Google To End Support For IE6 272
itwbennett writes "Google announced Friday that it will be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6, more than two weeks after the attacks on Google's servers that targeted a vulnerability in IE6. In a blog post, Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager, said that support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that 'key functionality' won't work properly. Sheth suggested that customers upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else."
I think Google is being reactionary here (Score:1, Informative)
Just deciding to end support for a product in a month's time after a major hack is being reactionary. This move will definitely wreck havoc in [large] organizations that typically take more than a month to implement change. Google should know this because they are seeking to support these same organizations with their various products.
I am a little disappointed that Google would do this. If I were Google, my alternative would be to offer "a final" one year of support so that companies which rely on IE6 can plot strategies.
Google dropped the ball here. I expected better from them.
Re:Good riddance! (Score:5, Informative)
It should be noted though that Firefox/Chrome/Opera are not alternatives in a large environment, and the reason for this is that none of these three browsers have thought a lot about deployment.
Chrome uses it's own custom "install into userprofile" thing, which can be pretty nice for standalone computers at home without admin rights.
Firefox comes with it's own installer, but doesn't bring any update tools for large enterprises, and it doesn't use the standard MSI format.
Opera can't be updated by non-admin users either.
Not of these three browsers can be managed centrally using group policies, like IE can. Sure, there's the Frontmotion Firefox packages, but this isn't Mozilla providing them and they're not very good either.
Microsoft's WSUS has the ability to use 3rd party patches. Not one of the competitors browsers allow updates to be installed through WSUS/WU. WSUS is very popular in small-to-midsized companies where a full software deployment solution like SCCM is overkill and too expensive, but automatic distrubtion of security patches is still key to a secure work environment.
That's why i still recommend all our clients to run IE8 - because it requires less effort, is easier to keep secure (A fully patched IE8 is better than a 16 months old version of Firefox) and is preinstalled anyway.
Re:Good riddance! (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. And not only the front-end, but the back-end too.
Then there's the whole API issue -- they may not even have it. And porting existing data to a new platform may be a quite involved job, especially if the solution was bought as a black box back when.
Yes, companies today are paying for the mistakes done by managers during the dot-com boom.
Re:I think Google is being reactionary here (Score:2, Informative)
I know why there are so many businesses that won't upgrade from IE6, with their legacy web apps that they refuse to upgrade, but for God's sake, IE8 has compatibility mode. For the good of humanity, upgrade!
If by compatibibility mode, you mean compatibility view, according to Microsoft [microsoft.com] it will "display the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7", not ie6.
Re:Why there is no virtual IE6 in sandboxes? (Score:2, Informative)
Does it have to be virtual? If you just want to sandbox IE why not just use Sandboxie [sandboxie.com]?
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Huge developer time savings. (Score:4, Informative)
For non general Internet facing sites not supporting IE isn't that uncommon. For the web services that we resell we only support Firefox and our clients are happy with that.
The general reason for the IE 6 problem isn't home users scared to upgrade but that mega corporations have an existing outdated Intranet that works with IE6 and are slow at trumping up cash for R&D on redeveloping their sites and workstation environments.
Re:Ding Dong (Score:5, Informative)
> The ability to be remotely installed, and managed is a huge feature that is unique to IE.
The remote installation is unique to IE because any other browser will happily run from a network share. If you want it locally, you just need to set up the shortcut and synchronise some files. No integration with the OS, no "installation" necessary.
The management part is true, although it also depends on the browser being linked in with the OS. So you can only ever have one version of IE installed, and it will obey the restrictions put down by policies. Other browsers can be restricted up to a point, but you could always run your own portable version from a memory stick.
Re:Huge developer time savings. (Score:1, Informative)
Don't bother discussing anything serious with sopssa. He's a 12-year-old who has no idea about how anything works in the corporate world.
He used to post here as TripMaster Monkey, but had to start his new sopssa account after he repeatedly made too many stupid statements and ruined his reputation.
Re:Ding Dong (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ding Dong (Score:3, Informative)
Your "feature" merely exposes a deficiency in the OS tool set. That Microsoft's software update process is exclusive to Microsoft products. It would be nice if I could run update and get a new flash, java, etc. Instead every application has to write it's own update software to check for updates and install them. It leads to all sorts of annoying crap from vendors like tray icons and background processes that run all the time just to see if there's an update.
Contrast with your typical Linux distribution where all software can be installed and updated with the same package management system. A third party could provide a repository that the user could just add to their package management system for seamless and "native" update support.
Re:Ding Dong (Score:4, Informative)