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Thread: End of support for IE6?

  1. #1
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    End of support for IE6?

    There is growing noise in webmaster circles to stop site software support for Internet Explorer 6.

    Here's the current usage profile for IE6 around the world.

    It's amazing just how many people don't stay up to date with latest browser releases.

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    I can understand that PC illiterate people get very scared to change, because if there is a bug in the new software, they just do not know how to correct it, no matter how trivial it is. What is interesting is that not everybody gets exited when there is a new release, and spend hours trying to figure the qwerks of the new stuff. Especially if you are under stress and deadlines, the last thing you think you may not need is this new release screwing up your report because of some minor feature that is not enabled, and quite frankly the user has no idea on how to enable it.

    Better the devil you know than the one you do not know, is usually the thinking of these people.
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    Platinum Member SilverNodashi's Avatar
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    The major 2 problems you have is this:

    1. non-IT driven people don't, or won't know that they're supposed to upgrade their Internet Browsers.

    2. Large firms (think BMW, Standard Bank, Liberty, etc) don't allow end-users to upgrade their web browsers and often sit with management who don't want to give the go-ahead to "fix something that aint broken"
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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    All I can say is “Firefox” it works fine, Microsoft Internet explorer is a complete waste of time.
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    Diamond Member AndyD's Avatar
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    For me you can keep your 'web2.0', thin client and cloud kak and I'll keep my browser that just plain works for the way I like to use it.

    Most of the browser upgrades are the kind that allow you to run more complex web based apps, if you have no interest in these then there's no need to upgrade or update most of the time. I use Firefox and Opera and both sandboxed depending on what I'm doing online. Using a sandbox also means you don't need to update for security reasons either.
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    The problem is more complex software (such as vBulleting as example) have to code for the different handling these browsers throw. There's actually a heck of a lot of

    if IE6-> do this
    if IE8-> do that
    if Firefox-> do the other

    sort of stuff in the code.

    And then there's some things you can't cater for. I don't know how many people have looked at TFSA in different browsers of late, but there are distinct visible differences between how the site renders in IE8 vs Firefox5 at the moment that I am led to believe are unavoidable.

    The argument is catering for old browsers is hurting time spent on product development, as well as limiting the viable range of feature sets.

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    Gold Member twinscythe12332's Avatar
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    if we stuck with things that "weren't broke," progress would never be made. Update and maintenance is part of any software life cycle, and comes with the territory when you buy a PC. let's compare it to airconditioners... if you don't maintain them, they break. If the company offers you a free updated model, you'll never know whether it is better or not until you try it. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a mindset that tends to lead to irrelevance.

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    I wish I could post a linky to the discussion on this at vBulletin.com, but it's licenced member only content.

    It seems one of the big snags is custom business software, particularly stuff for big corporates, doctors specialist programs, that sort of stuff. Quite often it uses the web browser to operate and it's designed to use IE6 (which was state of the art at the time ). Examples given were the US government, AT&T, GE... They're locked in until they're prepared to make the spend to upgrade, and when they do it's going to have to be everything across the board - the software, the PC's, all the other bits and bobs that go with the territory.

    And on the "broke" angle - to them it ain't broke, and just how sure can they be that Windows 7 is less broke than Windows XP at this point?

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    Gold Member irneb's Avatar
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    That's probably my biggest reason too: While I don't use IE, I refuse to keep up with the latest IE version (now actually IE9 which doesn't work on XP). The actual reason behind this is money ... but IE is free ... yes but stay up to date and you find you need to upgrade OS, hardware, etc. E.g. we still have 70% of our PCs running XP since we have a 90's model large format (A0) laser printer - which simply works perfectly after 12 years of HEAVY use. It's the main tool in the office, without it we can close up shop tomorrow. And guess what? There is absolutely no way of getting Vista or Win7 to print to it ... none whatsoever! And getting a new printer for half a bar (or more) just so you can upgrade the rest of the PC's, while the existing printer is still working as well as brand new is just stupid.

    So I guess the same thing applies about people locked into IE6. Yes they can upgrade, but their main business software and / or hardware probably have some compatibility issues with the new stuff. And it's simply too expensive (or even more problematic time-consuming) to upgrade their software / hardware to work with the new IE-stuffup. They'd probably gone the IE route since they "Don't like this BS Open Source CR@P" in the first place, now they've run into a situation where they'd have been better off with nearly any other browser if they designed for that instead of IE6.
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