Microsoft is Officially Killing IE 6 - NOW

[logic_earth]

Uhhh...Its only $120 to upgrade Windows. Don't forget to get Mac OS you have to buy the computer along with it. Apple makes their money from the hardware not the software. Microsoft doesn't sell any hardware. So while Apple can offset the cost, Microsoft does not have that luxury.

* Please do not use "which is better" again. Better is relative to the person, what is better to you is not better for me or someone else. That is how flame wars start.

[Cythes]

I use linux most of the time , everything just works (In ubuntu / Mint <Less your graphics in nvidia then you might have a problem>) I take the hard way and build my own with arch -Hardcore Hacker Style!!- xD

[ralph.m]

Uhhh...Its only $120 to upgrade Windows.

That's still nearly four times the price. If it were a reasonable price, maybe more people would upgrade and we could move on from old versions of IE.

Please do not use "which is better" again.

Yes, fair enough. I use them side by side and that's my experience, but as you say, to each his/her/its own.

[behati]

As people have said a lot of the holding on to previous releases of IE / Windows etc. has been because of big corporations refusing to upgrade their systems, since that would mean hiring another IT company (who are often ridicously overpriced) to revamp the systems. And let's face it, these corporations are massive customers because of their Enterprise level licenses, products etc. So if Microsoft ignored them, they would just be making a bad choice from a business perspective..

I've used FireFox for a few years now, but I generally use Microsoft products and am a bit of a MS fanboi (oh dear) - There's more to it than just "not wanting to upgrade" - if MicroSoft had their way I'm guessing they would, like any company, want to bring frequent updates (like Mozilla's 6 week update plan) - but Mozilla doesn't have 2512412621421412 massive corporation customers yelling in their ear when they do.

[ScallioXTX]

- but Mozilla doesn't have 2512412621421412 massive corporation customers yelling in their ear when they do.

Sure they do: http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...s_quick_demise

[cheesedude]

IE9+ are only supported on win7+ whereas AFAIK Chrome and FF also still run on XP (and *nix and mac for that matter), so no, not really.
It looks like it, but it's not really so. Got windows XP? Sorry, IE8 is the end station for you. Too bad.

Microsoft probably did that intentionally to drive sales of their new operating system. If Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari can make their browsers work with XP, certainly the creator of the operating system can.

And that while XP hasn't even come end of life yet. Just stop supporting it why don't you, it's not like people have to pay for your OS. Oh wait, they do!

XP is a good OS. Upgrading to put money in Microsoft's coffers is not a good enough reason. XP does everything I need it to do. No point in upgrading until I get a new computer.

Uhhh...Its only $120 to upgrade Windows.

Anybody who knows anything about computers always says that it is not a good idea to upgrade, that you should install a complete OS fresh. I agree with that. The full retail price of Windows 7 Professional retail is $299.99. Maybe Home Premium is sufficient (as it probably is), but that still costs $199.99. Why spend the money? For IE9?

[Belsnickle]

Yes, fair point. IE8 isn't too bad CSS-wise, but the lack of support for IE9 in XP is amazing, really. I don't get MS at all. Why does their OS cost around $300? Crikey, the Mac OS (which is better) costs about a tenth of that.

Unless I'm missing something this is misleading since for the Mac OSes you have to pay for each subversion whereas with Windows you're only paying the once and getting the subversions free. The actual price of a new install for mac OSX pack is $169 for a one user install, the equivalent windows 7 package is actually $119 for Home Premium and $99 for Home Basic not $300 which is the price for Windows 7 Ultimate Retail, roughly equivalent of me going "OH, Well since there's a version of Snow Leopard for $499 obviously the whole OS is overpriced, who would ever pay $499 for an OS? Stupid Apple".


As for the rest of this, if you're still using XP and want to go past IE 9 you're a little screwy to begin with. If upgrading is so important to you but you can't take the time to upgrade your OS once every 5 years I think IE 9 not being compatible is probably the least of your concerns. You certainly shouldn't be complaining that support is lagging on an essentially decade old discontinued OS.

[ralph.m]

I consider the upgrade from OS X.6 to OS X.7 similar to upgrading from Vista to Win 7, but perhaps that's an unfair comparison. Anyhow, Last year I wanted to get a copy of Windows to run on the Mac, so I had to buy from scratch, and I couldn't find it for less than around $300 here in Aus ... but maybe I was looking for the wrong thing ... not sure.

[deathshadow60]

The problem is that some corporations refuse to upgrade and webmasters refuse to dump support for IE6.

You have to ask WHY that is though -- and for many corporations it's the cost; Non-profits who can't afford to upgrade past windows 98 for example. Lady-friend of mine is sitting at a Athlon 600 running win98 at work; FF, Chrome and Opera dropped support for Win98, it's work so it's not like she can install KernelEx, there is no IE7/newer on that platform -- and do you really think that a non-profit/charity is going to understand the need to drop even a couple hundred on a nettop to replace it when what's in there right now gets the job done?

