5 ms·

This is pretty much a non-event: "[IE6 users] will still be able to watch videos after that date, but new features may not work properly." What percentage of

This is pretty much a non-event: "[IE6 users] will still be able to watch videos after that date, but new features may not work properly." What percentage of people use any YouTube features outside of the (Flash) video player UI? It's got to be very low. I bet it is extremely low for IE6 users, as IE6 users are typically people that don't keep up with new things and/or office workers at work. YouTube could add new features all day, every day, but for the vast majority of users, video playback is all they care about anyway.

InclinedPlane 17y ago
In the short-term IE6 users won't see much difference, IE6 won't be blocked, it's just that the youtube devs won't test against IE6 compatibility in the future. But there's a very real potential not just for "new features" to be unusable for IE6 youtube users but for the entire layout of the page to be broken for IE6 users, rendering the site unusable. Who knows if that will happen but youtube (aka google) is saying now that they don't care whether or not that happens in the future, it's the users' responsibility to upgrade to a more modern browser if they have that problem. That is indeed very significant.
- briansmith 17y ago
  Where did Google say they wouldn't test it in IE6? AFAICT, they're not going to let it become unusable for IE6 users. That would be silly, because they could just create a IE6-only stylesheet with "display: none" for everything on the page except the Flash video player. A lot of users would actually consider that a significant improvement.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    There is this lightbulb you can click that sort of does that. I think it's a relatively new feature.
  - gscott 17y ago
    They have made Adwords pretty much unusable in IE6 but they are unlikely to make a user-centric site like Youtube unusable.
i386 17y ago
Do they display that nag screen when you next visit a youtube page once "Continue to Video" has been clicked? Hopefully, the user gets some sort of warning that their browser is unsupported every time they visit. I suspect even the most complacent of users will want to upgrade if the nag screen is still in their face.
- kgrin 17y ago
  I'm fairly certain that for most IE6 users, the reason isn't complacency (or even ignorance). It's lack of control - corporate environments with "business-critical" ActiveX controls (yes, really), kiosks and so forth.
  - rbritton 17y ago
    In my experience, it's less business-critical stuff and more "we don't want to pay for new boxes until the hardware physically dies"

InclinedPlane 17y ago

In the short-term IE6 users won't see much difference, IE6 won't be blocked, it's just that the youtube devs won't test against IE6 compatibility in the future. But there's a very real potential not just for "new features" to be unusable for IE6 youtube users but for the entire layout of the page to be broken for IE6 users, rendering the site unusable. Who knows if that will happen but youtube (aka google) is saying now that they don't care whether or not that happens in the future, it's the users' responsibility to upgrade to a more modern browser if they have that problem. That is indeed very significant.

briansmith 17y ago
Where did Google say they wouldn't test it in IE6? AFAICT, they're not going to let it become unusable for IE6 users. That would be silly, because they could just create a IE6-only stylesheet with "display: none" for everything on the page except the Flash video player. A lot of users would actually consider that a significant improvement.
- jrockway 17y ago
  There is this lightbulb you can click that sort of does that. I think it's a relatively new feature.
- gscott 17y ago
  They have made Adwords pretty much unusable in IE6 but they are unlikely to make a user-centric site like Youtube unusable.

i386 17y ago

Do they display that nag screen when you next visit a youtube page once "Continue to Video" has been clicked? Hopefully, the user gets some sort of warning that their browser is unsupported every time they visit. I suspect even the most complacent of users will want to upgrade if the nag screen is still in their face.

kgrin 17y ago
I'm fairly certain that for most IE6 users, the reason isn't complacency (or even ignorance). It's lack of control - corporate environments with "business-critical" ActiveX controls (yes, really), kiosks and so forth.
- rbritton 17y ago
  In my experience, it's less business-critical stuff and more "we don't want to pay for new boxes until the hardware physically dies"