Digg has prevented users on IE 6 from certain activities, Facebook has been telling users to upgrade, and YouTube is supposedly going to cut off IE 6 support altogether. Yet, Microsoft still hasn't pulled the plug on Internet Explorer 6, and they plan on keeping it on extended support for the lifespan of Windows XP. That is until April 8, 2014.For those who are wondering why Microsoft is still supporting Internet Explorer 6, a post on Internet Explorer Team's Blog explains why:
"The engineering point of view on IE6 starts as an operating systems supplier. Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product. We keep our commitments," said the post. "Many people expect what they originally got with their operating system to keep working whatever release cadence particular subsystems have. As engineers, we want people to upgrade to the latest version. We make it as easy as possible for them to upgrade. Ultimately, the choice to upgrade belongs to the person responsible for the PC."
Those who are still using Internet Explorer 6 are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest version, Internet Explorer 8.
Say "thanks" to the 8-years-old-software lovers that are keeping IE6 alive.
Last edited by LAMj on 13 Aug 2009 - 19:05
The problem isn't things that IE doesn't support so much as the stuff it gets completely wrong. When you say "make these list items 100 pixels wide, 30 pixels tall, and floating along the right side of the page" and IE says "I'm just going stop displaying the first, make the remainder 150 pixels wide and 4 pixels tall, and
stack them one above the other in the middle of the page".
Well, it isn't that so much anymore, as they are providing support for IE6 along with the OS it shipped with. Though I still don't understand why people are still using IE6... Doesn't make sense. I guess these people never update Windows either?
stack them one above the other in the middle of the page".
ROFL.
stack them one above the other in the middle of the page".
ROFL.
Yep, he's dead right though.
If Microsoft ever wants to get some leverage with us developers, at minimum they need to patch their bugs in IE6.
Bad idea. If microsoft start patching IE's rendering issues developers will no longer have just 1 version of IE to cater for. Instead we'll get idiots with half-patched versions, idiots with completely patched versions and people who shouldn't be on the internet with fully unpatched versions - all rendering pages differently. At least the way it stands atm we only have to work with one crappy version of IE6.
The only way to get ppl off IE is to refuse to let sites load in it. Update messages at the top of webpages do nothing. If sites like google and youtube failed to load in IE, even large corporations with their broken software will end up updating.
stack them one above the other in the middle of the page".
Spot on, +100000000
pointless article.
pointless article.
Considering how people have been asking questions, as well as developers pulling the plug on support... it's nice to have things clarified.
but u just spoiled it for some unfortunate guy who was about to watch it...
Not Smart T&A by chance?
Why in 2009 a company has not updated there product to support newer browser is beyond me.
As a web developer IE6 has so many bug it is crap.
Microsoft says they are to support to 2014 that will be 13 years since release.
When you computer is out of date in 6 months how is an OS 13 years old going to any good.
The sooner IE6 dies the better. MS please force IE8 Upgrade on Windows Update
No, no they weren't.
The message its clear, if everyone wants ie6 to be kill, XP must die too.
Why does XP have to die when it can run other browsers?
Because supporting XP INCLUDES supporting IE6 which was preinstalled. If Firefox 1.0 was preinstalled MS would have had to support is as well.
It's not very difficult to redirect XP IE6 users to download IE8 *using IE6*. It's not like taking out the browser. MS can still offer technical support, but it doesn't have to maintain compatibility with it.
Get this: They are still running IE 6. On all the machines. It makes looking for work on their machines really painful. Its slow and sometimes it will crash on me.
I would like to contact the IT guy that handles these networks. I wonder what he will say.
Get this: They are still running IE 6. On all the machines. It makes looking for work on their machines really painful. Its slow and sometimes it will crash on me.
I would like to contact the IT guy that handles these networks. I wonder what he will say.
He'll more than likely tell you that the majority of the software is custom built and only works reliably with IE6 and that it'd cost way too much to upgrade all the custom software.
The majority of businesses won't switch to something new until there's no other choice.
