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Comment by spazmaster | Hacker News Reader

Great, with Apple, Mozilla and now Google innovating in the browser sphere, it looks like browser will be evolving at a much more rapid pace.

Gah, let's hope Microsoft gets some vision for IE too. (or ditch it like Bing ditched Live)

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I agree, but I'd rather have users get some vision. You'd be surprised how many people still use IE6, even though Microsoft wants them to upgrade. Less-savvy users don't switch unless:

1. They have to (meaning their current methods no longer do anything or the software or hardware no longer works).

2. Someone more savvy does it for them and teaches them the new software. Usually this happens after #1.

Unfortunately, I don't know if there's much we can do about this kind of user. We shouldn't (and won't) have to hold ourselves back because they refuse to upgrade.

I've seem that too. Non-savvy users can and will update their MSN-messenger client if it stops working, for instance.

Most IE6 installations are in corporate environments where IT doesn't want to switch because it will break internal applications.

I hear this claim floated a lot, and I largely believe it based on anecdotal evidence, but how do we know this is really true? Has someone done a study or have a meaningful way to measure it?

Work inside a large corporate and check the budgets for projects vs budget for IT maintenance. Upgrading browsers, as a project, has no board approvable ROI.

This will change when there are applications on the internet that corporates need, but can't access via IE6. See GWave for an example of how this can be resolved.

I think we may have to wait a fairly long while before companies will switch browsers just because of Google Wave.

Companies aren't getting onboard the usual sharing is caring experiece that most netizens are familiar with - they usually want to pay $$ to get a product (e.g. sharepoint) that provides some level of support rather than asking the users to be smart.

It may happen, but my bet is that internal net usage changes when the baby boomers have left the workplace and been replaced by people brought up in a very technological world.

I know of two enterprises (about 3000 to 3500) one and the other about 5000 hosts that still use IE6. The devs recently started using Firefox 3.0 (or something like that). Guess what their JRE/JVM version is? :-)

Edit: A quick way to verify this is to run your webserver logs through "whois" for clients with IE6.

That there are a lot of corporate users still using IE 6 is only part of the claim that that group makes up most of the IE 6 user base.

In addition to what danielrhodes says in his reply about corporate IT departments having legitimate reasons not to upgrade - I'd like to add that my biggest pet peeve is when someone asks me to see if I can fix their computer, and it's obvious that every IT-enthusiast before me has insisted that this person switch to -INSERT BROWSER HERE-. I helped a gentleman last week that used MSN because he found it intuitive, but had Firefox, Opera, Chrome and IE installed. Then there was the mountain of anti-spyware software everyone had installed. After uninstalling the browsers he didn't like or use (despite them being "better" according to most IT professionals) and uninstalling the spyware blockers, his computer worked just fine.

We need to remember that our job is to make the computer better for other people - not just ourselves. I'm amazed at the rate of development I've seen in browser technology, but let's not forget the millions of people that just want to get online and send an email. If we rush to upgrade everyone to "better" technology - we might end up ruining their experience.

Eventually, those people who don't upgrade won't be able to just get online and send an email.

My dad was in a similar camp. It had NOTHING to do with the browser, and everything to do with the yahoo! branded logo that SBC had installed for him. To him that logo is the internet.

For a host of reasons I ended setting him up with Chrome, imported his bookmarks, and changed the shortcut. Now the magic Yahoo! logo opens Chrome instead and he couldn't be more trhilled.

I suspect most of these users just use the browser that shipped with their OS. So Windows 7 may be the unlikely saviour - particularly after the next corporate refresh cycle.

IMHO: Whenever Microsoft gets a "vision for IE" we get ActiveX, document.all, CSS expressions, page load speed ups by ignoring HTTP specs (ignoring cache info), etc. Let's not. I am happy with Microsoft playing catch-up and implementing killer features of other browsers instead of inventing its own: ones without open specs or standards or documentation or sense or reason.

You forgot XHR.

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