Google Tells Users To Drop IE6 426
Kelly writes "Google is now urging Gmail users to drop Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) in favor of Firefox or Chrome. Google recently removed Firefox from the Google Pack bundle, replaced it with Chrome, then added a direct download link for Chrome on Google and YouTube. Google's decision to list IE6 as an unsupported Gmail browser does not affect just consumers: Tens of thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses that run Google Apps hosted services may dump IE6 as well. What's especially interesting is the fact that Mozilla is picking up two out of three browser users that Microsoft surrenders."
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody should be using IE6 anyway (Score:1, Informative)
Nobody should be using IE6 anyway, it is an out of date browser and Google is just highlighting that.
Although they don't promote it, IE7 is a supported browser.
Who needs the Quickie Mart^W^WIE? (Score:1, Informative)
Yesterday my father came to me saying he wanted to switch to "FoxFire". Anything that promotes awareness of how horrid IE is, such as this, can only be a good thing (unless, of course, you're forced to use IE6 for whatever silly reasons).
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
FYI, Chrome is unsupported on Win2k as well.
Antitrust (Score:3, Informative)
I dunno, but nor Microsoft nor Google is likely to have the kind of marketshare in the email space to justify antitrust action. Microsoft is well above antitrust levels with regards to browsers and operating systems, however.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:YAY!! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Advertiser versus advertiser (Score:3, Informative)
Ad servers? What is this, 1996?
Seriously, many sites don't even host ad banners in directories like /ads/ anymore since it's too easy for people to block that, and most also use innocent-sounding generic filenames for ads now. Adblock still works fine since you can use CSS selectors, though, so if a site puts ads in a <div class="adcolumnwrapper"> or so. (This also works for many text ads, BTW.)
If you think you can block ads by slapping some server name in your hosts file, though, you'll be in for a rude awakening. I'm not saying that NOONE does that anymore, but you'll only get less ads that way, not none - and not even substantially less, for that matter.
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Lots of software is Leopard-only because Leopard added a bunch of new libraries. Microsoft doesn't tend to add new libraries (except DX10 -- and people screamed bloody murder when it added that), which is why so little software is Vista-only.
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Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
It also added things like plug & play - no more typing the IRQ numbers of your peripherals and expansion cards before they work.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? There is a lot [wikipedia.org] of new libraries and APIs in Vista apart from DX10. A new audio stack, new printing subsystem (both have support for legacy APIs, of course, but also totally new APIs enabling new features), kernel transaction manager, etc.
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Uhmm, the kicker is, I'm *STILL* running Win2k. And not only that, but I've got drivers from within the last year running on it for both my PCIe Radeon HD3650, and my Logitech Driving Force Pro. Nevermind that Realtek supports most of their chipset hardware all the way back to either Win9x or DOS, depending.
And the kicker of all this? Basically any game that doesn't require Windows Live and/or have a hardcoded check for XP will run and play fine on it.
WinXP for all intents and purposes was a rebadge of 2k with some additional eyecandy and a FEW interface changes. But the majority of said interface changes don't affect 90 percent of the applications out there.
Forced obsolescence is fine if there's a reason, but if your 10 year old OS has everything that a modern app needs to support it, there's no reason to upgrade. (Nevermind that 2k is the last windows version without that annoying Windows Activation stuff, and in fact is the reason I spent 300 bucks on it well after WinXP was out.)
Keep telling yourself that. But there are actually a lot of enhancements [microsoft.com]. And no, those are not UI enhancements(which there are a ton, like wireless stuff in xp sp2). Those are just kernel enhancements.
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary, Microsoft churns out new libraries at a frightening pace, it's just that nobody uses them.
Re:Brand of... (Score:5, Informative)
Protect yourself from typos in MS Word! Use LaTex!
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Are you joking? When Microsoft used their dominance in the desktop OS market to make Internet Explorer the default browser they were found guilty of breaking Anti Trust [wikipedia.org] laws. This is similar in principle - use dominance in one area (ad supported email accounts) to promote business in a different area (browser technology). There are indeed laws that make it "so totally illegal" to promote your product at the expense of others.
Solaris support: 10-12 years (Score:1, Informative)
On the Mac side, there's a ton of software that's Leopard-only, dropping support for people who are using any OS more than 15 months old, and there's hardly anything wrong with Tiger.
Yes, but that is because third party vendors are using the new features in Leopard. Apple is still supporting 10.4 with security updates. (Though Apple's support of older OS revisions is a lot shorter, backward compatibility is something they're pretty good at.)
Another point of comparison could be Sun which gives a minimum of ten years of support on an OS release:
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/lifecycle.xml
Solaris 8 will stop being supported in in 2012, which is just over twelve years of support. Solaris 9 was launched in May 2002, so if they give twelve years again, we're talking about 2014. Though S10 is a compelling upgrade, so I think more people are willing to jump to it than they were to S9.
Re:Another step that makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
whatever IE's engine is called
Trident [wikipedia.org]
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
I think that's your own goddamn fault if you're annoyed by something that's absolutely trivial to make go away.
Yeah, it's trivial. Until you get to see it ten times in a single day while setting up new computers. Or unless you have the misfortune of having a slow internet connection -- because apparently "customizing" IE requires communications with a Microsoft webpage instead of being a local configuration.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Among other things win2k brought WDM to the NT line. WDM added support for plug and play and allowed hardware vendors to develop a single driver for both 98/ME and 2K (and XP and for the most part vista too).
And decent directx support (afaict NT 4 had some support for directx but it was pretty crappy).
And USB support (afaict there was some third party stuff for NT 4 but few devices worked with it)
2K combined many of the important features of the 9x line (plug and play, wide hardware support, directx) with the stability and ability to handle large numbers of apps open at once.
2K to XP was a fairly minor change and that means if you are supporting XP then unless you use some really exotic apis your app or driver will most likely work just as well under 2K.
Re:YAY!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:All is fair (Score:3, Informative)
Not supporting IE is a gutsy move. It shows that Google is willing to play hardball. It shows that google is no longer the feel good get along with everyone company, but a company that is willing to dominate and create monopolies...
I think you are reading way too much into this. MS doesn't support IE 6 anymore, why should Google? From TFA:
The page offers direct download links for Firefox 3 and Chrome. IE7 and Apple's Safari are listed as supported Gmail browsers.
They dropped IE 6, not "IE." Google wants fast, preferably standards compliant browsers that are not a total nightmare to support. Well that and every scrape of data about you...
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Informative)
Disable the custom page (Score:3, Informative)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
RunOnceComplete=dword:00000001
RunOnceHasShown=dword:0000000
It's also available as a group policy option with the IE7 adm templates (download from the Microsoft site).