7 ms·

Google Apps dropping support for older browsers

104 points by spaetzel 15y ago

pilom 15y ago
You know sometimes it really annoys me that I work somewhere that only supports IE7. Good thing that jobs thread came up today.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  Count yourself lucky. Amongst our enterprise-level customers, IE6 (yes, 6, you read that right) is still the majority of page hits.
  - skarayan 15y ago
    Enterprises like to centralize everything then they get trapped into the trap that they set for themselves. Nature and people are decentralized, technology should be the same. Imagine if there was only one tree responsible for the oxygen on Earth. Let people manage their own desktop environments already!
  - biaxident 15y ago
    Hopefully moves like this from big names like Google will help convince these enterprise companies to make the switch. Wait, who am I kidding, that's just wishful thinking.
    - joshbaptiste 15y ago
      Indeed, many enterprises such as the one I work for do not care about Google apps etc.. not working since they usually cater their browser versions towards in-house software development.
  - T-hawk 15y ago
    It might be worth mentioning how IE 6 is still there. IE 6 is the only version that ever came with Windows XP and 2003 install images, which many many corps still use. And remember that the average lifetime of a Windows installation on a corporate desktop is actually pretty short, getting wiped and re-imaged frequently as people leave or machines are moved around or some Outlook error pops up and the IT guy re-images because that's faster than digging in to fix it. So IE 6 comes out of the reinstallation casket all the time. It's not that corps are scared of upgrading, it's just not worthwhile from a cost-benefit standpoint to download and install IE 8 on every single machine on every reinstall. Their users that want IE 8 or Firefox will go get it; the users that don't know what a browser version is never know that they're missing anything. IE 6 will only go away when Windows XP does. FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we sell to them) for testing, and use Opera for real browsing.
    - eneveu 15y ago
      > FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we sell to them) for testing Why not use Microsoft's ie VPC images? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=... "In order to help web designers and web developers test their websites in older versions of Internet Explorer, we've provided the following VHD with Windows set up with the specified version of Internet Explorer. The images are patched with the latest security updates and are otherwise clean installs of the operating system with very few modifications." Also works with VirtualBox on linux / mac: http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on_virtualbox/ http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on... You do not even need a Windows license: "Note: You may be required to activate the OS as the product key has been deactivated. This is the expected behavior. The VHDs will not pass genuine validation. Immediately after you start the Windows 7 or Windows Vista images they will request to be activated. You can cancel the request and it will login to the desktop. You can activate up to two “rearms” (type slmgr –rearm at the command prompt) which will extend the trial for another 30 days each time OR simply shutdown the VPC image and discard the changes you’ve made from undo disks to reset the image back to its initial state. By doing either of these methods, you can technically have a base image which never expires although you will never be able to permanently save any changes on these images for longer than 90 days."
smackfu 15y ago
Interesting. These aren't really what most people would consider older browsers. It looks like two years is their support cutoff, based on when FF 3.5 came out.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  The linked article says that it is the two last major releases. Why that does not mean FF 4 and 3, I don't get.
  - wonderyak 15y ago
    3.6 is considered a major release.
  - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
    Google must consider the 'current' major version of Firefox 5, which will be released soon (maybe in time for the enforcing of this new plan?).
- dmethvin 15y ago
  I don't think their cutoff date is as important as the browsers they cut off. IE6/7 are a pain to support and test. Maybe Google figures that people that far behind are going to stay with what they have/know (e.g, Microsoft Office), and that may not be a bad bet.
amritayannayak 15y ago
wohoo :)
noChoices 15y ago
Opera is a good browser. Also IE7 "has the chops". More BS from Google. I thought they had a clue, but apparently not.
brudgers 15y ago
Dropping support for older browsers shows why Google Apps will continue to struggle against Microsoft products for government contracts such as was the case recently in San Francisco. Large organizations get locked into legacy OS's for many reasons - example government agencies who bought and rely on geospatial data in Autodesk Mapguide format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapguide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapguide http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=9454886&linkID=9242099 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&... And yes that is a plug-in for Netscape that is still available!
- guelo 15y ago