IE6 isn't just about IE6, it's about the Trident engine below it and how easy it is to use it as the renderer for an application -- just like using XULRunner for using XML or HTML to build the UI for applications; or the move towards HTML5/CSS3 for Metro. A good number of corporations rely daily on silly little applications built in Visual Basic that RELY on IE6's specific version of Trident.

If webmasters didn't support IE6, people would have no choice but to upgrade.

But as I just said, some people don't have the choice TO upgrade; money doesn't grow on trees and it costs money to upgrade software -- while it sounds all fine and dandy to simplify our lives as web developers and 'move the web forward', it is extremely difficult to convince a suit who knows little of this that the software their business has run just fine for over a decade needs to be replaced... Especially if doing so breaks other software, requires massive rollout and time for an already overburdened (and underfunded) IT staff, retraining of employees, etc, etc...

If webmasters want the web to move forward--and I'm sure most around here do--the first step is to not support ancient browsers. Otherwise, the web will move forward at a snail's pace.

I'm sorry to say, but in a lot of ways this "moving forward" is a colossal step backwards to before the browser wars; If you sit back and think on it we had more useful faster websites and LESS headaches as developers when the only browser that mattered was IE6. Literally, things were EASIER when the only question developers cared about was "Does it work in IE". With the massive bloat of todays pages doped to the gills of hundreds of K of javascript, HTML5 idiocy with extra DOM elements for no good reason apart from placating the people who never pulled their heads out of HTML 3.2's backside, and a general "accessibility what's that?" attitude with the px fonts and fixed widths on everything -- literally this "moving forward" feels like two steps back. It's why as a whole I find the Internet less useful than I did a decade ago.

As to not supporting "Ancient" browsers, that's the actual job of a web developer; You don't want to do that you are in the wrong business. ....and again it's kind of the point of HTML and why progressive enhancement/graceful degradation exists -- 99% of the stuff that doesn't work back to legacy IE in terms of actual functionality is either goof assed scripted animations, AJAX for nothing (a laugh since AJAX originated with IE, meaning just **** coding), fancy visuals that it doesn't matter if they aren't there (rounded corners and gradients -- ooh, not that) or just plain flat out broken site methodology.

The "oh it's only x%" routine, IE is only x%, Opera is only x%, people on netbooks are only x%, people on tablets are only x% -- eventually you've got no % left and it's just another lame excuse to try and sleaze by on as little effort as possible.

... and spending money on new technology when the old stuff works just fine is a significant part of why economies worldwide are in the toilet; as Kissenger once said we've gone from a nation of savers to a nation of debters; I'd extend that to the world as a whole... we're so obsessed with "new" and "the best" that we're spending money that doesn't even exist yet on things we don't need; all while a third of the worlds population is starving to death. Go progress!

[felgall]

You have to ask WHY that is though -- and for many corporations it's the cost; Non-profits who can't afford to upgrade past windows 98 for example. Lady-friend of mine is sitting at a Athlon 600 running win98 at work;

It isn't necessarily even the cost of upgrading the software. There are lots of computers out ehre that would not be able to run Windows 7 and so you'd need to replace the entire computer and not just the software. A much larger expense.

I also agree that if the pages are coded properly then those using antiquated browsers should still be able to read the pages - just not see all the fancy rounded corners etc. You can't rely on everyone using the latest browsers having JavaScript enabled so the page needs to work without scripts and so if the scripts don't work with antiquated browsers such as IE7 then it doesn't really matter as those people get the same way of using the page as those running IE10 with JavaScript disabled.

[samanime]

I don't think there is any reason that a website shouldn't at least be functional on any browser.

However, I also think it's time we stopped bending over backwards to make sure every little feature works in IE6 (and even IE7 for that matter). Web apps in particular, which rely on lots of new technology to work well. Sure, we can make them work all the way to IE3 if we really wanted to... but it's not worth the time.

Yes, there are still some people using really old stuff, but they can't expect every site to work for them. Those on Win98, for example, aren't just locked out of certain websites. There is very little new software that still supports Win98. I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you'd find someone still running Win 3. That doesn't mean we should still support it.

[coloradojaguar]

It is an ongoing dilemma for site builders, business owners and the e-commerce clan. We are working in a global economy and many nations and areas of the world are lacking the proper and most recently updated versions of many programs. It is difficult to include all users when you design a site but over all most will still produce work that can be displayed to all even if all of the features can't work.

[thietkelogo]

I still use win xp and my website can only run with IE, it is not supported by firefox or chrome

[ralph.m]

I still use win xp and my website can only run with IE, it is not supported by firefox or chrome

A website should run in all browsers.

[thietkelogo]

Yes, even it can run in all browsers but some function of the website is not supported by firefox or chrome.

A website should run in all browsers.

[sanChy]

hey, I'm not agree with you! firefox and chrome supporting maximum functionality but only IE giving lots of pain to developers

Yes, even it can run in all browsers but some function of the website is not supported by firefox or chrome.

