YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6
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I've been looking forward to seeing what this type of network can do that a traditionally hierarchically structured organization can't.
The fact that people sit down and make time to come up with initiatives like this is something I truly admire, no matter how big their audience or the volume of their network.
They have a couple more page views than the YC alumni network.
They do. I for one, wish they'd stop doing it for FF users too though. It's getting really annoying.
The bottom line is that until the end users who have to use IE6 every day become inconvenienced enough (in the form of sites blocking them out, not warning them) or the people who pay these IT admins actually think it's a priority, we're not going to make much headway on this issue.
With that said, I think that initiatives like this are a great start. What I would like to see is a distributed technical effort to encourage upgrades, which is what they are doing, followed up a technical effort to block access to IE6 starting on a specific date. Let the note of encouragement that participants place on their sites let users know that unless their browser is upgraded, they will be unable to access the site as of June 1, 2010.
Eventually these IT admins will be placed in the position of having to choose between keeping IE6 to support their legacy intranet applications and upgrading IE6 because third party sites have started to implement functionality that IE6 doesn't support.
The owner of the station sent an email to all saying that if he found out who had installed the "firefox trojan" on the office PC, he would "sue them and call in the police". A few days later, all computers in the building had been downgraded from IE8 to IE6 and locked down so users couldn't even reboot.
It's now official policy in that company that if anyone puts their own USB drive into an office computer, they'll be asked to leave the station. There is electrical tape stuck over the USB ports. That's the sort of mindless, dribbling paranoia you're up against.
You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser...
i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this.
who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with technology that they fail to understand their users are stuck using insecure, out-of-date software that is now increasingly being blocked? are these users still using 500mhz machines with windows 98, too?
We're in a recession now. There're a bunch of unemployed web developers. Let's simply ban the use of IE6 and kill two birds with one stone! Break some windows and burn those diskpacks, baby!
Maybe we should organize "ie6aholics annonymous"?
Microsoft's official recommendation for developers is to install IE6 in a VM if you need to test compatibility. It's that bad.
Either way, our perspective is still that the more people that complain about IE 6, the more pressure IT departments will have to upgrade their systems.
Starting with Firefox for a modern browsing experience wouldn't be a bad idea :)
(e.g. group policy configure location and size of cache, proxy settings, location of profile folder, restrictions on plugin installation, items to add to favourites, home page configuration, default plugins to install, disable update checking if they wont have rights to install them, etc).
MultipleIE doesn't work on Windows 7, which is what I'm using.
Personally, I'd probably just use a VMWare image of XP or Win98 and download IE6 from here http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1E1...
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."
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.
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. :-(
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!
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.
I'm an intern at their headquarters in a section of the IT department that doesn't deal with maintaining the software on the computers. However, there was one larger meeting where I remember someone asking about upgrading IE, and the response was something like, "Uhh, I've been pretty busy, I'll get around to it eventually." Everyone just laughed and I could tell it was a kind of ongoing joke. I think the general attitude is that no one here really cares enough to go through the work of upgrading everyone. I don't think they get many complaints, and their job isn't in jeopardy, so they just sit on it until something or someone really big makes them act.
The majority of the users of my company's web application use IE6 on Windows 2000. Additionally, many of these computers have Vista stickers on them, and are quite powerful. Their IT groups already have established practices to support the machines, and they are used almost exclusively to surf the web and run software that was purchased 5 years ago. Our users aren't even unhappy, as their work does not center around a computer; thus, the corporate IT infrastructure has no motivation to upgrade them.
That said, we still pressure them to upgrade, and I'll be extremely happy when they eventually do.
perhaps instead of all these silly campaigns to try to force users to upgrade, they should make a simple questionnaire that asks the user why they are still using ie6, and then publish the results. i have a feeling the leading reason will not be "because some jerk in IT won't let me".
Change takes a while in these monolithic bureaucracies; especially when they have to ensure that any upgrades to software have no negative effects to any other software installed on the system (a lot of which can be equal parts shoddy and proprietary).
As an aside, I've been working with a large government client for 2.5 years now, and I still haven't been able to get their IT dept. to add Flash to their image to support the streaming video site they paid my company to build (hooray for Windows Media Player).
Next you'll say that nobody ever calls their computer case the CPU because you haven't seen anybody do it here.
Hi!
who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with technology
The same people who get emails from vendors warning us off upgrading to IE7 or certain programs will break. The same people who have had such pain from flakey apps for all sorts of reasons that we just don't dare upgrade. The same people who use anti-virus, non-administrator accounts and gateway HTTP, FTP and SMTP proxies with scanners to reduce the risks.
