7 ms·

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will hav

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

necolas 15y ago
Furthermore, apparently "future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading". Source: http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-start-automatic-upgrades-across-windows-xp-windows-vista-and-windows-7.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-...
- hello_moto 15y ago
  If Redmond insist to have this option, please make it super hard for users to do it :D
  - gldalmaso 15y ago
    I don't think that it will be a big issue since the major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is inertia.
    - michael_dorfman 15y ago
      The major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is that they use proprietary applications which were written with IE6 in mind, and they see no good reason to spend money to upgrade these applications (if the vendor is even still interested in doing so) if it still works. So, as long as there is a way to opt out, I imagine there are a lot of corporate folks who will do so.
      - obtu 15y ago
        I think these are best addressed with the X-UA-Compatible header, and various other ways to trigger the use of an older IE engine. Otherwise, users are offered a choice between broken legacy internal apps, or breakage on most of the rest of the web.
        radicalbyte 15y ago
        If that requires a change to the legacy application then it's never going to work. There's a reason companies can't upgrade from IE6 without a significant cost, and it is usually one of the following: 1) The company has lost the sourcecode, and the original engineers have left. 2) The company doesn't even have the source code, and has no rights to modify the application. 3) The application is vendor-supplied, and said vendor requires a large cash payment to make the 'custom' change. 4) The application is vendor-supplied and the vendor refuses to support IE6 in the version of their application that the company have deployed. Their new, super expensive version does support more browsers. 5) The company has little control over their IT. Their business depends on a thousand tiny applications built by countless different parties of varying ability. Simply auditing the whole mess is too costly. So lots of companies take the easy (and cheap) route out and decide to stick with an ancient browser.
        pyre 15y ago
        Adding a single header can be done as simply as using nginx as a 'transparent' proxy in front of the app. No need to make application changes.
        AmazingMe 15y ago
        or can be added to policy/registry that open http://legacyapp:6583 http://legacyapp:6583 in ie6 frame.
        flomo 15y ago
        Modern versions of IE do not contain a compatibility mode for IE6, hence the problem. (The official solution is virtualization.)
- kmfrk 15y ago
  Sounds reasonable and as something only power users would be aware of. Updating using Windows Update is the biggest pain in the ass, and it's great to see a much more convenient solution.
  - alastairpat 15y ago
    The update will still be delivered via Windows Update, it just won't prompt you like it previously did.
dpark 15y ago
The is a common claim, but has anyone actually researched this? Is there any evidence that this is still true? It's my understanding that most of the IE6 market share is in Asia, where many people are running pirated versions of XP.
- miles_matthias 15y ago
  My experience has been that the US government is a big IE6 consumer as well.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  Pirated versions of XP are perfectly capable of running IE7/8. The problem is that a few years ago Microsoft pushed Windows Genuine Advantage updates automatically via Windows Update (they might even have done this twice), with the result that all those pirated versions of XP turned off Windows Update forever and never installing anything from microsoft.com. Oops.
  - ramblerman 15y ago
    I partake in my fair share of Microsoft bashing but am I understanding your point here. You're criticizing MS for not pushing updates to pirated versions of their software?
    - markkanof 15y ago
      That seems like a fair criticism. Those pirated copies of XP will now never be updated again. This will both contribute to the persistence of IE 6 as well as allow security flaws in XP and IE 6 to go unpatched which will increase the potential for these machines to become part of a bot not or spread viruses. At the same time Microsoft's actions didn't prevent any of these pirated copies from continuing to be used, so the overall outcome is a net negative for everyone.
      - bradwestness 15y ago
        Then they'll get viruses and have to reformat, or call Microsoft support and find out that it's pirated (if they didn't already know) and eventually end up upgrading. If nothing else, the fact that hardware vendors no longer make Windows XP drivers is about to kill off IE 6 once and for all anyway.
veidr 15y ago
Big corporate is such a weird space. On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be). On the other hand, I doubt that consumer adoption driving sites to drop support for IE6 will have any substantial impact on what megacorps decide to deploy. One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser. While I personally think that's insane -- if you are that specific (not to mention antiquated) with your browser requirements, why don't you just code a native app? -- I've also never developed software with a team larger than five, and certainly don't know the nitty-gritty details about spreading the work over a dozen countries and hundreds of developers, the vast majority being low-cost Chinese and Indian coders. So I'm not judging (or at least I'm trying not to). But my point is that Big Corporate just wants their freaky "web-based" apps to run predictably for the projected 6-year deployment timeframe and does not give one flying fuck about whether their staff can access the new hip and way-superior version of <ANY OTHER WEB APP ON EARTH>. Unless said had real business value to large enterprise, but then, if it did... it would probably support MSIE6. So while this news is welcome, it's still unlikely that the computing capabilities of the typical large-company locked-down employee PC are going to become awesome, or even good. Even MSIE8, while way better than 6, still isn't something you jump for joy having to develop for. This matters less and less, though, as the percentage of people who have a way more capable browser in in their pocket increases. So I think that it is starting to make a lot more sense to give up on corporate machines and dead-end legacy browsers, and instead spend that effort on scaling your app's interface to smaller form factors. (Disclaimer: that's what I think, but not what I actually do. I work on web-based software for medium-sized businesses, so I don't have to worry much about what browser users happen to have. In this context, you can have requirements, and I tend to just say, 'In order to decrease development costs, the system requires the Google Chrome browser. But don't worry: it's free, secure, cross-platform, and has become the dominant web technology standard.' That last part is a bit of customer-reassurance hyperbole, but so far, no problems. (And of course the same code typically works fine on Safari if there's an iOS requirement.))
dhughes 15y ago
Yeah we use IE6 (on four year old laptops no less!) because there are applications that we Techs use that the company won't replace and the applications can only be used in IE6 apparently. Waiting for five or ten minutes for a failed Adobe Flash update to try and load (fails since I am not a desktop admin) each time I reboot or power on and then a full two minutes for Outlook to start is not fun thing to do every day. No thanks to our outsourced IT to a three letter company.
protomyth 15y ago
Educational institutions using certain testing software from a textbook publishers will probably block updates also. The problem is that, like a lot of enterprise software, the testing sites are fairly fragile and don't react well to changes in browsers. After getting into a situation where students couldn't take tests do to an update, most system admins curse at the sky and then block updates until given the go ahead. It sucks, but the book publishers make poor software. // ok - just to head off all the switch testing, books, etc. comments - none of those are options. certification testing sites are kinda non-negotiable
- bradwestness 15y ago
  There are also things like JAWS screen readers and other add-ons that educational institutions MUST use to comply with ADA regulations which, surprise, generally depend on specific versions of IE to function (though personally the ones we use at my work are at least compatible with IE 8). There's not really a very good alternative to this-- Firefox has a history of breaking it's extension model with every major version, and Chrome is still in relative infancy (though I personally use it every day), so I think it's understandable that "enterprise" software companies haven't rushed to ditch IE for them.
bdunbar 15y ago
The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade. It won't, if my experience is anything to go by. I believe most of the 'IE6 only' apps are not 'on the internet' but in-house only applications. Ours certainly are.

