safari? Better than Firefox?

[RoyGBiv]

30. Depends on what you mean ...

How secure a modern browser is depends more on *how* you use it than anything inherent to it. I could claim this one is more secure than that one, but I'd be proved wrong the moment a security hole is found. That's the problem with any software. The most potentially damaging insecurities of most software remains hidden right up to the moment someone figures out how to exploit the problem.

That said, and generally speaking, FF, Opera, and Safari are all pretty much equal in this regard as far as we know at the moment. I omit Chrome from that list not because of the browser itself but because of its association with Google and how Google functions. In and of itself, the browser is fine, but if security to you means privacy, you may have some issues with it.

Actually, even the latest FF has a "location aware" feature I don't really like, but it's an "opt-in" feature, meaning you have to allow it to work every time a site requests your location, and you can easily disable it entirely.

But, again, how you use any of them is more telling in how secure using them is.

They're all better than IE6.

[ohheckyeah]

31. I'm pretty careful in how I use

my browser. I use McAfee site adviser and run my firewall at a pretty high setting.

so, Google Chrome has a privacy issue because of Google?

[RoyGBiv]

32. It's part of a marketing strategy ...

I'd really be going off the main topic here to get into it, and it's a convoluted subject anyway.

I should make clear that there's nothing wrong the browser. In and of itself, it's just as secure as any of the other top-tier browsers.

But, it is (and will be more in the future) tied to Google's advertising services, and I'm personally not liking where that is headed enough that I don't generally recommend it as an every-day browser.

There's also the whole thing involving installing Google's updater service when you install the browser. I, personally, haven't used Chrome since its first releases, but I was very much taken aback by the fact Chrome wanted to install this. I didn't want or need it just to use the browser.

[TheBigotBasher]

35. Safari is worse for security than IE6 on a Windows machine.

On a MAC fine, on a PC it handles scripts so badly it is a danger to use.

IMHO

[RoyGBiv]

39. Interesting to know ...

I've never actually used it on my machines.

[Imagevision]

36. Firefox already came out with an update from the recent 3,5 to 3.5.1_ get it

[RoyGBiv]

38. Yeah, I saw that just a minute ago ...

I use Linux so that particular problem doesn't actually affect me for daily use.

[bananas]

23. and it still only runs on a single cpu

we've had multi-processor systems for how many years now?

[BlooInBloo]

25. (shrug) It's in the works. And IE and Chrome only support it part way anyway.

[RoyGBiv]

26. Well ...

Most software you use doesn't have genuine multi-processor support, not in the sense of separating the application into separated processes that run independently on different cores.

In the browser market, this doing this is in the infant stages.

[ecstatic]

58. Exactly! It was nice and light at first but now it's just about as bloated

as IE. I guess it's partly my fault for allowing certain AddOns and Flash.

If it were not for the fast tabs I wouldn't even bother with Firefox.

[backscatter712]

10. I've deliberately made web pages that break in IE6.

Fairly easy to do once you look a few things up.

Unprofessional, yes. But fun! :evilgrin:

[KillCapitalism]

33. Better alternative to IE or Mozilla...

I enjoy using Apple's Safari 4, it runs better than IE for Firefox, at least for me it does.

[jberryhill]

34. Meh...

I open websites in Notepad and just read the code.

[RoyGBiv]

40. You whippersnapper ...

Gotta get all fancy with your Notepad craziness.

If you really wanna be hardcore, open it in VI. :)

[Matariki]

37. Probably 90% of IE6 use stats are us web devs

spending hours beating on the damn thing!

[arcos]

47. LOL! nt

[MicaelS]

44. IE6 won't die, as long as corporate IT personnel

Have a say in things. You mention Firefox and their heads explode. They have all their apps coded for IE6 and they simply do not want to take the time and money to recode them for FF, IE7, IE8, Chrome or Opera. What is going to have to happen is a web designers are just going to have to say "No to IE6!" and simply quit spending their time to "make websites compatible with the outdated browser."

[armyowalgreens]

46. The best web browser out right now is Google Chrome.

Hands down the best.

[charlie]

48. State Dept. to Clinton: Please let us use Firefox

Despite the rise of open source within the federal government, Mozilla's Firefox has yet to gain an official nod from the Department of State, at least according to a recent question-and-answer session that Secretary Hillary Clinton and Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy hosted last week, with an ironic back-and-forth on Firefox kicked off by government employee Jim Finkle:

Finkle: Can you please let the staff use an alternative Web browser called Firefox? I just--(applause)--I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn't use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don't understand why State can't use it. It's a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)

Clinton: Well, apparently, there's a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don't know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)

more...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10287084-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

[FlyingSquirrel]

49. I just do whatever my IT whiz brother does.

I noticed he had IE 8 going, so I said ya whatever fine I'll upgrade. I did uninstall IE 7 almost immediately after installing it 'cause it sucked ass.

[hootinholler]

50. Which is why I'm a backend guy. n/t

[tk2kewl]

51. IE everything should die

[gmoney]

53. We're stuck using an old version of IE for Mac because it's scriptable.

Or so my co-worker tells me. It's used for one specific application where we have scripted a process to access a web page and transfer information into a database.

[LynzM]

54. It sucks being stuck with it...

Our office is one of those that hasn't upgraded, and it's lame.

[FLAprogressive]

55. Firefox baby!