The same people who've learned to beat their inner geek into submission to the principle of 'if it's not broken, and you don't want it broken, leave it alone. Companies want sameness, predictability and uptime, not features, novelty, CSS compliance or security'.
But, like someone already mentioned in this thread it’s not a binary choice. Install Firefox (or an equivalent up-to-date browser) for normal browsing and leave IE6 on the machines for legacy apps.
They're 2.0 gHz P4 Dell machines if you're really interested in the specs. :p
>who are these unsympathetic robots who
The enterprise IT department that's who.
They have different financial priorities than spending time on upgrading software that "just works".
It was not pretty, although I managed to install XEmacs and survive.
As far as I know all government machines are running FDCC(Federal Desktop Core Configuration) and the machines I've seen run IE7 with many IT departments recommending Firefox.
In addition that that, there is time spent securing the installation. In the case of IE it's a little easier as I can manage it with policies, but it is absolutely critical that we're following DOD stigs regarding security, and setting up a central policy isn't free.
Regarding the PC comment, the laptop I replaced a month ago was a 1.0Ghz Pentium with 512M RAM. This was the upgraded laptop at the time, that I needed for java development. Compiling code with 512M on XP was adventurous. For the last 8 months I had it, the internal LCD had died, most of the keys didn't work, the WiFi radio was completely dead, and the power button would only work if I wiggled the frame and monitor. I made sure to use it on a plugged-in (ethernet network) to bypass the WiFi, plugged into an external monitor to get around the LCD, grabbed an external keyboard to type on, and wiggled it every day to power it on.
Before deeming it dead, they replaced the motherboard 3 times and the hard drive twice. I kept using the decrepit old machine because frankly, it was the nicest laptop anyone had on the team. They're refreshing the machines now, but we've only had IE7 in the environment for about a month. I am lucky in that I can use Firefox, but only within the firewall, and not at all to browse any external sites.
Sorry, I kind of got off on a tangent here, but it's perfectly reasonable to understand that there ARE in fact reasons why it takes a long time to get off of IE6.
I wasn't aware that companies needed an 'excuse' for not putting time and effort into a project they don't care about.
The more prompts that are posted across the web, the more pressure the IT department will be getting to get their ass in gear and upgrade their decade old computer systems.
<a href='#' onclick='javascript:this.parentNode.parentNode.style.display='none'; return false;'>
could be written as:-
<a href='#' onclick="this.parentNode.parentNode.style.display='none'; return false">
Wouldn't be suprised if the same effect could be created in 1/2 the size (pre deflate/gzip).
The vast majority of machines running IE6 have requirements that see no advantage to an upgrade. Example: corporate machine where the internet is not used - in that case an IE upgrade is pointless, but the employee might still surf the web.
How many home users are still using IE6? I doubt all that many TBH.
In the case of IE6, it would mean setting up some machines with $NEXT_GEN_BROWSER and some side servers with copies of the antiquated "web" apps. Gradually, everything that's broken without IE6 is fixed by tinkering with the side copy that no one is really using. Sometimes, the company's been really stupid and doesn't even have source code, etc. so "tinkering" might really mean "try something new entirely", but at least they'd be showing interest in modernizing (however long it takes).
The simple fact is that all companies should have this kind of "beta flow", in which they can basically try whatever they want (time permitting). Today it's IE6, tomorrow it could be something entirely different; there will always something new that "might" vastly improve efficiency, and a company that can give these things an honest trial is way ahead. I cringe when I see change-averse IT groups, because deep down I know they're shooting themselves in the foot.
On the other hand, this certainly cannot hurt.
We've been advocating that all users drop IE6 at http://webs.com/ since December. Are you only listing those who've thrown up your widget?
I haven't seen that explained yet, hence why I asked. ;P
This will get the grannies to upgrade their computer machines for sure.
Also, the number of people from these startups is approximately (data from quantcast):
4.1 million (jtv us) + 1.3 million (weebly us) + 1.7 million (reddit us) + 1.3 million (posterous) + 0.5 million (disqus us) = 8.9 million US people. Global reach is probably 2-3x that much, but quantcast doesn't offer global numbers for all of them (JTV has 26 million globally).
I'd say that counts as an established user base.
The problem I see is that - particularly for reddit, posterous and disqus - the audience is mostly technical (or at least fairly Internet literate). These are not the types of people who need to warned about IE6.