necolas 15y ago

Furthermore, apparently "future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading". Source: http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-start-automatic-upgrades-across-windows-xp-windows-vista-and-windows-7.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-...

hello_moto 15y ago
If Redmond insist to have this option, please make it super hard for users to do it :D
- gldalmaso 15y ago
  I don't think that it will be a big issue since the major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is inertia.
  - michael_dorfman 15y ago
    The major reason for end users to still have IE6 around is that they use proprietary applications which were written with IE6 in mind, and they see no good reason to spend money to upgrade these applications (if the vendor is even still interested in doing so) if it still works. So, as long as there is a way to opt out, I imagine there are a lot of corporate folks who will do so.
    - obtu 15y ago
      I think these are best addressed with the X-UA-Compatible header, and various other ways to trigger the use of an older IE engine. Otherwise, users are offered a choice between broken legacy internal apps, or breakage on most of the rest of the web.
      - radicalbyte 15y ago
        If that requires a change to the legacy application then it's never going to work. There's a reason companies can't upgrade from IE6 without a significant cost, and it is usually one of the following: 1) The company has lost the sourcecode, and the original engineers have left. 2) The company doesn't even have the source code, and has no rights to modify the application. 3) The application is vendor-supplied, and said vendor requires a large cash payment to make the 'custom' change. 4) The application is vendor-supplied and the vendor refuses to support IE6 in the version of their application that the company have deployed. Their new, super expensive version does support more browsers. 5) The company has little control over their IT. Their business depends on a thousand tiny applications built by countless different parties of varying ability. Simply auditing the whole mess is too costly. So lots of companies take the easy (and cheap) route out and decide to stick with an ancient browser.
        pyre 15y ago
        Adding a single header can be done as simply as using nginx as a 'transparent' proxy in front of the app. No need to make application changes.
        AmazingMe 15y ago
        or can be added to policy/registry that open http://legacyapp:6583 http://legacyapp:6583 in ie6 frame.
      - flomo 15y ago
        Modern versions of IE do not contain a compatibility mode for IE6, hence the problem. (The official solution is virtualization.)
kmfrk 15y ago
Sounds reasonable and as something only power users would be aware of. Updating using Windows Update is the biggest pain in the ass, and it's great to see a much more convenient solution.
- alastairpat 15y ago
  The update will still be delivered via Windows Update, it just won't prompt you like it previously did.

