8 ms·

I understand them wanting to discontinue browsers that have very low usage and have discontinued support from Microsoft, but I can't help but feel a little sad

I understand them wanting to discontinue browsers that have very low usage and have discontinued support from Microsoft, but I can't help but feel a little sad about the narrowing browser engine ecosystem.

throw03172019 7y ago
At least they still support Edge. Although Edge is moving towards to a Chromium based engine..
perardi 7y ago
How exactly does it help anybody to to support little-used, out-of-date, insecure browsers?
- gridlockd 7y ago
  It really depends, some place simply have infrastructure that you aren't going to change for whatever reason. So you may lose those clients, but that needs to be verified. Having said that, IE11 is still supported so it doesn't strike me as security risk. In fact, not updating a browser with features is likely going to improve security. A little-used browser is also less attractive to target for exploitation.
ravenstine 7y ago
Exactly how many browser engines do we need? There's currently Blink(Chrome|Edge|Brave), Gecko(Firefox), and WebKit(Safari and various OSS browsers). With web technology standards, it doesn't really make sense that there would be that much competition, so having 3 competing engines seems sufficient to me.
- the1pato 7y ago
  WebKit* Webpack is a bundler.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    LOL Thanks for the correction.
- mbell 7y ago
  I'm sure some won't like this comment, but there are only two that matter: Chrome and Safari. Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%).
  - Insanity 7y ago
    Where do you get those numbers? This indicates FF to be around 10% still: https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?options=%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22%24and%22%3A%5B%7B%22deviceType%22%3A%7B%22%24in%22%3A%5B%22Desktop%2Flaptop%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%2C%22dateLabel%22%3A%22Trend%22%2C%22attributes%22%3A%22share%22%2C%22group%22%3A%22browser%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22share%22%3A-1%7D%2C%22id%22%3A%22browsersDesktop%22%2C%22dateInterval%22%3A%22Monthly%22%2C%22dateStart%22%3A%222018-05%22%2C%22dateEnd%22%3A%222019-04%22%2C%22segments%22%3A%22-1000%22%7D https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?opt... EDIT: This is on laptop/desktop. Without the device filter it's about 5%. But then again, I don't think it comes by default on any Mobile OS, so they have a disadvantage there. Plus non power users of their smartphone (like me) might not change the browser there.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    That's may be true, but that doesn't mean Firefox/Gecko isn't a viable alternative just because fewer people are choosing to use it. In fact, I think it demonstrates my point that people don't need competing browser engines that badly because they aren't radically different. There was a time where IE was hemorrhaging users to Firefox, but that was because Firefox legitimately did things better than IE/Trident. At this point, however, our expectations of what a web browser should do are fairly solidified, so people are likely going to choose whatever is being marketed to them the most and comes installed on many Android phones by default.
  - IceWreck 7y ago
    > Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%). No? Most browser share analysis put FF at #2 (9-10%), for desktop/laptops and at #3 (5-6%) for mobile.
    - HunOL 7y ago
- shados 7y ago
  We need enough as to be reasonable competing point of views when it comes to setting standards. Things like web components, service workers, built-in javascript modules and more were pretty meh features pushed really hard by a specific browser vendor that tried to ignore feedback/pushback. The only way the standards won't get to be more of a mess is if we have multiple implementations and multiple, distinct organizations having opinions on the specs and implementation. A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    Do we even need more standards though? The standardization process takes a lot of time and just because something is a standard doesn't mean major players will implement it. Implementations always trump. Browsers are basically an operating system now. For comparison, nobody cares that the Linux kernel isn't a standard. Nobody wants a "competing" Linux kernel implementation. The implementation itself is the standard and reference and that's totally fine. The problem with looming IE dominance in