Microsoft: Why We Can't Drop IE6 Support

[eyemaster]

I don't know how to program a complex web page, but I don't see why web developers can't just program web pages in a way that is standard and would work on any browser.

We still work on IE6 at work, but are looking towards upgrading to IE8 in the next 2 years. I hope we do.

 

[descendency]

[citation][nom]eyemaster[/nom]I don't know how to program a complex web page, but I don't see why web developers can't just program web pages in a way that is standard and would work on any browser.[/citation]
You answered your own question. This is Internet Explorer, the browser that refuses to follow standards.

Just take the Acid3 test to see what I mean.

 

[RogueKitsune]

I do a little bit of webdev on the side and I hate IE6. It is the bane of web developers existence. And on a side note, back in High School I had a flash drive with FF installed on it so I would never have to use IE6 when at a computer in a lab 😛

 

[scryer_360]

At work all machines are imaged with IE 6, but all the employees have installed Firefox, Opera or Chrome. I haven't actually used my companies IE6 install for YEARS. No one at my place of employ does.

Now, some of the back end people still use IE6, database people and such, but when browsing they themselves use another browser. I know many of my coworkers use IE8 at home but just can't use it at work.

I know the reason some companies keep it is because suppliers or partners software needs IE6 to access it, but I see this as a problem anyway. If your IT partners just bought their software from another company or developer, then resold it and offered some kind of technical solution, you are in trouble. What happens when a major enterprise level problem occurs? All you can do is re-image machines. Whats more, you are exposing yourself to technical and security vulnerabilities. Is the cost of upgrading really more than potentially being hacked and stolen from?

And what cost of upgrading are you talking about anyway? All you need to do to push out IE8 is have your employees run Windows Updates. If you are worried about some software incompatibility with back end processes then just don't update those machines. Again, your employees have already downloaded and have been using other browsers ENTIRELY for YEARS.

 

[scryer_360]

[citation][nom]jcombalicer[/nom]when i was in this multi-national company, we tried to move user to ie7 back then but puffs... a lot of trouble began to appear.a lot of program specially oracle, cant perform well with ie7 it only works with ie6. And you know how much it will cost the organization to upgrade the Oracle.Now in my new company our problem is the ie8. when user starts the ie8 it changes the default homepage to microsoft configuration tools for newly installed ie8. And this is very troublesome since it requires the user to be connected to the internet which not all users has an access. My point is they(microsoft) should return to the old style upgrade of ie. straight forward, no hassle. Our IE are configured to start when the user login and display our default home page which is our company website with our daily bulletin on it. now most of the users are left with ie8 configuration window. If they really wants to push this maybe they could make it minimal and user mandated instance.just sharing my thoughts...[/citation]
You know, to have its homepage as something other than the configuration window, all you have to do is go to Internet Options, then type in another homepage?

Also, why would you need a web browser if you are not connected to the Internet? If you are just trying to bulletin things to people, send them a daily email, its much more efficient then supporting a browser JUST to see a daily bulletin...

Sounds like your company doesn't have an IT department.

 

[geoffs]

IE6 is outmoded and ridiculously non-compliant with w3c standards. MS would be doing everyone a favor by announcing that they will discontinue support in the next 12 months, which they are allowed to do (under their own "product support life-cycle" guidelines) now that IE8 has been released. If you buy the IE6 is part of WinXP BS and ignore that IE7 and IE8 are both free upgrades, then they might have to wait until 12 months after Win7 ships, so at the worst, they could announce they're dropping support by October 2010.

I don't particularly like IE7, and haven't tried IE8, but the only thing I use IE for is Windows Update or sites that require IE (and I haven't encountered any that work with IE6 but not IE7). IE6 needs to die, the sooner the better.

 

[geoffs]

IE6 is outmoded and ridiculously non-compliant with w3c standards. MS would be doing everyone a favor by announcing that they will discontinue support in the next 12 months, which they are allowed to do (under their own "product support life-cycle" guidelines) now that IE8 has been released. If you buy the IE6 is part of WinXP BS and ignore that IE7 and IE8 are both free upgrades, then they might have to wait until 12 months after Win7 ships, so at the worst, they could announce they're dropping support by October 2010.

Given that Vista shipped with IE7, any site or software that doesn't work with IE7 is already losing customers. Win7 will presumably ship with IE8, further losing customers for sites/software that only work with IE6. If your site or software only works with IE6, fix it now or become extinct.

I don't particularly like IE7, and haven't tried IE8, but the only thing I use IE for is Windows Update or sites that require IE (and I haven't encountered any that work with IE6 but not IE7). IE6 needs to die, the sooner the better.

 

[geoffs]

Sorry for the double post, the first time I tried said I needed to log in and didn't show the post until after posted the updated version. I would delete the first one if I could.

