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http://blog.digg.com/?p=878 http://blog.digg.com/?p=878 <==== Data Digg surveyed IE6 users. 76% of those surveyed DO NOT HAVE THE POWER/AUTHORITY/ABILITY to

http://blog.digg.com/?p=878 http://blog.digg.com/?p=878 <==== Data Digg surveyed IE6 users. 76% of those surveyed DO NOT HAVE THE POWER/AUTHORITY/ABILITY to upgrade. "Giving them a message saying, “Hey! Upgrade!” in this case is not only pointless; it’s sadistic. We’re committed to developing to Web standards and building new ways to help you discover the best of the Web. Keeping an eye on what technologies folks use and why they’re being used is a big part of it."

qeorge 17y ago
I posted an eerily similar comment 2 minutes after yours (minus the yelling). I also found the digg survey quite revealing.
drusenko 17y ago
The Digg survey shows that 70% of IE6 users are corporate, but there's no indication how representative that is of the web as a whole. Either way, this initiative is targeted straight at those users. We've heard from several sources that many corporate IT departments don't feel any need or urgency to upgrade, and receive very few complaints. We see this as a start -- the more complaints the IT department gets (especially from on top), the more pressure they'll feel to upgrade. Even if they can't upgrade IE 6 due to legacy applications, they could always install a version of Firefox side-by-side and only use IE 6 for the legacy apps. For the other subset of IE6 users (moms, grandmothers, etc), this will be a great notice to let them know that their web experience is seriously degraded, and that they should strongly consider upgrading their web browser.
- irrelative 17y ago
  Really not trying to be snarky here, but I don't think too many grandmothers are using weebly or reading reddit.
  - drusenko 17y ago
    Sorry, there may not be too many grandmothers reading reddit, but our userbase is very much non-technical.
- webwright 17y ago
  Unfortunately, IT departments receiving complaints isn't going to do it, unless those complaints are "I can't do my job with IE6 any more"... So you need to hit core web apps for those businesses. If the choice is "we could fix our 78 different custom web apps to work on Firefox" or "we could upgrade to IE8 or FF", the choice is pretty clear for a cash-crunched business with an understaffed IT department. It's a cost-benefit thing. For what it's worth, we don't support IE6 (or if we do, it's accidental!) and we're pretty squarely aimed at businesses and "prosumers". So count us in! Having consulted to big companies in a former life, I just don't think it'll do much good. :-(
  - drusenko 17y ago
    It's as good a place to start as any. Once we can get the percentage of users using IE 6 down a little bit more, we'll be able to ditch support completely. Also, there's no reason the browser decision has to be binary: custom legacy apps could use IE 6, with Firefox as the main web browser. BTW: Shoot me an email when you've implemented some kind of notice and I'll throw your logo up!
    - zmimon 17y ago
      There's a slight problem with this (and I'm only half tongue in cheek here): corporate IT admins probably see it as an actual positive if their staff can't access their favorite social networking web sites or anything else not explicitly required for work. The only thing that will convince them to move is if critical business infrastructure they depend on starts breaking and that isn't very likely to happen soon. I think one of key things that will make businesses move will be when Microsoft itself phases out mainstream support. Sadly, their policy is that IE lifecycles follow that of the OS they were released with, so if I read it right, we are looking at IE6 being supported right through to 2014 before security updates disappear. That means we'll probably be stuck with some reasonable percentage of IE6 users for a few years yet. With luck Win7 will be good enough to entice a lot of companies that held back through vista to upgrade and that will kill off a goodly number over the next year or two.

qeorge 17y ago

I posted an eerily similar comment 2 minutes after yours (minus the yelling). I also found the digg survey quite revealing.

drusenko 17y ago

The Digg survey shows that 70% of IE6 users are corporate, but there's no indication how representative that is of the web as a whole. Either way, this initiative is targeted straight at those users. We've heard from several sources that many corporate IT departments don't feel any need or urgency to upgrade, and receive very few complaints. We see this as a start -- the more complaints the IT department gets (especially from on top), the more pressure they'll feel to upgrade. Even if they can't upgrade IE 6 due to legacy applications, they could always install a version of Firefox side-by-side and only use IE 6 for the legacy apps. For the other subset of IE6 users (moms, grandmothers, etc), this will be a great notice to let them know that their web experience is seriously degraded, and that they should strongly consider upgrading their web browser.

irrelative 17y ago
Really not trying to be snarky here, but I don't think too many grandmothers are using weebly or reading reddit.
- drusenko 17y ago
  Sorry, there may not be too many grandmothers reading reddit, but our userbase is very much non-technical.
webwright 17y ago
Unfortunately, IT departments receiving complaints isn't going to do it, unless those complaints are "I can't do my job with IE6 any more"... So you need to hit core web apps for those businesses. If the choice is "we could fix our 78 different custom web apps to work on Firefox" or "we could upgrade to IE8 or FF", the choice is pretty clear for a cash-crunched business with an understaffed IT department. It's a cost-benefit thing. For what it's worth, we don't support IE6 (or if we do, it's accidental!) and we're pretty squarely aimed at businesses and "prosumers". So count us in! Having consulted to big companies in a former life, I just don't think it'll do much good. :-(
- drusenko 17y ago
  It's as good a place to start as any. Once we can get the percentage of users using IE 6 down a little bit more, we'll be able to ditch support completely. Also, there's no reason the browser decision has to be binary: custom legacy apps could use IE 6, with Firefox as the main web browser. BTW: Shoot me an email when you've implemented some kind of notice and I'll throw your logo up!
  - zmimon 17y ago
    There's a slight problem with this (and I'm only half tongue in cheek here): corporate IT admins probably see it as an actual positive if their staff can't access their favorite social networking web sites or anything else not explicitly required for work. The only thing that will convince them to move is if critical business infrastructure they depend on starts breaking and that isn't very likely to happen soon. I think one of key things that will make businesses move will be when Microsoft itself phases out mainstream support. Sadly, their policy is that IE lifecycles follow that of the OS they were released with, so if I read it right, we are looking at IE6 being supported right through to 2014 before security updates disappear. That means we'll probably be stuck with some reasonable percentage of IE6 users for a few years yet. With luck Win7 will be good enough to entice a lot of companies that held back through vista to upgrade and that will kill off a goodly number over the next year or two.