Corporate IT Just Won't Let IE6 Die 479
alphadogg writes "Security experts, industry analysts, and even Microsoft recommend that IT departments upgrade Internet Explorer 6, yet new research shows that while there may have recently been a mock funeral for the aging browser, IE6 is still around and doing well, especially during standard business hours." The article says that they are seeing 6-13% peaking during business hours. Around here we see less than 1.5% IE6, but since we see only 10% IE in general, I imagine we're just lucky.
My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:5, Informative)
We still see 22% (Score:5, Informative)
22% of all hits to our site are from IE6, but IE 6 users still account for something like 40% of all orders (i.e. revenue) for the site. And anytime we break anything with IE6 we hear about it quickly. This is down from about 45% of all browser hits and nearly 60% of all orders last year.
Re:Why? Just standardization? (Score:4, Informative)
Simple it is Microsoft's fault.
Actually this time it really is.
Microsoft decided to and all sorts of stuff to IE and to ignore web standards. They produced web authoring tools that generated code that only worked with IE. And they encouraged other companies to do the say. Their Partners.
They did this because they wanted people to be locked into the Microsoft Ecosystem. You can not move off of Windows because some of your software will stop working! Microsoft feared and fears web apps to this day because of that idea.
Web and software developers bought into this because "everybody used IE" and since you had to make your stuff work for IE anyway why spend time making it work for Netscape, then Mozilla? I mean why worry for say 2% of the population and most of those people had IE anyway so they could always just use IE instead!
Now that Microsoft has to move to following standards and now frankly that the standards have gotten much better. W3C your too freaking slow! Microsoft is breaking a lot of it's old stuff.
So people are sticking with IE6 because many of them are trapped by their large investment in old apps.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:5, Informative)
You are being over optimistic about compatibility mode. It isn't identical to what it is supposed to emulate.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:4, Informative)
My company is still stuck on IE6 for users of our financial system because it appears to totally break if you try and use it with anything other than IE6.
I don't ever touch that system, so I upgraded mine to IE8 and then proceeded to set FireFox with NoScript as my primary browser. I only use IE when a site I actually need for work refuses to work in FireFox or requires flash/shockwave which I have NOT installed on my FireFox (for my own sanity).
If I want to do personal browsing while at work, I plug my MacBook into the visitor network to protect both my employer and myself from any Interwebz baddiez.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:1, Informative)
What's really frightening is that there are software companies out there who are *still* selling intranet solutions that only work on IE6.
The company I work for just purchased a HR system that requires the installation of a custom ActiveX control, and thus only works with IE and in Administrator mode. Thank goodness it does just about work with IE8, but certainly not any other browsers. The scary part is that the ActiveX control in question is just a date input control. And it looks awful. Could have been done better in Javascript even when it was first written.
(for anyone who doesn't believe me, the software's website is ciphr.com)
Re:Yeah, we're one of the ones stuck with it (Score:3, Informative)
Google Chrome Frame -- it allows web developers to stick a modern engine into IE on a site-by-site basis.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:4, Informative)
Name one other profession or trade or area of expertise where expert advice is so routinely ignored for such trivial reasons. It doesn't happen with doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics or insurance agents.
Ohh I think I can answer this one. Users don't give a rat's ass whether the system is working, they just want it to be easy for themselves. Nothing so easy as to sit back, relax and say "The computer/network is down, IT is working on it. I guess there'll be a three hour lunch break today." It's the people paying that should be more hard on the questions of what REAL productivity impact does this have on the user and what REAL productivity impact could not upgrading have.
Re:Legacy apps (Score:3, Informative)
This may not directly apply to you, you might not have been there at the time, but:
Remember last century when a whole pile of GNU hippie types warned you that MS was trying to lock you in and you should make sure your apps comply with web standards and work with other browsers? Remember how they said you'd be very sorry one day if you didn't? Remember how you laughed off their concerns and said MS would never leave you in the lurch that way and it would all be fine? How surely MS would provide a painless upgrade path? Well, <exclamation voice=Nelson Muntz">HA ha!</exclamation>.
Might want to listen more closely next time someone says vendor lock-in is expensive.
You might also want to start saving the corporate nickels and dimes since IE6 isn't going to get any more available. It won't run in Windows7 and I doubt MS will make XP available forever. Flag day is coming and if you haven't upgraded by then and don't have those millions available, you'll just have to shut down.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:3, Informative)
You don't need Flashblock - NoScript blocks *all* plugins.
Re:My plate is pretty full right now... (Score:4, Informative)
That's what IETab is for. Have them use a modern browser (like Firefox), and have the specific apps that break in Firefox run using the IE6 renderer in a tab.