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Comment by joshfinnie | Hacker News Reader

The unfortunate thing with this IE6 bashing is that not everyone can upgrade. There are still people out there running legacy systems at their workplace. I, for example, am still running IE6 due to it being the standar at work. Why should I not be able to read websites?

Just don't style for IE6 anymore, there is no reason to make sure your website won't work on IE6!

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For places like yours, what we need is a web-browser (probably Webkit/Gecko) that works off a single executable, does not require installation, does not need admin privileges, has no library files, no large caches, does not save to registry, does not have addons, does not write anywhere except for a single file in temp folder. It should check for an admin config file in a specific read-only location and save user config/bookmarks to user's "Document & Settings."

If such a browser existed and explicitly mentioned the above restrictions/features, it would be trivial for most IT departments to put the browsers's .Exe in a read-only network share and put an icon for it on every user's desktop. The problem is that other than IE, every other browser is a pain to setup on a Windows network. I have Chrome installed on a couple of Terminal Servers and it took almost two full days to make it put the cache files in the right places. And I had to write my own script to empty the cache because there is no easy way to automate it. On the other hand, it is very easy to deploy IE7/8 but since many intranet sites have been custom written for IE6, it is not possible to upgrade to other versions of IE. Things break and it's very costly to fix them. I've seen a $400k software system that only works in IE6. The pages don't even load in IE7+ or other browsers. The upgrade to a version that is IE7-compatible is $300k. So for the IT department, it's either IE6 or $300k. Management does not care and should not care about IE6 working for all sites. They need IE6 to work on this expensive piece of software that runs their business.

Despite what people here on HN say, IT departments don't mind users using alternate browsers. Their problem is that Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari aren't easy or even possible to setup in a server environment like IE is. Depending on which user belongs to which department and logs in from which location, I can configure their IE to automatically set homepage, proxy settings, privacy/cookie settings, and lots more. Forget features like these, with other browsers, I don't even get to set the location of the config files and cache folders. When you have 100 people logging on to a terminal server, you need to be able to configure these things or the entire server goes down because some user downloaded a partial 2GB file which is still in their cached folder and now the server is trying to save it back to their user-profile folder.

TL;DR version: Give me a browser that I can setup easily in corporate environment and I will set it up.

I'd say your company got gypped if they spent $400k on such a fragile piece of software. What company produced this software, so the rest of us can steer clear of their incompetence?

If it was written to work with IE6 (as was a lot of software in the day) it was likely written in the era when IE6 was THE target market. Simply put, IE6 was the only game in town, really. If you wanted to make dynamic applications that were worth a damn, you wrote it for IE6.

That said, I agree that in this day and age, it is inexcusable.

One other point, you may be unaware (as I was until pointed out to me) that 'gypped' is a racial slur against Romani (or broader, Italians).

It was not my company and I had nothing to do with the purchase of the software. Also, if that $400k piece of software is unique and gives the company a tremendous competitive advantage, who cares if it's only compatible with Lynx? Not every app has to work everywhere. It has to be stable within its own system requirements.

A couple years ago, I saw it was possible to download and run Firefox in a corporate environment without admin rights (downloading and unzipping the zip archive, then just starting the exe without any installation).

Not sure if this still works, but here's an old thread from when it seemed to work: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=27113...

The unfortunate truth is a lot of IE6 users don't have a choice. They're behind corporate or government networks and that's all they have and are allowed to have, for a variety of reasons-some legitimate, some not. Others are people who are far less web/tech/computer savvy and wouldn't know how to upgrade, wouldn't know, or even care why they should. You can and should try to educate your users, but there will always be some that just don't get it and others that just don't care, and plenty that are helpless to do anything about it anyway.

Here's how we handle IE6 support: We have several large apps that are used by a lot of corporate/government offices. They have to fully work in IE6, no questions asked, that's just non-negotiable. At each new phase of development, we thoroughly test in IE6 before moving on to make sure things work. After doing this enough, you start to learn what will work and what won't and IE6 support becomes easier over time, and since the codebase is built with IE6 in mind from the beginning, it's not so bad, most of the time.

We have another large app that's not as restricted in where and how it has to work. It has a public-facing side and an admin interface. The public-facing side works fully in IE6 in terms of function. There may be a few pixels difference here and there in visuals, but as long as it still looks good and functions properly, we don't stress it if it's not pixel-perfect. The admin side is meant for users who are more tech savvy and the percentage of IE6 users is very low. What we do in that instance, and this is pretty much our standard aproach when IE6 support isn't essential, is make all of the core functionality of the app work with IE6 and then disable the bells and whistles that give the app additional functionality that adds convenience. We then let the user know that upgrading their browser will give them access to this additional functionality and make their user experience better. Hopefully, they choose to upgrade, but if they don't or can't, they can still do everything the app is designed to do. It just won't be as pleasant/intuitive/seamless of an experience.

As much as I hate IE6, I hate the idea of giving its users the finger and not allowing them to browse/use my app/site as best as their antiquated browser will allow them to even more.

I, for example, am still running IE6 due to it being the standard at work.

When almost nothing will work on IE6, I hope that would encourage the "standard" to be updated. If all sites "sorta work" in IE6, there's no pressing motivation to upgrade.

While crashing people's browsers isn't exactly mature, dropping support for IE6 to the point of sites/apps not working in it is the right move (as Google has recently decided).

"When almost nothing will work on IE6, I hope that would encourage the "standard" to be updated."

I also have to use IE6 at work. The problem is that the folks in charge say "Our entire intranet works in IE6. It may (or may not) work entirely in other things." So by their standard "everything" already works.

So by their standard "everything" already works.

This assumes a policy of not needing to access anything on the wider Internet, and if there's a such a policy, it's for those in charge to determine or change.

This is what I meant. It is more the intranet and the systems that we use over that intranet that works with IE6 and it costs money to make sure it works with IE7/IE8/IE9/Firefox/Opera/Chrome... And that money isn't available anytime soon.

Let me just stop you right there.

If you bash IE6 hard enough, those legacy systems will HAVE to be upgraded because they'll be so monstrously expensive. It's a free market, if you want to affect change then manipulate the price of stuff.

I'm in favor of everybody using this plugin because it saves _me_ money (and time) as a developer if legacy systems have to be upgraded. I don't care if other people have to pay, you and I both benefit!

I have been told by clients who work for Cisco that the company still includes IE6 in their default image for all new workstations.

The obvious answer is that there’s nothing stopping you from running two browsers. Install Chrome or Firefox and you can access the modern web as well as your legacy systems.

It's pretty common for IT departments to restrict what can be installed on a computer, so the obvious answer is that there's a lot stopping you.

That is true. I have no administration permissions on my computer at work. Installing another browser is just not an option. Hence the problem (I would not be using IE6 if I had the choice!)

Can you not run portable versions, too?

Hah, my obvious answer seems to be less obvious than I thought :) No admin rights? Enter portableapps.com:

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable

Obviously the usual caveats apply to software from 3rd party sources, but portableapps.com has been going for years with no complaints.

Again, in corporate networks the policy on downloading and running executables of the internet tends to be "don't do it" - regardless of whether the .exes are harmless or not.

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