Ban IE 6!

[ghost]

Kindof a funny article:


http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/06/internet.explorer.six/index.html

I find it interesting that up to 25% of people are still using Internet Explorer, let alone IE 6. 

The designers say Internet Explorer 6, which was released in 2001 and since has been updated twice by Microsoft Corp., is crippling the Internet's potential and slowing down the online experience. They also blame IE 6 for giving webmasters a collective headache, because they have to write special "hacks" into Web code to accommodate an outmoded browser.

An estimated 15 to 25 percent of people still use IE 6 as their portal to the Internet, according to two Web monitors.

[Samwise]

If you're still designing to IE 6, you have only yourself to blame.  Put a banner on your site that says "If this site looks like shit, it's because you're a caveman."

[Sky]

I bet they browse at 800x600, too. I BET THEY'RE IN THE NEXT OFFICE OVER.

 

[Ookii]

My entire company still uses IE6.

[Delmania]

If you're still designing to IE 6, you have only yourself to blame.  Put a banner on your site that says "If this site looks like shit, it's because you're a caveman."

Or you work in a company where the cost of moving from IE6 is too great because no wants to shell out the cash to update your intranet sites.

[Rasix]

My entire company still uses IE6.

Heh, mine as well.  Very large company.

[Teleku]

A fairly large company we do IT work for has to keep all their computers on IE 6, since online report generation software they use fucks up when you try to load the page on anything better.  Of course managers accidental keep updating the god damn workstations, so we keep having to go back and downgrade IE back to 6 again all the time.

[Engels]

Isn't IE6 a security nightmare? I mean, a lot more so than IE7&8?

[Salamok]

If you're still designing to IE 6, you have only yourself to blame.  Put a banner on your site that says "If this site looks like shit, it's because you're a caveman."

Try telling that to the government, somehow I miraculously am still on ie6 yet have Win XP SP3.  I can't wait until they tell us we can stop coding for ie6.

[Samwise]

You can still install another browser (ANY other browser) and use it for sites that don't support IE6, and use IE6 for that one stupid intranet tool you have that needs it.  The rest of the Internet shouldn't feel obligated to accommodate people who are using an obsolete browser because they painted themselves into a corner with one stupid decision (like setting up something mission-critical with IE hacks that are so obscure that MS didn't even support them in the next version).  Alt-tabbing to Firefox is not that hard.

[Ingmar]

I believe our Oracle users are all still on IE 6 here due to the version of Business Objects we're running or something.

[Sky]

In a kinda related vein, about half of our public computers are stuck with the previous version of Firefox and Flash 9, because they cut off development for OSX 10.3. 

[ghost]

Isn't IE6 a security nightmare? I mean, a lot more so than IE7&8?

This is what I thought.  7 is bad enough.

[Khaldun]

My wife has to file reports and handle applications that flow between our institution and some foundations and federal agencies, and some of the processing won't work in anything but IE, and generally not current-version IE. I always go ballistic when I catch her at home doing a bit of work on my desktop because of that.

[HaemishM]

Part of the blame has to be on Microsoft. Every time they release a new version, it fucks with lots and lots of shit that was either built for or working fine on IE6 (including stuff that wasn't hacked up). If they built a browser worth a shit, no one would talk about Firefox but they are incapable of that. Just the differences in CSS rendering from the goddam standard in the new IE8 drive me batty. The shit about having to use an ActiveContent javascript file to load a flash object instead of just using the tags that had been working well was a pain in the ass.

[DraconianOne]

My entire company still uses IE6.

This.

My last two positions both had the unenviable position of dealing with clients who only used IE6 which means that we, unfortunately, are still required to design for that piece of shit. If it were just small companies that employed Geofrey (with one f) who lives next to the MDs sister to do their IT stuff then that would be one thing but we're talking multinational market leaders and government departments (some of whom don't have the privilege of being able to install a new browser on their machine).

The swearbox in our office is currently full due to mostly IE6 related cursing.

