Oracle Goddess sends word that YouTube is presenting IE6 users with a
banner exhorting them to upgrade to a modern browser, and TechCrunch is reporting that YouTube will be
phasing out support for IE6 soon. This
Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net at the imminent demise of this most despised and non-standards-compliant browser. The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.
About time (Score:5, Funny)
Good. That's like phasing out of support for cancer.
Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:About time (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny is they don't figure what actually made youtube succsessful.
Youtube would work in any browser which manages to run Flash in it. That is the trick. Nothing else needed. If Flash runs, Youtube is there even including mobile browsers (e.g. Nokia).
Can't IE really display comments and Google ads? That is all needed for youtube. Flash works in its own way, glory days of "live script" is over really. Sad but true.
IE 6 is still used on large corporations and there is no chance you will be able to "upgrade to chrome" unless you want a visit from BOFH with your manager asking what the hell you are trying to achieve. Yes, a managed client these days won't just stop you, it will also alert admin via security solution, "attempt to install unauthorised software" in recession would be a nice excuse for them.
Oh BTW, unless some miracle happens and a open source/standard commitee invents something which will be a 1.1 MB download, without any dictation of software, completely supported in number 1 pro design suite and various pro video authoring/serving solutions, Flash is there to stay.
HTML5 video would have a huge chance if they were wise to adopt H264 as standard and Dirac as optional codec. Also publicly bitching/whining/attacking both Apple and Adobe which are called "mecca of multimedia" won't really help.
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Market share (Score:5, Informative)
The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.
According to whom? Even on w3schools.com [w3schools.com], which is visited almost exclusively by web developers, more than 14% of people are still using IE6.
Re:Market share (Score:4, Informative)
Web developers are probably more likely to have IE6 around than your typical user since they need it for their job. I use Firefox exclusively at home, but when I'm having problems getting something to work on the job and need to look up a reference, I occasionally use IE either by mistake or just because I happen to be in it already.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't justify that many people browsing the reference site using your test browser. People aren't mistakenly using IE6 to look up the HTML reference, they're using IE6 because that's what they always use. Look at the usage numbers, Firefox is almost at 50%, Chrome is already at 6%. That is indicative of web developers, not using a browser that is 9 years old. Web developers might be more likely to have IE6 installed, but they're not going to browse with it. Web developers are more likely to have a favorite browser to do all of their normal tasks in, and they'll use that one.
Also, I'm a web developer and don't have IE6 installed, on any of my machines. I have access to it, but not on any computer I use on a regular basis. The debugging tools in IE8 are much better for web developers than having IE6 available to test on.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Insightful)
And Windows 2000 users.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Funny)
Sure they count! How could they dispense a set amount of money otherwise.
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Re:Market share (Score:4, Informative)
Your solution is here. [technipages.com] I even have Windows Defender running on Win2K after using this tool.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Informative)
This is the case in my office, where IE6 is the approved standard, and no one is allowed to use FireFox or Opera or Chrome unless they can submit a written justification to the IT standards committee and obtain their approval. That is rare.
This is mainly because we use several different web-based applications developed in-house for submitting travel claims and interfacing with our purchasing department's back-end databases, all built years ago on non-standards-compliant IE6 code. The team of contractors who developed these apps are long gone, and updating them would require finding a new contractor and paying them to re-build all the apps from scratch, a difficult sell to management in today's economy. It ain't broke, they say, so why fix it?
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Re:Market share (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Market share (Score:4, Insightful)
Or they could roll-out FireFox (with NoScript) as the default browser using Group Policy with FireMotion's FireFox MSI [frontmotion.com] and create shortcuts on the desktop with a target of "iexplore http://your.wretched.old.internal.app.com/ [app.com]".
More security, same ol' craptastic IE6 "experience" for your internal apps.
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Re:Market share (Score:4, Informative)
IE8 allows you to disable standards-compliance mode for just this reason - in fact, I believe it even defaults to IE6's rendering engine for any intranet address.
Unless you're on Win2k or older, there's absolutely no reason to still be using IE6.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Insightful)
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Legacy systems (Score:4, Insightful)
And who cares about corporations who refuse to move on from a tool that even the creator has killed off?
You do. Forget Windows and IE - do you have ANY idea how many POS (Point Of Sale) systems there are out there that still rely on DOS? The answer will scare you. "Upgrading" software is an expense and a potential business risk. Sometimes the rewards are not worth the expense. I have clients that have computer systems that are 10, 15 and even 25 years old and not about the be replaced anytime soon. You can make a very profitable living maintaining and integrating legacy systems and there are lots out there.
Survival of the fittest always wins, always.
And what, pray tell, is your definition of fittest? Unfortunately I can think of many definitions of fittest that don't equal best, modern, up-to-date, robust or (sadly) secure.
Why the hell don't some companies allow the use of another browser?
Cost mostly. Typically they have some old code that will cost money to update and they can't make a business case to do it yet. Usually they'll upgrade in due time but it might take years or even decades.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Interesting)
Might be SPAM bots, they fake user-agents all the time and try to either hide as a major search engine or as a user.
I am currently working on a question/answer based CAPTCHA system + bot trap and monitor the user agents triggering my bot trap.
So far,
59 falsely claimed to be Googlebot
The rest claim to be some version of IE
Don't rely on anything for user-agents, I am identifying myself as Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) right now to get around websites offering unlocked content to Google but require registrations from normal users.
