Amelie() – a devious plan to get rid of IE6 | Hacker News Reader

Amelie() – a devious plan to get rid of IE6

ajaxian.com

78 pointsbdfh4246 comments

Great idea. Punish the poor people who are forced into using IE6. A significant portion of the users would assume that there is something wrong with their vision rather than the browser.

I suggest an alert saying "Your browser is old. Please upgrade or contact your IT department."

I also think that intentionally breaking the website (in the worst possible way) in an unsupported browser is exactly the behavior we're trying to get rid of, along with IE6.

Yeah. But unfortunately IE6 doesn't support any functionality that could break the user, so developers are forced to break the browser instead.

It's a joke....

It's a "joke" that is the thousandth obnoxious repetition of "Deliberately make the experience suck or impossible for IE 6 users."

You are forced to use IE6 because the IT department decided that's all you need for your job. If sites stopped working in IE6 then people could make the case that they need a modern browser for their work. In the US and Europe, IE6 usage is around 5%. I think we're close enough to push IE6 completely out.

No, one is forced to use IE6 by the IT department because many internal web applications developed during IE6's time targeted the browser instead of web standards.

The idea of having sites "stop working" isn't particularly helpful, because the things that would actually matter if they stopped working are the internal stuff chained to IE6.

I've heard this argument a lot, but it doesn't hold up.

These mythical IT departments could quite easily allow for a modern browser to be installed alongside IE6, so that users could continue to access legacy applications while enjoying a modern experience on the rest of the web.

Sorry, but there truly is no (good) excuse for any IT dept to restrict users to IE6.

It's a support "issue." Large IT departments will say that it requires extra support to install a second browser. Is it worth the "extra" cost in time and support?

As a developer, in some organizations, you can't install anything on your own machine. So, you can't get your software to work on Firefox, for example. All your software simply has to work on the company standard browser. The idea is that you'll deal with it later...and 8 years later...

This is a huge software development issue. A disastrous money waster.

The solution I see is to start to charge more for an IE6 compatible version of any Web software (and charge for the IE6 compatible version in the cases when the software is normaly free).

IE6-compatibility adds to the work of creating new web apps, so the client's bill ends up naturally being higher if they want IE6 support. With IE6 still having almost 20% of the market, it sometimes makes business sense to continue to support IE6.

P.S. I wish IE6 would die in a fire.

I don't actually see this as a problem, organizations with rigid and inflexible IT "policy" will be less nimble and competitive. The best way to make the problem go away is to eat the dinosaurs lunch.

Sorry, but there truly is no (good) excuse for any IT dept to restrict users to IE6.

You can't install IE7 or 8 alongside 6 and no other "modern browser" has any kind of reasonable group policy management support or administrative control over updating or extension policies.

virtualization

Buzzword bingo, I call house!

Virtualize what, how, and how does that help?

I can see terminal services running published IE6 for legacy apps with desktops having IE8 on them and doing that as a workaround to have side by side, but where would virtualisation help?

There's application virtualization like Sandboxie (http://www.sandboxie.com/) or even Microsoft App-V (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/appv/default.mspx).

My reasoning goes as follows :

Assuming "You can't install IE7 or 8 alongside 6"

You can virtualise Windows XP on Windows 7 and run both browsers. This alleviates pain and provides for legacy apps that rely on 6.

Of course, infinitely better to just ditch IE completely and the dependent apps, and simply write that off [amortizing against future pain]

Not sure if you have spent much time inside an enterprise. It doesn't matter if there is no excuse, they won't do it, and calling them mythical isn't going to help convince them.

The reason I say mythical is that I have never heard these arguments from someone who actually works for one of these enterprises.

(This is not surprising to me, because I know that if I worked for a company that only allowed IE6, the last thing I would want would be for developers to perpetuate my misery by continuing to support it.)

If someone can actually tell me the name of a major corporation that only allows IE6 to be installed on its workstations, I'd be genuinely interested in hearing it.

UBS (one of the world's largest banks).

