IE6 Retirement Home? | The Coffeehouse

stun

Dear everyone,

Digg.com is considering about what to do with IE6 http://digg.com/tech_news/Much_Ado_About_IE6.
I am keeping IE6 on my work computer for development/testing because the majority (approx. 65%) of the users still have IE6.

I hate the fact that we are still stuck with this very old browser and some IT departments are still not upgrading to IE7 or IE8 yet.
In a perfect world (of course not 100% perfect), most people should be using at least IE7 with IE8 gaining marketshare slowly.

Why are we still stuck with this IE6? What's your experience with it?
Do you think Microsoft should encourage (*ahem* force) people to upgrade to at least IE7 or higher by NOT supporting it anymore and stop releasing Security Updates for it?

I am not starting this to start a flame war.
I want to know if there is anything that can be done as an industry wide effort to move forward.

-Soe

kettch

Not supporting it with updates isn't going to force people to upgrade. The majority of people who have it wouldn't notice or care. They just need to push down the update. Period.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Our company is still IE6 only as well. It drives us crazy, but IT can't be bothered to upgrade because it's a 'hassle'.

joechung

It would be a mistake to force it on businesses if it could break their Intranet apps.

And it isn't just a hassle; it costs time and money to upgrade systems.

Internet Explorer 6 is the DOS of the Web world at this point. Microsoft has to support it forever, whether they like it or not, and it looks like the plan to do that, at least for Windows 7, is to include a virtual Windows XP so you can run IE 6.

magicalclick

No security updates on IE6 would just make more FF fanboys trolling in joy. And it is scary to update computer system. IT people hate something goes wrong, because IT people hate to fix things. And taking the innitiative to upgrade offers no benifits to ones career, but, more problems is garranteed. But, at this point, we should really think about coding the program that is not specific to a version of platform. A crappy developer can make a .Net 2.0 app only works on XP but not Vista (yes, it happened).

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

It is too expensive for most companies for little to no return on investment), and the features in IE7 and 8 are best used by home computers. The first thing an IT department head will ask is that, will this improve productivity for staff and the answer i'm afraid is no. IE6 is still pretty usefull and secure in a corporate environment, especially since most people don't go to undesireable sites that contain viri and malware

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to vesuvius

#Jul 11th @ 3:11 AM

Actually, the answer would be yes when it comes to web development staff, and by extension the people who use their web apps. Which in our case is the entire company.

rhm

In reply to Bas

#Jul 11th @ 3:42 AM

I'm doing some HTML/CSS work for a client at the moment (not really my job, but there's not much programming work to do atm). It's bad enough trying to get IE7 to render stuff correctly (lots of forcing hasLayout required) and I hadn't even looked at it once in IE6. If the client comes back when I've finished and says it needs to work in IE6 I will not be responsible for my actions!

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to vesuvius

#Jul 11th @ 3:11 AM

The increased security of IE7/IE8 would be reason enough for a corporate unless they have a bunch of badly written intranets which rely on ActiveX or IE6 CSS quirks.

ZippyV
Fired Up

"I am keeping IE6 on my work computer for development/testing because the majority (approx. 65%) of the users still have IE6."

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-yearly-2008-2009-bar

More like 23%

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to ZippyV

#Jul 11th @ 6:13 AM

He said "the users". You're pointing to stats for the entire internet.

stun

In reply to ZippyV

#Jul 11th @ 6:13 AM

Yeah my company is in the Health Care industry and our clients are Hospitals and Doctors' Offices Sad .
I am not talking about the internet stats.

Our Google Analytics reports indicate at least 65% and we can't do anything about it Sad .

Even Microsoft's own MSN website has problems with IE6 (I can't remember where I saw the article).
I wish IE6 would die already, but we are all stuck with it.

figuerres
???

Well I think that we need to point out to the managers /CEO/CFO types that:

1) IE8 is the current version on windows
2) it follows standards
3) IE6 is really really old and has a *LOT* of issues that are fixed in IE8
4) when they want to have any new web site things done making things work for 6 and 8 and other browsers costs real $$$
5) in 90% or more cases IE8 will be able to use a site that was built for IE6

so they do not have to re-do all the old stuff to work with the new browser.
and over time they can re-cap the cost of the move in having to pay less for new web stuff and also have the benefit that the new stuff will work on a Mac, in an iPhone and on other browsers.

no it's not a million dollar re-cap in year 1 (well for some it could be but...) but it is still a case that is worth examininng further.

CplCarrot
Dust Puppy

In reply to figuerres

#Jul 13th @ 10:31 AM

IE8 may work with IE6 sites but the critical word is "Supported" there are a number of critical business applications that take an age to officially support new browsers (I am looking at you Siebel who took over a year to support IE7).