the old days was that it was closed-source and proprietary, but that's not the case with modern day engines. In the FOSS world, competition isn't really a big driver. It just causes redundant work. > A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else. That's just not true. Any piece of software can be transformed into another piece of software. If <Upstream> really wants some feature I don't want, I can patch it out. If I publish some feature that <Upstream> thinks is good, they can just merge it. Of course it would be good if <Upstream> was more like the LLVM-Foundation and not "literally Google", but the point is that having just one engine isn't the same as one party controlling the implementation. Microsoft obviously understands this, or they wouldn't choose Chromium as the new basis for Edge.
    - shados 7y ago
      > That's just not true Its true enough: it keeps happening. Patch it out or resist all you want, it doesn't matter if you have to acknowledge and deal with its existence, if only because of the amount of energy it takes to push back against it. If it doesn't have a feature you want because they disagree, you can add it to your browser of choice, but it doesn't matter because you still won't be able to use it. It's exactly what we're seeing with firefox. They could implement feature XYZ, but it would be irrelevant because no one (web developers) could use it.
- meruru 7y ago
  Blink and WebKit are basically the same though. I'm not sure if they should be counted separately. How much WebKit existing helps prevent Google from taking control of the web?
anon777778 7y ago
Last major update for IE11 was like 6 years ago? Supporting anything related to this browser is painful and is blocking multiple new web features (or even not so new). I would love to use CSS Grid without thinking whether it will work however it happens that IE11 has only partial (and buggy) support for it. I believe that supporting IE11 blocks innovation.
- Crinus 7y ago
  What sort of features does a mail client need though? Up until recently i was using SquirrelMail and only stopped because my webhost removed it (likely because there hasn't been an official release for a few years now... which is weird since there is progress in the code repository, just not official releases). In case you haven't used it, SqurrelMail barely uses anything beyond a couple of frames (normal ones, not iframes), a table of links for the mail and a few simple controls (search, delete, mark as read, etc) with some very little (and optional) javascript for selecting all mails and stuff like that. And i really didn't miss anything using it, whereas every other web-based mail client i've seen is both slower and more annoying to use. So, what is the use case here really, what sort of features IE11 does not provide that you'd need to implement a web-based mail client? (note that i'm not trying to promote IE11 here, i just do not understand why IE11 would block implementing any feature to the point of dropping it entirely)
  - realusername 7y ago
    I'm sort-of supporting IE11 at my current company and it's not about the features, IE11 is full of rendering bugs & quicks which make you work more. Lots of CSS bugs, lots of JS bugs, it's just an outdated browser which has a real cost to support. Then you need to be careful to include enough polyfills because even what you assume would be there probably isn't, there's no Promises, no Array.prototype.includes, no arrow functions.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      So it isn't a case of something being impossible but more of a case that it needs workarounds to make things work with it?
shados 7y ago
Definitely. It's also a lot more about the second part (discontinued support, and the fact it sucks to develop against) than the first (very low usage). At my company we're in this weird spot where Chrome has overwhelming adoption but IE11 has more usage than some of the other modern browsers. For example, if we only went by usage (or even more so: conversion/$$$), we'd be dropping Firefox support before we drop IE11. That obviously doesn't feel great. I don't want to be in a "This website is optimized for Chrome in 2560x1440 resolution and 32 bit colors!", reminiscent of the old Netscape vs IE days. But we're getting very close to it. Firefox's usage is dwindling. Safari is pretty bad at anything except saving battery. Chrome is good but Google is pretty sketchy with how they bully their feature requests into the standards. IE11 can go to hell, but I still want people to test across browsers. It's happening less and less.