What people don't realize is that home users and businesses are two different worlds. Whilst you can run the automatic updates just fine at home and get the latest and greatest, do that in a company and you can bring the entire business down in less time than you can say supercalifragilisblablabla....
We run the latest hardware, but when it comes to software there isnt much change, due to breaking something.
We are still able to get new computers with XP installed (lol) No Vista machines allowed.
They did it for "XP mode" in Windows 7, obviously it can be done with a simple web browser!
Wow, somebody who actually gets it. Clearly a web developer, rather than the ie lovers you see here, who are just browsers. ie6 is why I will never trust Microsoft to make a browser ever again, and encourage everyone I know to use something that supports web standards.
You're going to implode if you keep that up.
Remember all those XP lovers' cries? It's their fault that IE6 support was extended.
Companies dug that hole, and Microsoft handed them the shovel. They both deserve this outcome.
Another way to see this is : The hell with companies ! they're using IE6 only for intranet anyway so they're not even a problem in the first place. In this case Microsoft should just push IE8 using WU and that's it.
There sure are some retards about.
LOL, its a fake site.
Microsoft supports X = MS will support it for more than a decade even if it's hard.
Linux supports X = some guy on the internets hacked it for some weeks and managed to run X (still buggy though).
P.S. yeah, Linux is not company, I know.
Imagine if Google.com only supported Chrome...
There are not many things in this life to which I can truly apply the word "hate", but Internet Explorer 6 is one of them, and I cannot wait to see it die. As a responsible Web developer who puts the needs of ordinary surfers above his own lofty ideals, I will continue to waste hours of my time tweaking for it until it drops below about 5% market share. On that day I believe a large party will be in order.
Some may consider it bad business, but most sites try to cater to the common denominator that is usually computers only a few years old.
Unfortunately,
That may cause those people to gravitate away from Windows/IE altogether, just for spite, and you know MS doesn't want anything to do with that!
But IE8? Come on, it's just a bloated piece of sizzle! They could have fixed all of the issues with IE6, have it fully W3C compliment and have full support for CS3 and have tabs, without all of that bloated crap that comes along with IE8.
GOD BLESS GOOGLE CHROME, I say.
But in the end, they did it, and they didn't go broke. Same here. You can't blame your budget forever. XP has been around for ages. They should have long term plans in place for setting aside annually fractions of the cost of an upgrade like this so they're prepared for it every 4-7 years, creating less of an impact than doing it all at once.
But it strikes me that the problem with businessthink is their retarded inability to think outside the 365-day block.
While I hate to continue to have to support the non-standards browsers, it is something I see as a necessity for at least another couple of years. Like a previous post stated, there will be a party when IE6 finally drops off the face of the earth. :~)
Now, if all of what I read is true, can somebody here confirm at least that a web site create for Firefox 1.0 still works perfectly find and looks the exact same way in Firefox 3.x ?
And you simply cannot convince "Grandma" that she has to upgrade from something that she doesn't see as being broken. Nobody is going to listen to a faceless voice on the interwebs telling them that they are holding everybody else back.
Microsoft knows this extremely well. They have hard data, such as SQM. It seems they're feeding you PR spin about XP, but for the most part it's true: you might recall that IE5 was supported until EOL for Win2K. But MS also knows they have a huge customer base running legacy operating systems that cannot install IE7.
You bleeding-edge users can complain all you want. Microsoft isn't going to listen: they care about retaining ALL of their customers, not just you.
IE6 is dying, people moving on to Firefox, newer IE 7/8 and other browsers.
Rule #1 in Software Design: You don't force the user to change to accomodate your software, you design the software to accomodate what the user does. If users have IE6 (and many do) then you design to accomodate it. Stop whining and moaning, stop worrying about living on the edge of new standards, and just design for what the marketplace is (not what your technologically biased head tells you is "best" or what you want it to be, but what it is).
This lesson is free. For the rest, go get a formal education in software design or read some books.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.