Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands 416
Esther Schindler writes "It's easy for techies to enumerate the reasons that Internet Explorer 6 should die. Although the percentage of users who use IE6 has dropped to about 12%, many web developers are forced to make sure their websites work with the ancient browser (which presents additional problems, such as keeping their companies from upgrading to newer versions of Windows). But rather than indulge in an emotional rant, in 'Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out Of Their Cold Dead Hands,' I set about to find out why the companies that remain standardized on IE6 haven't upgraded (never mind to what). In short: user and business-owner ignorance and/or disinterest in new technology; being stuck with a critical business app that relies on IE6; finding a budget to update internal IE6 apps that will work the same as they used to; and keeping users away from newer Web 2.0 sites."
Chained to IE6 (Score:5, Informative)
My corporate laptop is chained to IE6 because lots of the systems I administer have Java and JavaScript based configuration interfaces which only works with IE6. It fails on alternate browsers and even IE8 has issues (not to mention the fact that you have to have Java 1.4, Java 1.5 and Java 1.6 installed in parallel and switch to the right one for each machine).
So why can't they.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So why can't they.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Chained to IE6 (Score:5, Informative)
Like it or not, for big IT, these are must haves:
Ability to specify proxy servers and prevent users from modifying them?
Ability to restrict settings, etc etc etc
Ability for Firefox to use the internal windows cert store
The problem is not that IE6 sucks, it is that there are barriers preventing Firefox/Chrome from having a place on the corporate desktop. Why they don't address these I'll never understand.
Re:So why can't they.. (Score:3, Informative)
And what would OS X accomplish? (Score:3, Informative)
migrate out of a Windows platform by one method or another JUST TO STAY marginally more safe in the Internet Security arena.
From what I've seen out of Apple and Microsoft lately, I don't see conclusive evidence that OS X is any more secure than Windows. At best, you'd get a short reprieve until the malware writers figure out there's a ton more Macs now, and start attacking them.
And in the meantime, you're dealing with a company which has way more lock-in and higher costs than Microsoft.
Why wouldn't they move to something actually better, like Linux? Or Solaris, or FreeBSD, or...
Moving to MacOS X give the opportunity to do work in MacOSX whenever possible and only revert to Windows as needed. What a gift.
Sure, if you happen to like OS X. I know plenty of people who actually prefer Windows.
Been using both Windows and Mac together for over a decade, since Win 3.11 (if I remember). It just is not that much different to get used to one OS or another or BOTH.
You're not in a position to really say much about that, then. I've been using Windows, Mac, and Linux on and off for years now. It's easy for me to get used to multiple OSes.
But most users are used to learning things by rote, and learning all the fiddly little details of what they use. I've seen users completely disoriented because their emails weren't colored correctly, because we upgraded them from one version of Outlook to another, or switched them to Thunderbird. I've seen my English professor have trouble launching a PowerPoint in OpenOffice, because she couldn't find the SlideShow button where she expected it -- she didn't think to look under the "SlideShow" menu, at the first item, called "SlideShow".
Companies look at these, and basically have to weigh the costs of firing a bunch of otherwise-useful employees who simply refuse to improve their computer skills to what we'd expect, or paying to retrain them on a new system, or continuing to throw money at the old system.
Frankly, I think they should just bite the bullet and upgrade, and pay attention to how technologically-adept new hires are in any field. I don't care if your job isn't to program the computer -- your job is to use the computer, so you should be good at that.
Re:Old Standards Never Die (Score:5, Informative)
That is an urban legend [snopes.com].
Re:Nah.. still all comes down to "idiocy" (Score:4, Informative)
For stupid corporate users, it's easy. You label the IE6 shortcut Intranet and you label the FireFox (or Opera or Safari, or whatever) shortcut Web. You configure IE to use a proxy that only goes to the Intranet and you configure the other browser to connect outside. You tell Windows to use the browser you want for the web as the default handler for http URLs.
You mean label IE7 or IE8? Very few companies are going to deploy anything other than IE on a windows platform. They just want users to use something that is familiar to them. Oh, but it is not supported by MS to have multiple versions of IE installed on the same PC so that rules this out.
Re:chrome frame (Score:5, Informative)
I just use Firefox Portable with IETab [mozilla.org] for the internal POS (not talking about point of sale folks) applications that won't work in anything but internet exploder. Oh and Hidetab [hidetab.com] comes in handy from time to time too.
Re:Primavera Expedition (Score:3, Informative)
One of the things Microsoft did a great job on was the configurability of IE6. You can morph it to do almost anything you want.
Given that you have that power in your hands, configure IE6 to be a container application to run your one app, but prevent its use as a general browser. Give the users another browser to access the general internet.
Or at very least install Chrome Frame which will give your users a modern WebKit-based browser for websites that request it, while retaining the familiar IE interface.