throw03172019 7y ago

At least they still support Edge. Although Edge is moving towards to a Chromium based engine..

perardi 7y ago

How exactly does it help anybody to to support little-used, out-of-date, insecure browsers?

gridlockd 7y ago
It really depends, some place simply have infrastructure that you aren't going to change for whatever reason. So you may lose those clients, but that needs to be verified. Having said that, IE11 is still supported so it doesn't strike me as security risk. In fact, not updating a browser with features is likely going to improve security. A little-used browser is also less attractive to target for exploitation.

ravenstine 7y ago

Exactly how many browser engines do we need? There's currently Blink(Chrome|Edge|Brave), Gecko(Firefox), and WebKit(Safari and various OSS browsers). With web technology standards, it doesn't really make sense that there would be that much competition, so having 3 competing engines seems sufficient to me.

the1pato 7y ago
WebKit* Webpack is a bundler.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  LOL Thanks for the correction.
mbell 7y ago
I'm sure some won't like this comment, but there are only two that matter: Chrome and Safari. Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%).
- Insanity 7y ago
  Where do you get those numbers? This indicates FF to be around 10% still: https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?options=%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22%24and%22%3A%5B%7B%22deviceType%22%3A%7B%22%24in%22%3A%5B%22Desktop%2Flaptop%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%2C%22dateLabel%22%3A%22Trend%22%2C%22attributes%22%3A%22share%22%2C%22group%22%3A%22browser%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22share%22%3A-1%7D%2C%22id%22%3A%22browsersDesktop%22%2C%22dateInterval%22%3A%22Monthly%22%2C%22dateStart%22%3A%222018-05%22%2C%22dateEnd%22%3A%222019-04%22%2C%22segments%22%3A%22-1000%22%7D https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?opt... EDIT: This is on laptop/desktop. Without the device filter it's about 5%. But then again, I don't think it comes by default on any Mobile OS, so they have a disadvantage there. Plus non power users of their smartphone (like me) might not change the browser there.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  That's may be true, but that doesn't mean Firefox/Gecko isn't a viable alternative just because fewer people are choosing to use it. In fact, I think it demonstrates my point that people don't need competing browser engines that badly because they aren't radically different. There was a time where IE was hemorrhaging users to Firefox, but that was because Firefox legitimately did things better than IE/Trident. At this point, however, our expectations of what a web browser should do are fairly solidified, so people are likely going to choose whatever is being marketed to them the most and comes installed on many Android phones by default.
- IceWreck 7y ago
  > Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%). No? Most browser share analysis put FF at #2 (9-10%), for desktop/laptops and at #3 (5-6%) for mobile.
  - HunOL 7y ago
shados 7y ago
We need enough as to be reasonable competing point of views when it comes to setting standards. Things like web components, service workers, built-in javascript modules and more were pretty meh features pushed really hard by a specific browser vendor that tried to ignore feedback/pushback. The only way the standards won't get to be more of a mess is if we have multiple implementations and multiple, distinct organizations having opinions on the specs and implementation. A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Do we even need more standards though? The standardization process takes a lot of time and just because something is a standard doesn't mean major players will implement it. Implementations always trump. Browsers are basically an operating system now. For comparison, nobody cares that the Linux kernel isn't a standard. Nobody wants a "competing" Linux kernel implementation. The implementation itself is the standard and reference and that's totally fine. The problem with looming IE dominance in the old days was that it was closed-source and proprietary, but that's not the case with modern day engines. In the FOSS world, competition isn't really a big driver. It just causes redundant work. > A world where Blink has 80%+ marketshare (which is pretty much what we have or where we're headed) is one where a single group can dictate the standard for everyone else. That's just not true. Any piece of software can be transformed into another piece of software. If <Upstream> really wants some feature I don't want, I can patch it out. If I publish some feature that <Upstream> thinks is good, they can just merge it. Of course it would be good if <Upstream> was more like the LLVM-Foundation and not "literally Google", but the point is that having just one engine isn't the same as one party controlling the implementation. Microsoft obviously understands this, or they wouldn't choose Chromium as the new basis for Edge.
  - shados 7y ago
    > That's just not true Its true enough: it keeps happening. Patch it out or resist all you want, it doesn't matter if you have to acknowledge and deal with its existence, if only because of the amount of energy it takes to push back against it. If it doesn't have a feature you want because they disagree, you can add it to your browser of choice, but it doesn't matter because you still won't be able to use it. It's exactly what we're seeing with firefox. They could implement feature XYZ, but it would be irrelevant because no one (web developers) could use it.
meruru 7y ago
Blink and WebKit are basically the same though. I'm not sure if they should be counted separately. How much WebKit existing helps prevent Google from taking control of the web?

anon777778 7y ago

Last major update for IE11 was like 6 years ago? Supporting anything related to this browser is painful and is blocking multiple new web features (or even not so new). I would love to use CSS Grid without thinking whether it will work however it happens that IE11 has only partial (and buggy) support for it. I believe that supporting IE11 blocks innovation.

Crinus 7y ago
What sort of features does a mail client need though? Up until recently i was using SquirrelMail and only stopped because my webhost removed it (likely because there hasn't been an official release for a few years now... which is weird since there is progress in the code repository, just not official releases). In case you haven't used it, SqurrelMail barely uses anything beyond a couple of frames (normal ones, not iframes), a table of links for the mail and a few simple controls (search, delete, mark as read, etc) with some very little (and optional) javascript for selecting all mails and stuff like that. And i really didn't miss anything using it, whereas every other web-based mail client i've seen is both slower and more annoying to use. So, what is the use case here really, what sort of features IE11 does not provide that you'd need to implement a web-based mail client? (note that i'm not trying to promote IE11 here, i just do not understand why IE11 would block implementing any feature to the point of dropping it entirely)
- realusername 7y ago
  I'm sort-of supporting IE11 at my current company and it's not about the features, IE11 is full of rendering bugs & quicks which make you work more. Lots of CSS bugs, lots of JS bugs, it's just an outdated browser which has a real cost to support. Then you need to be careful to include enough polyfills because even what you assume would be there probably isn't, there's no Promises, no Array.prototype.includes, no arrow functions.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    So it isn't a case of something being impossible but more of a case that it needs workarounds to make things work with it?

shados 7y ago

Definitely. It's also a lot more about the second part (discontinued support, and the fact it sucks to develop against) than the first (very low usage). At my company we're in this weird spot where Chrome has overwhelming adoption but IE11 has more usage than some of the other modern browsers. For example, if we only went by usage (or even more so: conversion/$$$), we'd be dropping Firefox support before we drop IE11. That obviously doesn't feel great. I don't want to be in a "This website is optimized for Chrome in 2560x1440 resolution and 32 bit colors!", reminiscent of the old Netscape vs IE days. But we're getting very close to it. Firefox's usage is dwindling. Safari is pretty bad at anything except saving battery. Chrome is good but Google is pretty sketchy with how they bully their feature requests into the standards. IE11 can go to hell, but I still want people to test across browsers. It's happening less and less.