dpark 15y ago

The is a common claim, but has anyone actually researched this? Is there any evidence that this is still true? It's my understanding that most of the IE6 market share is in Asia, where many people are running pirated versions of XP.

miles_matthias 15y ago
My experience has been that the US government is a big IE6 consumer as well.
waitwhat 15y ago
Pirated versions of XP are perfectly capable of running IE7/8. The problem is that a few years ago Microsoft pushed Windows Genuine Advantage updates automatically via Windows Update (they might even have done this twice), with the result that all those pirated versions of XP turned off Windows Update forever and never installing anything from microsoft.com. Oops.
- ramblerman 15y ago
  I partake in my fair share of Microsoft bashing but am I understanding your point here. You're criticizing MS for not pushing updates to pirated versions of their software?
  - markkanof 15y ago
    That seems like a fair criticism. Those pirated copies of XP will now never be updated again. This will both contribute to the persistence of IE 6 as well as allow security flaws in XP and IE 6 to go unpatched which will increase the potential for these machines to become part of a bot not or spread viruses. At the same time Microsoft's actions didn't prevent any of these pirated copies from continuing to be used, so the overall outcome is a net negative for everyone.
    - bradwestness 15y ago
      Then they'll get viruses and have to reformat, or call Microsoft support and find out that it's pirated (if they didn't already know) and eventually end up upgrading. If nothing else, the fact that hardware vendors no longer make Windows XP drivers is about to kill off IE 6 once and for all anyway.

veidr 15y ago

Big corporate is such a weird space. On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be). On the other hand, I doubt that consumer adoption driving sites to drop support for IE6 will have any substantial impact on what megacorps decide to deploy. One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser. While I personally think that's insane -- if you are that specific (not to mention antiquated) with your browser requirements, why don't you just code a native app? -- I've also never developed software with a team larger than five, and certainly don't know the nitty-gritty details about spreading the work over a dozen countries and hundreds of developers, the vast majority being low-cost Chinese and Indian coders. So I'm not judging (or at least I'm trying not to). But my point is that Big Corporate just wants their freaky "web-based" apps to run predictably for the projected 6-year deployment timeframe and does not give one flying fuck about whether their staff can access the new hip and way-superior version of <ANY OTHER WEB APP ON EARTH>. Unless said had real business value to large enterprise, but then, if it did... it would probably support MSIE6. So while this news is welcome, it's still unlikely that the computing capabilities of the typical large-company locked-down employee PC are going to become awesome, or even good. Even MSIE8, while way better than 6, still isn't something you jump for joy having to develop for. This matters less and less, though, as the percentage of people who have a way more capable browser in in their pocket increases. So I think that it is starting to make a lot more sense to give up on corporate machines and dead-end legacy browsers, and instead spend that effort on scaling your app's interface to smaller form factors. (Disclaimer: that's what I think, but not what I actually do. I work on web-based software for medium-sized businesses, so I don't have to worry much about what browser users happen to have. In this context, you can have requirements, and I tend to just say, 'In order to decrease development costs, the system requires the Google Chrome browser. But don't worry: it's free, secure, cross-platform, and has become the dominant web technology standard.' That last part is a bit of customer-reassurance hyperbole, but so far, no problems. (And of course the same code typically works fine on Safari if there's an iOS requirement.))

dhughes 15y ago

Yeah we use IE6 (on four year old laptops no less!) because there are applications that we Techs use that the company won't replace and the applications can only be used in IE6 apparently. Waiting for five or ten minutes for a failed Adobe Flash update to try and load (fails since I am not a desktop admin) each time I reboot or power on and then a full two minutes for Outlook to start is not fun thing to do every day. No thanks to our outsourced IT to a three letter company.

protomyth 15y ago

Educational institutions using certain testing software from a textbook publishers will probably block updates also. The problem is that, like a lot of enterprise software, the testing sites are fairly fragile and don't react well to changes in browsers. After getting into a situation where students couldn't take tests do to an update, most system admins curse at the sky and then block updates until given the go ahead. It sucks, but the book publishers make poor software. // ok - just to head off all the switch testing, books, etc. comments - none of those are options. certification testing sites are kinda non-negotiable

bradwestness 15y ago
There are also things like JAWS screen readers and other add-ons that educational institutions MUST use to comply with ADA regulations which, surprise, generally depend on specific versions of IE to function (though personally the ones we use at my work are at least compatible with IE 8). There's not really a very good alternative to this-- Firefox has a history of breaking it's extension model with every major version, and Chrome is still in relative infancy (though I personally use it every day), so I think it's understandable that "enterprise" software companies haven't rushed to ditch IE for them.

bdunbar 15y ago

The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade. It won't, if my experience is anything to go by. I believe most of the 'IE6 only' apps are not 'on the internet' but in-house only applications. Ours certainly are.