I worked there for 4 years. As a developer, I was able to install other browsers (that was against the company IT policy, but I didn't care). When I was working on the business side, though, I didn't have admin access to my machine, and so I had to use IE6, like everyone else.

All the internal apps were built to work on IE6, too. And there are a lot of internal apps. Half of them wouldn't display properly on Firefox when I tried opening them there (this was a few years ago, I didn't try Chrome or Safari).

My day job suffers that exact same problem.

We're now promptly causing the same thing to happen in a few years time by developing internal applications targeted at IE 8 and SilverLight instead of web standards :^)

No, one is forced to use IE6 by the IT department because many internal web applications developed during IE6's time targeted the browser instead of web standards.

I'd buy that if there were plenty of enterprises running Internet Explorer 4 or Windows 3.1 for exactly the same reason.

IE6 is probably backward compatible with IE4, and most 16-bit Windows 3.1 apps will run on 32-bit Windows XP or Windows 7 (you can find screenshots of Windows 1.0 programs running on Vista). I suspect IE6 introduced a lot of non-standard features like non-standard Javascript functions, more VBscript, more ActiveX, etc.

Wouldn't the point really be about applying pressure to those able to fix the problem? The sad reality is that business reasons have prompted developers to support IE6 and thus kept the problems out of the user's field of view. Much like my experience with giving demos in the workplace, out in the world broken has to appear "broken" for anyone to care about fixing it. Purposefully making IE6 appear broken is the means to this end.

Glad we all feel sorry for IE6 users though.

And the counter is: If IE6 doesn't already appear broken to people out in the world already, in what sense that they care about is it broken?

I fail to see how that is a counter point. It doesn't appear to be broken because the effort of the developers required to support it. The rough edges that remain are too nuanced for the average person to notice. More and more IE6 is being left behind, but the holdouts, mostly in the corporate sphere, are going to need massive user pressure to get the internal IT machine moving.

It's a counter point because the kind of big bureaucratic custom website laden company which is stuck on IE6 doesn't give a damn that it takes you two months instead of one.

It's about as compelling as saying COBOL isn't much fun, how about you rewrite all your apps in Ruby-on-Rails because then my life will be more pleasant.

The real way to make ie6 go away is to charge so much to make any site work on it that there's a real economic imperative for companies to pause for thought and consider replanning.

When it doesn't cost a lot and your main argument is "why not rework your IT system because one bit of my job is a bit fiddly and boring" that's not such a compelling reason. See also CORBA, SOAP, COM, and endless other technologies which aren't fun but companies pay for and people work on anyway.

While this passive agressive behaviour is good for a laugh, if you are serious you could do what we did - officially end support of the browser with 6 months notice (our support ended early April). Back in October we placed an alert at the top of our screen when an IE6 user logs in telling them this. They can still use IE6, but we refuse to address any support issues related to the browser. If they have an issue we tell them to install FF or a newer version of IE.

That's way too adult, though.

Do you have statistics to show the effectiveness of this method? It would be interesting to see the percentage of IE6 visitors over this 6 months period.

IE6 is bad but it's not like it's Netscape 4.

Don't torture people, instead give them a positive reason to upgrade/replace IE.

Announce what features on your site(s) they could be enjoying beyond IE6.

Usually most sites won't have many additional features if they used a browser beyond IE6, like hacker news. But developers have to spend 2x time fixing things because of IE6's broken css implementation. Sites that don't explicitly target IE6 will just look strange, but may still function 100%.

A number of people have responded "just notify IE6 users..." or some variation to get them to change or switch. Digg did a comprehensive study and found the majority of IE6 users would switch if they could. Its a good read http://ajaxian.com/archives/digg-takes-the-time-to-study-the... and for all of you advocating that education is enough either hasn't bee paying attention, or aren't actually developing for the web.

If only we lived in a world where logic dictated everthing...happy friday, good post!

>"for all of you advocating that education is enough either hasn't bee[n] paying attention, or aren't actually developing for the web"

In 44% of cases we have either no admin access (37%) or incompatible MS Windows (7%) given as the reason - in both cases these are not valid reasons alone.