  Luckily Google has decided that the entire rest of the world doesn't have to wait for every bureaucracy to upgrade their antiquated systems in order to make progress.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Well then they will just have to unlock themself - we can't wait for the slow people to catch up if we are ever to get close to the future. Personally I was hoping that they would remove the support from the search site, which may yet happen.
- dspillett 15y ago
  At this point MS want IE6 (and 7) to die as much as everyone else does, as it has become a source of embarrassment. Even MS's own online office applications don't support IE6 and have not done so since the back end of 2009 (see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2009/08/05/9858563.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2009/08/05/985... for confirmation). Not supporting IE8 would be a problem (a number of our banking clients are in the process of transitioning away from IE6, but unfortunately only onto IE8 and I assume many government bodies are in a similar position) which is possibly why Google have drawn the line there, but if not supporting IE6 is an issue then Microsoft's online products will be affected as much as Google's. IE7 is pretty much moot in my experience: I don't know of any environment that upgraded to 7 which stuck with it, those that stuck with IE6 are either still stuck there or are upgrading to 8 or something more modern and those who moved to 7 have moved again.
46Bit 15y ago
This is damned good. If organisations continue transitioning, hopefully it'll up the pressure to keep updating browser versions and internal resources.
- mparr4 15y ago
  Yes, this strikes me as an important step toward the beginning of the end of having to design for archaic browsers. The ball just needs a nudge and it'll get rolling, the momentum of it just-being-the-way-it-ought-to-be behind it.
buster 15y ago
Sad to see they don't even mention Opera. I don't use it, but it should run google apps without problems. Also i know very big companies that still use IE6, sadly. For those people stuck without admin access and ancient browsers: Give Firefox Portable a try, it saved my day last week ;) Apart from that, go google go! I like this move and more websites should just do this..
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  Didn't the Google team also make Chrome now usable/installable without Admin rights?
  - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
    That was Chrome Frame, the Internet Explorer plugin that enables chrome rendering in IE.
    - phn 15y ago
      Chrome itself can be installed without admin rights, I remember using that on a University pc to view a flash video with the embedded plugin.
      - camwest 15y ago
        We deal with a large enterprise that uses old versions of IE and whenever our support team encounters one we just upgrade them to Chrome. Sadly we can't recommend any other browser since they all require admin access for some reason.
        ysangkok 15y ago
        You can get Firefox and Opera in portable versions that don't require admin rights.
        peregrinari 15y ago
colinprince 15y ago
the current and prior major release of Chrome... Ouch! that means Chrome versions[0] older than March 2011 won't be supported? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history
- smackfu 15y ago
  For Chrome, Google is basically saying "we push updates, you better take them or you can use some other browser".
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    I had ranted about Chromebooks not being a good deal pricewise (which I still claim). But a friend of mine, who heads IT for a large enterprise, noted the issue wasn't up-front acquisition cost. But that Google seems to want to run IT in the cloud and locally. He wasn't willing to take updates to browsers on Google's schedule unless Google was willing to own making all of their LoB apps work too.
- jonprins 15y ago
  Which isn't that big of a deal. Take a look at Chrome's upgrade curves, compared to the other browsers: http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/04/08/the-modern-browser-wars-how-well-firefox-ie-and-chrome-succeed-in-getting-their-users-to-upgrade/ http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/04/08/the-modern-browser-wars-...
peterbraden 15y ago
Very glad to see them dropping the older browsers. Hopefully more web companies will follow giving legacy companies impetus to upgrade. Narrowing their list of modern browsers so tightly is a little worrying though, any standards supporting browser (opera?) should be considered, otherwise they could be enforcing a cartel of current browsers.
dfischer 15y ago
This is great.
niels_olson 15y ago
Why are big enterprises so resistant to change browsers?
- tomgallard 15y ago
  Often they have a number of in-house intranet applications that rely on IE6 quirks. So there is a large cost associated with testing and upgrading their legacy applications. This is definitely the case in a large number of the major UK banks. As someone building software used by these places- it is frustrating to have to support IE6, but there is a lot of opportunity here, because a lot of developers/companies can't be bothered to make their products IE6 compatible.
zmmmmm 15y ago
Well if Microsoft feels threatened by Google Apps, they know what to do: release IE10 quick smart and watch the entire corporate and government world suddenly not be potential customers of Google any more as Google drops support for IE8 (and hence Windows XP).

