Google phases out support for IE6

Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack on the search engine.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8488751.stm

The strange part is that some stuff only works on IE6, not IE7 not IE8. To tell government to switch? They simply can't.

But, people don't use IE8 and switched to FF is a concerning problem. IE is certainly losing it and I think it will never get back to its glory. Since I have yet to see anything worth awhile on IE. And the dev cycle is too long.

I'm not sure phasing out support for a widely used, still suported by vendor browser (however old and out of date) is going to earn them much support in the corporate world where they're trying to sell cloud services. Could you imagine trying to access your email one day only to find that the hosting company had, on a whim, decided to stop supporting your browser despite that browser still being within its official life?

I also did not like the article title - Google may be discontinuing support for it on their services but the article seemed to try and imply (to a non-technical audience) that Google can somehow ban it from the interwebs....

GoddersUK said:

I'm not sure phasing out support for a widely used, still suported by vendor browser (however old and out of date) is going to earn them much support in the corporate world where they're trying to sell cloud services. Could you imagine trying to access your email one day only to find that the hosting company had, on a whim, decided to stop supporting your browser despite that browser still being within its official life?

 

I also did not like the article title - Google may be discontinuing support for it on their services but the article seemed to try and imply (to a non-technical audience) that Google can somehow ban it from the interwebs....

Hm, I didn't catch that implication...

GoddersUK said:

I'm not sure phasing out support for a widely used, still suported by vendor browser (however old and out of date) is going to earn them much support in the corporate world where they're trying to sell cloud services. Could you imagine trying to access your email one day only to find that the hosting company had, on a whim, decided to stop supporting your browser despite that browser still being within its official life?

 

I also did not like the article title - Google may be discontinuing support for it on their services but the article seemed to try and imply (to a non-technical audience) that Google can somehow ban it from the interwebs....

I think they probably care more that they get to spend their time developing new features.. not writing their 'code' completely funked up to make what should be a long dead browser work.

Where I work currently ie6 isn't supported implicitely anymore, it needs to be agreed to due to the additional time it adds.. potentially a hell of a lot of work if you are trying to use more modern web features.

GoddersUK said:

I'm not sure phasing out support for a widely used, still suported by vendor browser (however old and out of date) is going to earn them much support in the corporate world where they're trying to sell cloud services. Could you imagine trying to access your email one day only to find that the hosting company had, on a whim, decided to stop supporting your browser despite that browser still being within its official life?

 

I also did not like the article title - Google may be discontinuing support for it on their services but the article seemed to try and imply (to a non-technical audience) that Google can somehow ban it from the interwebs....

well IMHO it's time for all web developers to "strongly recommend" if not flat out require customers to move to the current IE version or to one of the other browsers that are "current".

sure that means that some sites have to get updated but in the long run it servs all users and developers to get to the place where the designers and developers can publish a site and know that it's a slam-dunk for it to work with almost every browser w/o a bunch of hacks to coddle IE6 to work.

figuerres said:

GoddersUK said:

*snip*

well IMHO it's time for all web developers to "strongly recommend" if not flat out require customers to move to the current IE version or to one of the other browsers that are "current".

sure that means that some sites have to get updated but in the long run it servs all users and developers to get to the place where the designers and developers can publish a site and know that it's a slam-dunk for it to work with almost every browser w/o a bunch of hacks to coddle IE6 to work.

Hear, Hear!

ScottWelker said:

figuerres said:

*snip*

Hear, Hear!

Thanks!

it's not easy sometimes but sometimes we have to tell folks what will be the right thing to do ....

figuerres said:

ScottWelker said:

*snip*

Thanks!

 

it's not easy sometimes but sometimes we have to tell folks what will be the right thing to do ....

And unfortanately large corporations, if they move from IE6, will move to IE7, which in itself is really a crappy browser too. And would be too tough to get them to move from IE6 right to IE8 like they should.

Harlequin said:

figuerres said:

*snip*

And unfortanately large corporations, if they move from IE6, will move to IE7, which in itself is really a crappy browser too. And would be too tough to get them to move from IE6 right to IE8 like they should.

I really doubt they would consider moving to 8 too tough, I would imagine that the fuss isn't so much using a new browser, but actually upgrading and handling 'its different' queries.

Harlequin said:

figuerres said:

*snip*

And unfortanately large corporations, if they move from IE6, will move to IE7, which in itself is really a crappy browser too. And would be too tough to get them to move from IE6 right to IE8 like they should.

that is a matter of education and showing them the cost of not moving. the issue for the corp is knowing the risk the cost and the benefit.

when the risk is low and the benefit is high and the cost is low enough they will move. it's also about playing politics with the execs.

if they buy off it will happen no mater what anyone else says.

first steps are to make sure they know that in 4 years there will be no support for ie6 at all. reminding them that sometimes you have to make a captial investment to move ahead. and other stuff like that.... it can be done.

Imagine what'd happen if google.com just stopped working with IE6. Having such large market share, IE6 could effectively be killed quickly, or Bing would get another 10% of users pretty quickly.

intelman said:

Imagine what'd happen if google.com just stopped working with IE6. Having such large market share, IE6 could effectively be killed quickly, or Bing would get another 10% of users pretty quickly.

Does Microsoft have teams or evangelists that help bring large corps into upgrading things like this?

but only for google docs, or?