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Re:Market share (Score:5, Informative)
Testing what? Testing the w3schools site? Wouldn't you want to have your main browser open for references and things even though you might have another test browser open? Hell, I usually develop with 3 browsers open (Firefox, to use Firebug for debugging my Javascript stuff, Chrome to show the Javascript-heavy API docs, and Opera for everything else).
IE6 has lingered around like a bad fart, hopefully this signals the true beginning of the end.
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Praise Jeebus! (Score:5, Funny)
What is needed is a good exorcism. IE6 needs to be cast out from the net and its bloated carcass nailed to a tree as a lesson to others.
Re:Praise Jeebus! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Praise Jeebus! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Praise Jeebus! (Score:5, Funny)
Should that be "Don't phase me, bro!"?
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I *WISH* it was down in the single digits (Score:5, Insightful)
My experiences with large corp and gov't clients tells me otherwise.
cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: cool (Score:4, Funny)
Watching porn.
Was it really that hard to figure out?
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Still mandatory where I work (Score:5, Interesting)
I know quite a few LARGE corporate environments that won't be upgrading any time soon since IE7/8 "breaks" their intranet web apps and they aren't about to budget for updating apps that work on the existing browser.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
cant firefox be installed on a system with IE6 and IEtab used for the intranet apps, while firefox used for internet??
Re:Still mandatory where I work (Score:4, Interesting)
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Last I checked, I couldn't upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
IE7 doesn't run on Windows 2000.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox does.
no need of restrictions then (Score:5, Interesting)
if IE6 is not supported by youtube, and many other popular, non work related sites follow suit, wouldnt enterprises prefer to keep IE6 as it would automatically prevent employees from accessing video/social networking sites from work, and additional money would not have to be spent on proxies and other content restriction system??
since their own apps are in house they can keep IE6 forever w/o any problems
Re:no need of restrictions then (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, the IT team can just rename the IE6 icon as "ERP Interface" or something, and install Firefox, naming its icon "Web Browser".
Voila, internal apps keep working but employees are no longer at risk due to IE6 use on the wild wild internet.
Even better if as a company they block IE6 access to external sites, so people who try to use their ERP software to browse the web would be cut off and told to launch Firefox.
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That's a bit sensationalist (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, there's a virtual kegger going on over at Twitter about this. Is that going to be our new gauge of how things are going on in the computing world? Has netcraft confirmed it?
Slight problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, we still run across many many clients who still mandate IE6 in their workplace. No upgrading to IE7/8, no other browsers than IE6, etc.
So they'll upgrade finally now too, right?
Nope - those are also the same companies that probably block access to YouTube for bandwidth/time wasting reasons.
Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if YouTube would only phase out support for Flash...
I know, I know, wishful thinking. But I do secretly think that YouTube could single-handedly decide which video format(s) become supported (or, if not in the specification, at least popular) for HTML 5. Chrome supports both Theora and H.264, but their HTML 5 test page [youtube.com] uses H.264. Not my personal first choice, but certainly a lot better than Flash.
In any case, I can't wait for this imaginary day when YouTube goes Flash-less. :)
WAIT A SECOND!!! (Score:5, Funny)
BRAVO. Earns my respect double on this... (Score:5, Interesting)
First, actions like this from massively broad based sites are critical to finally wiping the scourge of IE6 development off the planet. So initial Kudos to YouTube for taking the step.
Of course, YouTube == Google; so no shock that they're willing to disparage IE6, right?
But here's the difference between Google and Microsoft --
The banner shown here, on YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't JUST list Chrome as the upgrade path. It clearly gives equal exposure to Chrome, Firefox, and IE8 -- the biggest competing product to its own browser.
That's the right way to do be competitive in a social networking context. I think we know that if this was say, Bing! or Hotmail, it would show a link to IE8 but that's it. Well, ok, we don't KNOW that, but most of us assume it. I certainly do.
In other news - cubicle productivity soars (Score:4, Funny)
Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net
All that twitter search shows is that people who use twitter are commenting on it. It does not show jubilation breaking out all over the Net.
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Informative)
This hamburger is decent, aside from the fact that it's growing mold and smells like urine.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Informative)
ActiveX
Non-standard HTML rendering
Lack of tabs
ActiveX
Lack of support for many standard files (PNG, anyone?)
Crashing when fed simple code
Oh, and ActiveX.
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Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.
Car analogy:
IE8 is your your new car. It runs smooth, and there are no real complaints about the reliability. The seats are little on the hard side, and you'd like more leg room.
IE6 is your old car. It broke down every other week, belched poisonous black smoke into the cars around it, and the doors didn't close properly. But the seats were soft and you had more leg room.
Your old car was 'decent' the same way IE6 was decent.
And lets face it, IE8's UI isn't terrible. You might not be used to it, or like it as much, but its objectively not all that bad. They've moved things around, and hid a lot of stuff almost nobody used. But the tab support and integrated search alone make the UI superior. I don't find it slow (but I have lots of RAM). I still prefer Firefox, but I no longer loathe using (or developing for) Internet Explorer.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Support? What do you mean, support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly what I was going to say. Provide a simple link to a video file and even lynx could view Youtube.
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Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K (Score:5, Insightful)
You refuse to use XP, Vista, Linux, Opera and Firefox, but IE6 is peachy-keen?
Lol.
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