 

[Guest]

I agree to take IE6 off. It s really really troublesome to keep designing sites specifically for IE, as IE6 compare to IE7/8 is like a different browser! =/

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]fuser[/nom]Large public websites cannot afford to drop IE6 support. You can force your website visitors to upgrade or go away, but there's always the risk that users will pick the latter option.[/citation]
Two years ago, you would have been correct. If newer browsers cost the user money, you might be correct. But since Vista shipped with IE7 over 2 years ago and IE7, IE8, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and other browsers are all available for free, it's a non issue today.

The only support you need for IE6 or earlier (and this applies to other browsers that are 2+ years old also) is a screen that tells the user whichever of these messages is appropriate.

1. This site works best with xxx, yyy, and zzz browser(s). Some features may not be available to you or may not work correctly with your current browser. We recommend you upgrade to one of the above browsers.

2. This site will not work correctly with your browser. This site works best with xxx, yyy, and zzz browser(s), please install one of these browsers and come back.

It's not any more of an issue than sites that require at least xxx version of Adobe Flash.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]snotling[/nom]another important thing to consider why IE keeps its market share: automated windows update on XP and older Windows version will not work if IE is not the default browser.[/citation]Incorrect. Automatic updates work fine on XP and Win2k and I NEVER have IE as my default browser.

You do have to manually launch IE if your want to manually go to Window Update/Microsoft Update, but that's only if you're running it manually. The automatic updates mechanism doesn't use the browser at all.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]pochacco007[/nom]"...The survey showed that 69 percent of Digg users still using Internet Explorer 6 were doing so because either they don’t have administrator access on my computer...."[/citation]That's due to initeria, not necessity. Users can install Chrome 2.0 without administrative access, it installs into the user's profile and runs entirely in 'userspace'. Don't make it your 'default' browser and it won't affect anything, but it's available to the user and it's faster, more compliant, and more secure than IE.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]smashley[/nom]Many companies use IE 6 because they spent millions of dollars to have internal proprietary applications developed which depend on it. Lots of companies still use MSJVM for the exact same reason, even though Microsoft dropped support for it 2 years ago. The problem is these companies can't afford to have new software developed every time a new browser comes along and so are forced to stick with what they've got. Web developers I'm sure would love for only current generation browser to be used, but since according to wikipedia, as of july 09, IE6 represents 29% of overall market share, actually beating out IE7 (24%) and 8 (15%), dropping IE 6 support for their websites would be a pretty bad idea.[/citation]That's why we have "standards", and why you should develop for open standards, not use proprietary "features" whenever possible. You develop using some outside vendor's proprietary "features", you become dependent upon that outside vendor. Foolish business practice. Take your lumps and re-develop for open standards.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]jcombalicer[/nom]when i was in this multi-national company, we tried to move user to ie7 back then but puffs... a lot of trouble began to appear.a lot of program specially oracle, cant perform well with ie7 it only works with ie6. And you know how much it will cost the organization to upgrade the Oracle.Now in my new company our problem is the ie8. when user starts the ie8 it changes the default homepage to microsoft configuration tools for newly installed ie8. And this is very troublesome since it requires the user to be connected to the internet which not all users has an access. My point is they(microsoft) should return to the old style upgrade of ie. straight forward, no hassle. Our IE are configured to start when the user login and display our default home page which is our company website with our daily bulletin on it. now most of the users are left with ie8 configuration window. If they really wants to push this maybe they could make it minimal and user mandated instance.just sharing my thoughts...[/citation]Don't know what you're using, but I've used Oracle 8 and 10 and don't have anything that only works with IE6.

As for IE8 bringing up the configuration page or changing the default home page, your network admins need to learn how to use the IE Administration Kit
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219517.aspx
and how to use AD and GPOs to manage the machines on their network.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]kaby[/nom]I am a admin at a company of almost 250 people. We use firefox for browsing and such, but we need to keep IE6 for proprietary databases supplied by some of the utilities, That is the only thing keeping us back.[/citation]so your company of 250 people is being held hostage by proprietary software that ties you to a slow, buggy, insecure, non-standards compliant piece of software?

What do you think would happen if MS stopped issuing security updates for IE6? Would that be enough to get your management and/or vendor to upgrade the utilities that are dependent upon IE6, or will they wait until your entire system is compromised with a key-logger, data miner, or destructive worm? Kick someone in the butt if necessary, but get them moving off IE6 NOW, despite what MS says right now, their standard software support life-cycle allows them to discontinue free updates for IE6 at any time now.

BTW, it's good that you've got them using something other than IE for most web browsing, but that doesn't mean that having IE6 installed isn't a security risk, it's just less of a risk.

 

[vtecflightdeck09]

I worked at a call center and they made us use IE6, so i can see where they are coming from, but maybe if they stop the support, it will force the IT depts to upgrade to a newer version.

 

[Guest]

They should make it possible to not only upgrade but also downgrade ie versions, they should make it possible to have more than one ie version installed at a time, they should provide older versions of ie for free download (for the poor web designers who want to test their sites with more than ietester), they should make ie8 the default browser shipped with XP, they should send upgrade packs to the companies that use xp+ie6.