104 points by spaetzel 15y ago

pilom 15y ago

You know sometimes it really annoys me that I work somewhere that only supports IE7. Good thing that jobs thread came up today.

CWuestefeld 15y ago
Count yourself lucky. Amongst our enterprise-level customers, IE6 (yes, 6, you read that right) is still the majority of page hits.
- skarayan 15y ago
  Enterprises like to centralize everything then they get trapped into the trap that they set for themselves. Nature and people are decentralized, technology should be the same. Imagine if there was only one tree responsible for the oxygen on Earth. Let people manage their own desktop environments already!
- biaxident 15y ago
  Hopefully moves like this from big names like Google will help convince these enterprise companies to make the switch. Wait, who am I kidding, that's just wishful thinking.
  - joshbaptiste 15y ago
    Indeed, many enterprises such as the one I work for do not care about Google apps etc.. not working since they usually cater their browser versions towards in-house software development.
- T-hawk 15y ago
  It might be worth mentioning how IE 6 is still there. IE 6 is the only version that ever came with Windows XP and 2003 install images, which many many corps still use. And remember that the average lifetime of a Windows installation on a corporate desktop is actually pretty short, getting wiped and re-imaged frequently as people leave or machines are moved around or some Outlook error pops up and the IT guy re-images because that's faster than digging in to fix it. So IE 6 comes out of the reinstallation casket all the time. It's not that corps are scared of upgrading, it's just not worthwhile from a cost-benefit standpoint to download and install IE 8 on every single machine on every reinstall. Their users that want IE 8 or Firefox will go get it; the users that don't know what a browser version is never know that they're missing anything. IE 6 will only go away when Windows XP does. FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we sell to them) for testing, and use Opera for real browsing.
  - eneveu 15y ago
    > FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we sell to them) for testing Why not use Microsoft's ie VPC images? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=... "In order to help web designers and web developers test their websites in older versions of Internet Explorer, we've provided the following VHD with Windows set up with the specified version of Internet Explorer. The images are patched with the latest security updates and are otherwise clean installs of the operating system with very few modifications." Also works with VirtualBox on linux / mac: http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on_virtualbox/ http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on... You do not even need a Windows license: "Note: You may be required to activate the OS as the product key has been deactivated. This is the expected behavior. The VHDs will not pass genuine validation. Immediately after you start the Windows 7 or Windows Vista images they will request to be activated. You can cancel the request and it will login to the desktop. You can activate up to two “rearms” (type slmgr –rearm at the command prompt) which will extend the trial for another 30 days each time OR simply shutdown the VPC image and discard the changes you’ve made from undo disks to reset the image back to its initial state. By doing either of these methods, you can technically have a base image which never expires although you will never be able to permanently save any changes on these images for longer than 90 days."

smackfu 15y ago

Interesting. These aren't really what most people would consider older browsers. It looks like two years is their support cutoff, based on when FF 3.5 came out.

tomjen3 15y ago
The linked article says that it is the two last major releases. Why that does not mean FF 4 and 3, I don't get.
- wonderyak 15y ago
  3.6 is considered a major release.
- keeperofdakeys 15y ago
  Google must consider the 'current' major version of Firefox 5, which will be released soon (maybe in time for the enforcing of this new plan?).
dmethvin 15y ago
I don't think their cutoff date is as important as the browsers they cut off. IE6/7 are a pain to support and test. Maybe Google figures that people that far behind are going to stay with what they have/know (e.g, Microsoft Office), and that may not be a bad bet.

amritayannayak 15y ago

wohoo :)

noChoices 15y ago

Opera is a good browser. Also IE7 "has the chops". More BS from Google. I thought they had a clue, but apparently not.

brudgers 15y ago

Dropping support for older browsers shows why Google Apps will continue to struggle against Microsoft products for government contracts such as was the case recently in San Francisco. Large organizations get locked into legacy OS's for many reasons - example government agencies who bought and rely on geospatial data in Autodesk Mapguide format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapguide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapguide http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=9454886&linkID=9242099 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&... And yes that is a plug-in for Netscape that is still available!