At least one browser can be installed per user without admin access (unless they mean "no permissions to install" which would really be covered by the 32% block).

As for incompatibility, Opera 9.5 (for example) can be installed on MS Windows 95 (requiring a free winsock upgrade from MS). How old is their version of MS Windows?

The numbers using MSIE surely do not all come from poor eduction but that's not to say it's not a large chunk.

Hey, it is Friday :)

Whew. You had me thinking you were being serious. And judging from other comments here, I wasn't the only one.

Or, just, y'know, use a reliable browser test (not sniffing the user-agent), and if you have an IE 6 user, then replace the page content with a gentle & friendly notice explaining that the site is not compatible with very old web browsers (this is something that a lot of users can understand), along with some helpful links to upgrading IE or downloading Firefox, and a link to a reliable webmaster contact at the bottom.

This is what I do, and it's had zero complaints so far -- on the one or two small sites I've done it for. ;-)

The problem is that the majority of IE6 users are not in a position to upgrade (the ones that are have done so already). There's no point in telling them or bugging them since they are not in control of upgrades.

For example, the NHS (the UK's largest employer and one of the largest in the world) is still using IE6:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/22/internet-ex...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/01/doh_ie6/

No, the best way would be to show a notice in the corner notifying that the website probably won't be optimal using the old browser and ask the user to upgrade.

Don't be intrusive, it's not necessary, and will probably scare away people. Just explain why the website isn't working perfectly.

I daydream of torturing someone after the fashion of Amelie, but I've been cursed with undeserving acquaintances. There are never any really nasty people around when you need them; they're always off somewhere else waving flags or inventing euphemisms for new holocausts. Who wouldn't love to put Preperation H into the toothpaste tubes of the BP PR folk? Or just to downgrade them stealthily and somehow irrevocably to IE 6? This post has whet my appetite again, but does not do justice to the sublimity of Amelie's revenge, which depends on changing things that, unlike IE 6, have always worked perfectly without your thinking about it to things that suddenly don't quite work right, or the same way. The intensity of the torture varies as the reliability of the thing changed and inversely as the explicability of the change itself. But it also needs to be justified.

Yea, this is indeed quite inane. I think a better strategy for Microsoft would be to partner with the top 100 websites (most internet users are likely to hit one), and have it display a prominent upgrade or gtfo message.

This is really really stupid. Most IE6 users use IE6 not because they want to, but because they have to at work.

Yeah, but most /businesses/ that use it and force their employees to only do so because they mistakenly believe upgrading will incur a heavy cost, when if managed correctly (just lift the restriction on your employees) the cost is neglible...

I don't think the heavy cost comes from having IT personnel going around to everyone's computer and upgrading the browser. It comes from (a) internal websites that were built when IE6 and ActiveX were all the rage, which nobody maintains anymore, and (b) making sure that any other applications which are installed that use the html engine from IE6 still work with IE8's engine, and dealing with any incompatibilities.

I think a LOT of corporate infrastructure was built using Microsoft tools during the period when Microsoft was trying to dominate by overwhelming standards-based development, and the consultants that built most of that infrastructure are gone now. Since you can't upgrade IE without replacing IE6, companies are stuck leaving IE6 on the corporate desktops.

Could a non-IE browser be installed? Of course, and that solves everything but the training issue: people have to learn to use IE for internal sites and the new browser for outside sites. The issue here is probably more a fear-of-training and fear-of-support than a real cost.

Many businesses are still running Windows 2000, which can't upgrade IE past 6. In these cases, it's nearly impossible to get the funding for a replacement computer that can capably run a newer OS version.

hahaha.

I've tried similar schemes to punish negative posters on a forum I had: the site would magically be much slower for them. They figured it out quickly though.

I used to deal with pr0n in the same way. The kids would just go to another site if I outright blocked their current "interest", but making it way slower using Squid just meant they sat around watching a pic appear pixel by pixel. Between them, they had about 1Kb/sec of our bandwidth; everyone else got the rest. Win-win situation. (They never figured this out, afaict. Never underestimate the sheer determination of a horny teenager.)

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