Re:This is news? (Score:2, Informative)
ActiveX was an attempt by the Windows team at Microsoft to subvert the entire transition to web based applications by introducing a way to create Windows applications that seemed to be web applications. The IE team has just as much reason to hate ActiveX as the Firefox or Safari guys do.
Business needs (Score:3, Informative)
The way many companies roll out new upgrades is to replace the hardware and software and apps all at once. Say you are a 1k people company with offices scattered in 20 locations. What does a roll out of a totally tested and cookie cutter tested solution to all upgrades cost every 5 years versus the same upgrades performed every 6 months. In disruption, training, lost productivity, support costs, testing time, shipping, etc. And the pace of hardware improvements have slowed enough and the work has become network hosted enough that you don't have to chase every generation of hardware any more...except for a select few where speed translates into profits.
It is a business decision and all you have to do is look at hardware sales to see it is happening at a slower pace.
IT departments aren't there to chase the latest flavor of the day or the techies fondest desires...they are there to support the business of making money. And rollouts cost big bucks so they get budget line scrutiny at the highest level of the corporation. Now if the recent penetrations cause CEOs to ask how well their IP is protected..there could be some acceleration. But when CEOs are worried about this weeks layoffs..it is hard to get their attention on a revision of software that is working..but which might cost 5 more jobs.
You can do 2 out of 3 of the above (Score:2, Informative)
- Ability to specify proxy servers and prevent users from modifying them?
Do this at the perimeter, not on the client.
- Ability to restrict settings, etc etc etc
You can centralize Firefox about:config, you can also push it as an MSI. FrontMotion has a policy kit for FF as well. The policy settings aren't as extensive as IE but then there aren't as many holes that need to be accounted for either.
- Ability for Firefox to use the internal windows cert store
This one I have no answer for other than some logon scripting. Also, IE Tab though that is a suboptimal solution because you now need to support two environments.
Re:Nah.. still all comes down to "idiocy" (Score:3, Informative)
Multiple versions of IE can be done courtesy of here or here
AFAIK, the only safe and MS-supported way to run multiple versions of IE is to use MS Virtual PC. They even provide free images [microsoft.com] to run IE6-8 on XP and IE7-8 on Vista.
Sadly, using FireFox at work can mean being fired (Score:3, Informative)
And the worst part being, all these web apps were written for IE6. Some will function in Firefox/Chrome/Opera/etc but the primary ones we use the most every day, don't.
AND, they will never update it. Why? The hired a third party programmer to write the primary web app we use, and it was basically contract work. He wrote it, gave X amount of troubleshooting help with it, and that was it. If we need major fixes to it or additions to it, we can't. And if this software goes down, which it does on a weekly basis, we end up having to schedule a ton of call backs with customers we're speaking with on the phone since we can't help them without this piece of software generally.
Now, we all have personal directories on a virtual server we can use for storage of work related files (guides for routers, phone manuals, etc) and most people do in fact install Portable FireFox here and use it for their casual browsing of the internet between calls. Even our supervisors and managers do this as well as us peons. BUT, it is technically against company policy to install outside software of any kind and use it.. even if it is by far more secure and easier to use than what they offer. No one has gotten fired for it but my point being that there was grounds for it, compared to using the shitacular IE6. And trust me, you should see the spyware scan logs of the massive network of user pc's we have.. It just amazes me a company is so cheap it won't pay to have its software updated to accomodate security. It'd hate to be in the actual IT department at this place, their entire day must be spyware/virus removal.
Re:I Use IE6 (Score:3, Informative)
Well, technically it starts when your computer does. Any browser can create a window as fast as IE if it is already running. The cost of doing it like IE does is a slower boot up time and wasted memory when you are not using it.
I assume you're referring to the fact that one particular DLL (mshtml.dll) was loaded by the Windows UI shell to render HTML help and other things. AFAIK, this isn't true for recent versions of Windows.
In any case, the fact that one DLL is in memory isn't going to change the startup speed by that much. There are many files that IE needs to load and other misc initialization stuff that IE needs to do before it starts up. (e.g. load addons, setup protected mode, phishing filters etc)
FWIW, on my box Chrome starts up quicker than IE8. So its:
1. Chrome
2. IE8
3. Opera
4. FF
Re:This is news? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nah.. still all comes down to "idiocy" (Score:1, Informative)
Multiple versions of IE can be done courtesy of here [tredosoft.com] or here [my-debugbar.com]
And as for IE6 keeping people away from sites like YouTube.. I'm not even going to dignify that with a refutation. Anyone who wants to get around that problem could do so without the slightest difficulty in the space of about ten minutes.
The answer to to both of these is two words: "Group Policy". Group policy allows IT admins to lock down almost everything imaginable. But (in my experience) it will not work properly with multiple IE. And, yes, I can block youtube along with any other site that requires specific plugins with no problem at all, just disable {INSERT-GUID-OF-CONTROL-HERE}, .