[Delmania]

You can still install another browser (ANY other browser) and use it for sites that don't support IE6, and use IE6 for that one stupid intranet tool you have that needs it.  The rest of the Internet shouldn't feel obligated to accommodate people who are using an obsolete browser because they painted themselves into a corner with one stupid decision (like setting up something mission-critical with IE hacks that are so obscure that MS didn't even support them in the next version).  Alt-tabbing to Firefox is not that hard.

That's assuming the company allows you to install software on the machine they provide for you.

[pants]

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.  There may be some security-related things, but they seem to get patched reasonably quickly.  But besides from that, who cares what your browser is?  It opens websites - what else do you want a browser to do?  Either it opens websites or not - and IE seems to do that fine for me.  I dont see why I'd bother getting another browser.

[Engels]

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.  There may be some security-related things, but they seem to get patched reasonably quickly.  But besides from that, who cares what your browser is?  It opens websites - what else do you want a browser to do?  Either it opens websites or not - and IE seems to do that fine for me.  I dont see why I'd bother getting another browser.

MS browsers often have many exploited security holes that do not get patched 'reasonably quickly'. Just the activex mechanic is enough to send most security professionals into sputtering bouts of apoplexy.

If you work in a large scale business/government environment that does not restrict internet access (or only blocks selected sites), its is unprofessional and negligent to continue to allow your users to use IE6. At the very least IE7 with a fiarly routine application of patches should be used. Preferably one should encourage the use of Firefox.

[Salamok]

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.  There may be some security-related things, but they seem to get patched reasonably quickly.  But besides from that, who cares what your browser is?  It opens websites - what else do you want a browser to do?  Either it opens websites or not - and IE seems to do that fine for me.  I dont see why I'd bother getting another browser.

My main issue has to do with developing for it, Microsoft doesn't do backwards compatibility very well for ie.  They also don't ever get on board with independent web standards, they just roll their own standard and seem to change it often.  To make matters worse you need to pretty much install a virtual machine (1 for each iteration of ie) if you as a developer want to see what your crap looks like in a previous version.

The problems above may seem sort of minor but then you multiply them by the number of technologies ie applies the same problems to and it becomes at least 3 times the pain in the ass you might think it would be (HTML, CSS and Javascript).

I for one would think it would be extremely awesome if Microsoft put a time bomb in each version of ie forcing an upgrade every 5 years at least.

[Lantyssa]

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.  There may be some security-related things, but they seem to get patched reasonably quickly.  But besides from that, who cares what your browser is?  It opens websites - what else do you want a browser to do?  Either it opens websites or not - and IE seems to do that fine for me.  I dont see why I'd bother getting another browser.

I work at a public university.  As a matter of policy, we do not block any website.

Imagine the most bug-ridden, exploitable versions of IE because users don't always update even their past versions that are given security fixes and users who stumble across, or purposefully visit, questionable websites.  (Did I mention we have a huge number of Chinese students and post-docs, and they like to visit even more questionable asian websites? [virus-wise, not content-wise]).  Now imagine 512 computers per subnet and the proliferation of worms that like to spread through LANs.  (At least we don't have the entire university on the same class B sub-net anymore...  Yes, all of it.  255.255.0.0)  And that most groups are responsible for their own machines until something goes horribly wrong?

Fuck IE.

[Ookii]

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.  There may be some security-related things, but they seem to get patched reasonably quickly.  But besides from that, who cares what your browser is?  It opens websites - what else do you want a browser to do?  Either it opens websites or not - and IE seems to do that fine for me.  I dont see why I'd bother getting another browser.

Addons.  I couldn't live without Mouse Gestures, Adblock, and Firebug.

[Kitsune]

What really irks me isn't ActiveX anymore, it's fucking Java.  An utterly unnecessary boondoggle that's as secure as a screen door for viruses.  A very large percentage of the infected computers I encounter in my work were infected thanks to Java exploits.

[Mrbloodworth]

If you're still designing to IE 6, you have only yourself to blame.  

