Google phases out IE6 support on March 1st!

I don’t think what you read about is the same as what’s on consumers’ machines. Corporations can manage Windows Update and updates get pushed to them differently.

I just booted up a fresh install of Windows XP in VirtualBox to check. I turned on automatic updates without changing any of the Windows Update settings. “Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP” is listed as a high priority update and will install itself at the time I told it to install updates automatically.

You can download newer versions of IE for free… it’s not as if an OS update is necessary. I work parttime at a crappy call center and they recently managed to get IE7 going. I don’t know what was behind that (it was 6 when I started) but it’s running on a lot of citrix machines with xp and 256 colours, so it’s by no means impossible. Maybe there needs to be a concerted effort in that regard. Because yeah I know companies are very reluctant to spend the money necessary to upgrade systems, but IE is free! or does it cost money for corporate use or something and I’m just confused…

It’s not about availability, it’s about losing the ability to run software they had custom built that only works on IE6, not IE7 or IE8.

It’s a bold move. To get the message out there it takes a heavy hitter like Google to make an impact. It still surprises me how little people know about browsers. It’s quite a new thing for the general public to be talking about browsers. Good on them. Good riddance to bad rubbish :slight_smile:

This is good. It is sending a message to companies that it isn’t OK to keep using older, insecure browsers, and I think google have chosen Docs and Sites deliberately to hit businesses and force them to upgrade. As for intranet applications, it’s not like they can go forever without touching it, so next time they code it, it might make them think about doing it properly, to web standards etc!

They won’t necessarily upgrade, depending on what OS they use, they might need a new machine. They might at the moment be using Windows 2000 (or possibly even something as old as NT4), now even if they could get each new comp for £200, that will soon add up if they have a lot of machines.

Even if they don’t need new machines it will still cost them time and money to upgrade or replace whatever app they are using which relies on IE6. They could quite easily use an existing office app suite (say MS Office or Open Office) and email and share across their internal network whatever files they need and at most it might cost then a couple of hundred to perhaps increase the storage capacity on their email server.

A update or replacement of the web app they use will take a certain number of hours, now lets say that their web developer charges £9.00 an hour and the recode takes say 100 hours from start to finish (inc testing). That’s £900 to replace the web app. For that money they can switch to using normal office software and for many companies that’s probably what they will do.

I’m starting to get a taste of what it’s like to be in one of those companies, without being in one.

Some of the online classes at my university are taught through Blackboard, a commercial web platform for that kind of thing. The version of Blackboard they’re using does not support Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3/3.5, Chrome or Safari. I actually have to load up an ancient browser (IE7 or earlier, Firefox 2 or earlier) to submit homework assignments.

It’s not even a complicated website, they just wrote some horrible browser-dependent javascript, somehow.

Amazing how it seems like to much work to actually screw up so badly. Nothing truly horrible happens on accident. :rolleyes:

I think you’re underestimating the complexity of some corporate intranets. Some of these systems would cost at least millions, and probably tens of millions, to re-build.

Although the actual software itself is free there are many other costs. Firstly, any necessary hardware changes must be factored in. Secondly, the cost of testing IE7 with the existing systems in place, followed by the deployment will cost in regards to man-hours.

Thirdly, any changes to existing systems would be another cost. Finally, any downtime during deployment or due to unforeseen problems that occur post-install could result in a loss of productivity for the business resulting in a financial loss on top of the installation costs.

Some corporations don’t upgrade to new service packs either because it’s ‘too much of a hassle’ for the admins. And were they to allow automatic updates, they wouldn’t download a service pack automatically.

I know quite some users still using XP SP1 and IE8 doesn’t work on that. (P.S. Google Chrome doesn’t work on < SP2 either).

I hate IE6 because i spend lot of time to made my web designs compatible with IE6 and other old browsers. Finally its nice to here google come up with this :slight_smile: thanks google

IE 7 works on xp sp2 I installed it and used. don’t know about sp1, but i don’t need to remember that xp sp2 out in 2002

I think it’s a step in the right direction, we have to take some accountability as professionals and make the move to avoid stagnating the development of the web by simply giving people a reason not to change their browser or upgrade it at any point. Don’t get me wrong, I do still support IE6 out of common practice but I usually provide a degraded visual look and feel to give people an incentive to upgrade if and when they can. We seem to be all too willing to follow the numbers and keep the old technologies alive, but I think Google are doing something which may have pains early on, but will eventually prove beneficial to the evolution of the web (by encouraging those who can upgrade to do so). I don’t want to be coding for IE6 in 10 years time if I can help it. :slight_smile:

Off Topic:

Ah! Having now just looked at the thread edit history, it seems a few threads were merged together by another mod, and I can only guess the merged result ended up on the wrong forum unintentionally.

Sorry Hyperbolik, just an oversight!

I agree with stormrider, but also want to point out that 10% still use IE and thats because those users do not even know what a web browser is, the only way they know how to get on the internet is click the IE button…I personally don’t support IE6 with hacks, I put a CSS message on the page explaining their options

For those of us who may attempt to support IE6 or have in the past, do you think telling clients that even Google doesn’t support IE6 would convince them to follow suit?

At the end of the day, it’s their choice though. Pay for an upgrade and keep progress going, or get left behind. It’s the cost of running a business, and anyone not willing to spend the money to upgrade will be left behind, using legacy applications and the like - simple as that.

So here it is, the first big thread this year on that most popular of all subjects at sitepoint - dropping IE6.

I was going to post a thread on Jan 1st asking when the first such thread would start, but I decided that would only encourage someone to start the ball rolling. And it’s still january and here’s the thread. Sorry armchaircritic, but there’s no prize for you or google to win :wink:

So, how far into February will we have to go before the next such thread starts? Two weeks? Three weeks (that’s my guess) Based on last year, we’'l have a dozen or two such threads, and probably two or three running at the same time - as we did last year.

And one does have to ask - do you seriously think people will change their browser because google says google docs will eventually not support it? I don’t think so. (Did they all change to Chrome when google brought that came out…)

If your business is reliant on Google Docs, then yes. I use Quickbooks online for my business and just until 6 months ago they didn’t support any browser other than IE. I made sure to have an extra PC in my bottom drawer (literally) so that I could update my accounting. Now they support Safari as well but I’m not really a Safari guy. However, I am forced to open Safari every time I need to get into Quickbooks.

Take that same situation and look at it from a larger company. Users most likely don’t have access to more than one browser. Most users still don’t even understand that there is more than one type of browser. If the company is reliant on services like Google Docs then this will make them think twice about which default browsers they have installed.

I can hear you all grumbling in the background… why would a company who’s innovative enough to use Google Docs still be using IE6? As it’s been mentioned in this thread over and over again, there are still many intranets that rely on IE6. This decision by Google really just places them between a rock and a hard place. It’s time for them to either upgrade the internal systems (IE6 & Intranet) or to find a different solution for document/apps.

On a side note, does anyone know if Office online (whatever it’s called) will be supported in IE6? Seeing as Microsoft is supporting IE6 until 2014 it would only make sense that they would make their online product usable in their own supported browser. If it is supported, it’ll be interesting to see how they deal with the natural limitations of an outdated browser.