Internet Explorer 6: If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It

[Lemur]

I've seen a lot of articles, rants and techie editorials about how the widespread use of IE6 is holding back web development. Now there's a web site and a movement: IE6 No More! A lot of small web companies have signed on, and there are rumors a-swirling that YouTube, Digg and Facebook are either phasing out IE6 support or will do so soon.

So what do Orgahs think? A lot of people use IE6 because that's all they are allowed at work, especially in companies that sank real money into web apps back in the heyday of Internet Explorer. Should post-at-workers be denied the glory of ImageShack?

Will this segregate the web, or will this be the kick in the heiney that IT departments need to get on a modern browser?

[Beskar]

It's currently at internet explorer 8.

Get out the way, grandma!

[caravel]

It's currently at internet explorer 8.

Get out the way, grandma!

I believe this is a standards compliancy / non standard extentions issue. There are pages that don't work with other browsers, not through fault of those browsers but due to the fact that those pages were developed for IE6 and MS' non standard browser extensions. This affects companies even more due to certain bespoke or coporate software that runs in a browser window that will only display/work correctly if run in MS IE.

This is effectively causing IE6 to hang on, especially in the business sector, where it should clearly be dead and buried. Why some companies don't upgrade to IE7 or IE8 is beyond me, as surely their craptastic html based CRM software should work perfectly in those later IE versions, unless MS have gone totally Open Standards Compliant and ditched all support for non standard?

[Whacker]

Internet Exploder hasn't been superior to Netscape/Mozilla since 5 lost it's position.

The problem is and has been MS writes it's own damn 'standards' and then tries to push them on the rest of the industry. They have the exact same arrogance and stupidity regarding their own proprietary nonsense that they can even make Sony look bad. Thankfully the rest of the industry has enough clout and share that it is no longer at MS's whim, or at least as it used to be.

The issue I've always heard about IE that makes it so nasty is that it leaves connections open to the web servers. This is what made it so much faster back in versions 4 and 5 than the other alternatives. While it was great for the user and did tend to speed things up a bit, it created much more strain on web servers by behaving poorly. The Fasterfox plugin (which I use ) does some of the same things, in that it can configure the client browser to misbehave and increase load on webservers.

[Hooahguy]

kill it. now.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Kill all MS right now. Or just split it into at least three. What good are the dems if they're not planning to do it anyway?
.

[Lemur]

Well, I was under the impression that IE8 is a big improvement. It's the corporations and grandmas clinging to IE6 that are the real problem ...

[Hooahguy]

Well, I was under the impression that IE8 is a big improvement. It's the corporations and grandmas clinging to IE6 that are the real problem ...

nah. ie8 is still much slower than firefox.

[Husar]

I'm not a big fan of the new IE either, use it only when I have to.

[Vladimir]

What's "Internet Explorer?"

[Hooahguy]

What's "Internet Explorer?"

from the urban dictionary:

A simple Windows XP tool which allows the user to browse to Mozilla.com and download Firefox, a web browser.

As soon as I installed XP I opened Internet Explorer and grabbed the latest version of Firefox.

[Vladimir]

from the urban dictionary:

Guilty!

[rabcarl]

Ahh, that reminds me of a particularly obscenity-inducing anecdote back when IE was at the height of its worthlessness. I had just finished a re-format of my computer and I thought "oh, I'll just use it until I get firefox. Well, wouldn't you know, Murphy's law, I closed out of IE and thought everything was fine, until my homepage was changed; I knew something was up. Repetitive browsers opened up, a new one every second, and my worst fears were confirmed: spyware. And, being younger (probably 8th grade or so) the only remedy I knew was another reformat. Ever since that day I have vowed never to use the accursed IE again! I have been using firefox for probably four or five years now and have never, ever had any problem with security save maybe once.

[Lemur]

Microsoft responds, sort of. It's all about choice, don't'cha know.