guelo 15y ago
Luckily Google has decided that the entire rest of the world doesn't have to wait for every bureaucracy to upgrade their antiquated systems in order to make progress.
tomjen3 15y ago
Well then they will just have to unlock themself - we can't wait for the slow people to catch up if we are ever to get close to the future. Personally I was hoping that they would remove the support from the search site, which may yet happen.
dspillett 15y ago
At this point MS want IE6 (and 7) to die as much as everyone else does, as it has become a source of embarrassment. Even MS's own online office applications don't support IE6 and have not done so since the back end of 2009 (see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2009/08/05/9858563.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officewebapps/archive/2009/08/05/985... for confirmation). Not supporting IE8 would be a problem (a number of our banking clients are in the process of transitioning away from IE6, but unfortunately only onto IE8 and I assume many government bodies are in a similar position) which is possibly why Google have drawn the line there, but if not supporting IE6 is an issue then Microsoft's online products will be affected as much as Google's. IE7 is pretty much moot in my experience: I don't know of any environment that upgraded to 7 which stuck with it, those that stuck with IE6 are either still stuck there or are upgrading to 8 or something more modern and those who moved to 7 have moved again.

46Bit 15y ago

This is damned good. If organisations continue transitioning, hopefully it'll up the pressure to keep updating browser versions and internal resources.

mparr4 15y ago
Yes, this strikes me as an important step toward the beginning of the end of having to design for archaic browsers. The ball just needs a nudge and it'll get rolling, the momentum of it just-being-the-way-it-ought-to-be behind it.

buster 15y ago

Sad to see they don't even mention Opera. I don't use it, but it should run google apps without problems. Also i know very big companies that still use IE6, sadly. For those people stuck without admin access and ancient browsers: Give Firefox Portable a try, it saved my day last week ;) Apart from that, go google go! I like this move and more websites should just do this..

Pewpewarrows 15y ago
Didn't the Google team also make Chrome now usable/installable without Admin rights?
- keeperofdakeys 15y ago
  That was Chrome Frame, the Internet Explorer plugin that enables chrome rendering in IE.
  - phn 15y ago
    Chrome itself can be installed without admin rights, I remember using that on a University pc to view a flash video with the embedded plugin.
    - camwest 15y ago
      We deal with a large enterprise that uses old versions of IE and whenever our support team encounters one we just upgrade them to Chrome. Sadly we can't recommend any other browser since they all require admin access for some reason.
      - ysangkok 15y ago
        You can get Firefox and Opera in portable versions that don't require admin rights.
        peregrinari 15y ago

colinprince 15y ago

the current and prior major release of Chrome... Ouch! that means Chrome versions[0] older than March 2011 won't be supported? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history

smackfu 15y ago
For Chrome, Google is basically saying "we push updates, you better take them or you can use some other browser".
- kenjackson 15y ago
  I had ranted about Chromebooks not being a good deal pricewise (which I still claim). But a friend of mine, who heads IT for a large enterprise, noted the issue wasn't up-front acquisition cost. But that Google seems to want to run IT in the cloud and locally. He wasn't willing to take updates to browsers on Google's schedule unless Google was willing to own making all of their LoB apps work too.
jonprins 15y ago
Which isn't that big of a deal. Take a look at Chrome's upgrade curves, compared to the other browsers: http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/04/08/the-modern-browser-wars-how-well-firefox-ie-and-chrome-succeed-in-getting-their-users-to-upgrade/ http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/04/08/the-modern-browser-wars-...

peterbraden 15y ago

Very glad to see them dropping the older browsers. Hopefully more web companies will follow giving legacy companies impetus to upgrade. Narrowing their list of modern browsers so tightly is a little worrying though, any standards supporting browser (opera?) should be considered, otherwise they could be enforcing a cartel of current browsers.

dfischer 15y ago

This is great.

niels_olson 15y ago

Why are big enterprises so resistant to change browsers?

tomgallard 15y ago
Often they have a number of in-house intranet applications that rely on IE6 quirks. So there is a large cost associated with testing and upgrading their legacy applications. This is definitely the case in a large number of the major UK banks. As someone building software used by these places- it is frustrating to have to support IE6, but there is a lot of opportunity here, because a lot of developers/companies can't be bothered to make their products IE6 compatible.

zmmmmm 15y ago

Well if Microsoft feels threatened by Google Apps, they know what to do: release IE10 quick smart and watch the entire corporate and government world suddenly not be potential customers of Google any more as Google drops support for IE8 (and hence Windows XP).