Or, your doing a contract for an entity that refuses to upgrade because "IE comes with windows".

Isn't IE6 a security nightmare? I mean, a lot more so than IE7&8?

Yes, but when you have old people in charge of security............... "Shut up young whipper snapper, this has worked for over 5 years, i dont care if i have to write the hackyist shit in the world to even get it to boot".

IE itself is a bane to all developers, and needs to be shot in the head because of all the proprietary BS that old minded developers just LOVE to use, that usually slows down everything by 200%.

I don't understand the anti-IE rage.

Are you a web content developer?

[Yegolev]

My entire company still uses IE6.

Heh, mine as well.  Very large company.

Yep.  Add another 50,000 people.  Although I normally use firefox, but it's not the one that comes with the laptop and most people don't have local admin rights.

[Stormwaltz]

I have access to the internet only through a public library this week.

They only have IE6 installed on their machines.

Jesus wept.

[Sky]

I should go smack the shit out of a couple of our patrons. They complain about our browsers, we only have a few machines stuck on the last version of Firefox because they're 10.3. IE6 

Then again, there's the other set of patrons that complain about IE8, and I do have to make a few reg hacks to make IE8 work with our setup...

Actually, I wish people would stop developing for active x altogether, the main reason we even have pcs in the building is the amount of sites that require IE.

[ghost]

Derail for a second:  I have 2 "PCs" in my office, in that I run windows on boot camp on 1 computer and Sony Vaio.  My mac pro runs vista better than any PC I've ever owned.

As such, I haven't used IE in years.  It is a bit shocking that anyone does use it, even with the required software upgrades and expenses.  Hell, that is probably the reason half these companies get hacked all the time. 

[pants]

Apologies for the slow response, and pseudo-sirbrucing.  Work had the temerity to get busy for a few days!

> IE6 is crap and old and has bad security.

Yes, it does.  But that's more of an pro-upgrade rant than an anti-IE rant.  How secure would someone running Firefox 1.x be these days?  Running an old unpatched browser of any flavour leaves you open to hacks.  Old IEs are worse than a lot of others I grant, but thats not an issue if you have updates turned on.  It just magically patches your PC - does Firefox/Opera just patch in the background?  (I cant remember).

> IE sucks for web devs, they change the rules and don't provide the handy tools that Firefox has.

It may do.  I'm an end user - I dont care.  And I'm sure 90+% of the internet (I'm talking the whole internet, not the tech-leaning website users) doesn't care either.  In fact, if IE breaks W3 standards, frankly I should stick with IE, since its still the primary browser in use, so web developers need to support it.  If that ever changes, then I'll change, but for now it makes sense to use IE in that regard.


I'm not trying to say that IE is the best thing evar, or that noone can use other browsers.  Its just the 'why in gods name would you use IE you uneducated buffoon?' attitude.  My point is that for most people, a browser is an appliance these days.  You clicks tha URL, and the web page appears.  IE does that fine, and it comes with your PC, so no additional downloads or installs or anything like that.  Ive been using IE for quite a while now (since one of the early Firefoxes had problems with memory leaks and crashing - I forget which version that was), and Ive not had 1 security problem.  Of course, I keep patches up to date, and run anti-malware and anti-virus stuff - but frankly anyone on the internet needs to do that these days.  IE8 works fine in that regard.   

[Mrbloodworth]

All that to say IE comes with windows.

[Rendakor]

Pants, who are you argueing with? No one has ranted about the evils of IE; just IE6.

[Yegolev]

I don't want Magical Updates.  Sometimes updates are worse and I prefer to choose.

[Engels]

Wanna hear something funny? Was watching Rachel Madow, talkshowy person on MSNBC...her onscreen presentation used Safari  

[Trippy]

Safari's available on Windows. Which OS was it running on?

[Engels]

No idea, since it was simply a mock up screen of a 'pretend' browser showing a youtube-y clip. I wonder if it was a deliberate choice, the assumption being that the 'liberal left' are a bunch of latte sipping bistro going mac users