This means if you upgrade your browser and then have ANY issue the support desk will cut you off with "Thats not a supported configuration". That phrase strikes fear into the heart of IT managers and directors.

My beef is less with the IT Directors than it is with the Application vendors who have cut test and R&D to the marrow.

Yggdrasil
Pour me a cab, 'cause I can't drink no more.

In reply to figuerres

#Jul 13th @ 10:31 AM

Let me answer you the way a good IT manager should:

1) Newest version? So what. This isn't a game and it isn't a race. We're not here to play with the newest toys.

2) Standards? So what? What do they give me, the organization?

3) Name those issues. If they are issues that affect our daily work routine, or are critical security risks, we should upgrade. Otherwise? What's the use?

4+5) Wait, you said that building new web apps for IE6 and IE8 costs more money, but then you say that IE8 can run IE6-compatible sites, right? Great. We'll build IE6-compatible sites and have them work with IE8 as well. Win-win!

Remember that there's no such thing as a universally better browser. An organization has to choose the tools it needs for the problems it has and the tasks it has, not because they're prettier, or run javascript faster, or are open-source.

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

I just don't find it that much of an issue... develop for "standards" and then implement the required hacks at the end... usually takes me less than a day to make a site support IE6.

stun

In reply to elmer

#Jul 13th @ 2:52 PM

Another site to phase out IE6.
www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/youtube-will-be-next-to-kiss-ie6-support-goodbye/

But as we all know, this only affects the home users.
Corporate Users will still be stuck with it Sad

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to figuerres

#Jul 13th @ 10:31 AM

And yet, someone at Microsoft decided not to put the current version of IE into the recent service packs for Windows XP and Windows Vista... epic fail.

AndyC

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 14th @ 11:23 AM

Tying the latest IE into a Service Pack would have been a horrendous idea. Particularly give that Vista SP2 fixed a lot of really important issues and artificially preventing access to those before companies were ready for IE8 could potentially be a further barrier to Vista adoption.

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 14th @ 11:23 AM

Good. Windows Vista SP2 is an important patch while IE8 is an additional feature. Organisations will spend enough time and money just getting SP2 rolled out to all of their configurations without worrying about testing tons of web-sites and internal applications to see if the continue to function between IE7 and IE8.

Plus the gap between IE7 and IE8 isn't close to the HUGE gap between IE6 and IE7. The two aren't even comparable.

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to ManipUni

#Jul 14th @ 11:41 AM

Not if you are working in a corporate environment. Dodo mentions that youtube are to stop supporting IE6, and makes the correct judgement that it affects most home users only, in general, most employees are forbidden from watching youtube at work.

The point you are missing though, is company X has been using IE6 for the last 5 years, and up till now there have been no security breaches, because typically peoples workstations are monitored, and if you use IE6 to go to bbc.co.uk or microsoft.com you are at mimimal risk of attack, which is true for a lot of companies. Take Asda/Walmart for example (hypothetically), they have stores country wide, using IE6. They also have suppliers all over the world, and distibution centres country-wide, all using Citrix to virtualise their application for everyone to use. If you think that these people are going to upgrade IE 6 in the next decade...dream on!

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to vesuvius

#Jul 14th @ 12:06 PM

And the part you are missing is, if there will be no forced change (no more security updates for the horribly old software), they'll never switch. Same thing with the economy. Noone needs to replace their stuff and gets stuck on the old... War is coming 2012... but that's off topic...

jake_ie8team

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 14th @ 7:06 PM

Youtube has also announced that it's getting rid of IE 6 support.

If you're planning on upgrading to Internet Explorer 8 in order to continue visiting YouTube, be sure to download and install IE 8 from http://www.browserforthebetter.com?ocid=ie8_sm_a
and donate to charity in the procees. 8 meals are donated to Feeding America for every complete download and install of IE 8 from http://www.browserforthebetter.com?ocid=ie8_sm_a

Also, for those of you who have already made the change and are pleased with your new browser, you should become a fan of the Official Internet Explorer Facebook page at http;//www.facebook.com/internetexplorer to get all the latest news and info about IE 8.

- Jake

MSFT Internet Explorer Outreach Team

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 14th @ 7:06 PM

The one that you can never ever do with a business, is force software or updates upon them. That is why most companies have IT departments, to make the necessary descisions. If Microsoft forces Walmart (in my example above) and Walmart could not receive orders from Country X, because its ancient software had issues, litigation would be the name of the game. Walmart deals with some big numbers.

Don't get me wrong here, because I now no longer use Firefox since IE8 came out. I am posting this in IE8 because I really love what the team did.

Experience necessitates that I interject and ratiocinate as "devils advocate" at times, that is all.

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to jake_ie8team

#Jul 17th @ 11:58 AM

Hate to say this, but why does this post not have a Microsoft hologram?