[deathshadow60]

Yes, fair point. IE8 isn't too bad CSS-wise, but the lack of support for IE9 in XP is amazing, really.

Agreed -- the sad part is there is NO legitimate excuse for them not to be able to make a standalone version of the browser for legacy systems back to win2k since win32 is win32... or even back to win98 as things like KernelEx show with FF and Opera... Both of which officially dropped windows 98 support, but you mod it with KernelEx and many win2k/XP softwares will run just fine on it. They are STILL tying it too closely to the OS -- as evidenced by this 'metro' garbage on Win 8 -- which while fine and dandy on nettops and smaller devices, is basically M$ giving desktop users with displays larger than 19" the finger in terms of functionality.

Off Topic:

NOT that metro is all that useful small screen with the various boxes just thrown on the screen any old way in garish and random colors to the point you can't tell anything apart -- said boxes in playschool colors resulting in a UI that looks like it was designed by a eight year old... and this is supposed to be an improvement?

I don't get MS at all. Why does their OS cost around $300? Crikey, the Mac OS (which is better) costs about a tenth of that.

Dunno where you're getting $300, unless you're throwing money away on 'ultimate'... and even Ultimate x64 only costs $189... Home premium which is ALL most people need is $99 (since the only REAL reason to have pro or ultimate are for bitlocker and support for more than 16 gigs RAM), which is what Apple USED to have the cojones to charge for UPGRADES. Well, unless you're doing something really STUPID like buying retail box instead of OEM.

Which is the real laugh of Apples prices -- they charge money for what Microsoft would give you for free as a service pack.

Also since OSX only runs (legally) on Apple branded hardware, the cost of the OS is figured into your sticker price when you buy their overpriced Ikea-style kool-aid. Microsoft doesn't SELL hardware -- you're seeing the bare vendor price since you really aren't supposed to buy either of them standalone. This is also why the hardware is cheaper.

Also why I can get copies of Home Premium on my reseller account for around $69 a pop for orders in bundles of 3, and hardware OEM's like Dell or HP pay a fraction that.

AND you're comparing upgrade costs to retail purchase, since thanks to the people running hackintoshes Apple has stopped selling standalone install boxes at retail since Lion dropped.

[robert09ster]

Yes exactly ! IE6 already upgraded into IE7 and now most of the organisation uses IE8 and IE9 for Windows Xp and Window 7 MS OS.

[kohoutek]

Yes exactly ! IE6 already upgraded into IE7 and now most of the organisation uses IE8 and IE9 for Windows Xp and Window 7 MS OS.

That's not quite true. You can't use IE9 in a native Windows XP environment, as ScallioXTX said earlier in this thread, because IE9 uses the Direct2D accelerator which doesn't work on XP.

[Garenius]

All I can say is: It's about time.

[Sega]

It's still alive for 6.2% of the population. Take a look at this, http://www.ie6countdown.com/. China with 22% usage.

@ralph.m ; @ScallioXTX ;

I use XP, I would not go to Vista and I don't see a need for 7. Having said this it's shocking that I cannot get the latest version of IE on my computer. I strongly feel that Microsoft is just plain WRONG! Let's face it Google Chrome is far better, so why else would I need the latest version of IE if it's not for testing purposes of those who still use it.

As for upgrading my OS. I use XP, XP in my opinion is the most successful Microsoft OS. I remember it back in 2001, it's 2012 now! Everything that I need to work on my computer works, unless the program is for a mac (e.g. Code, ImageOptim, ImageAlpha). I've found mac's to be a much worse OS in versioning than Windows OS's. My dad's got a mac and I can't run programs on it because apparently the OS is of an older version. This, up-to-now has never happened on my PC, and that's with a 10+ year old OS.

I personally don't think people will let Microsoft kill off XP so easily, and strapping new IE versions to the new OS is a major mistake in my opinion.

[paul_wilkins]

It's still alive for 6.2% of the population. Take a look at this, http://www.ie6countdown.com/. China with 22% usage.

When I calculate the average (spreadsheet) using their numbers from the section that shows the percentage for each country, they average out to 1.71%.
When we remove China's usage from the average we get 1.21% instead.

That 6.2% seems to be somewhat inflated. I would love to find out how they came up with that figure, because the numbers as they are don't match up.

[ralph.m]

According to this, IE6 has 1.17% market share now.

My dad's got a mac and I can't run programs on it because apparently the OS is of an older version.

True, it's fairly common for new Mac software to be written for the most recent OS versions. But then again, it's so cheap to upgrade to the latest versions that this is not such a big issue.

[Sega]

@ralph.m ;
I am not a mac user, so I'd be interested to know the steps involved in upgrading. I might upgrade my dad considering his OS is causing major issues in compatibility for him.

[Stevie D]

When I calculate the average (spreadsheet) using their numbers from the section that shows the percentage for each country, they average out to 1.71%.
When we remove China's usage from the average we get 1.21% instead.

That 6.2% seems to be somewhat inflated. I would love to find out how they came up with that figure, because the numbers as they are don't match up.

The problem, Paul, is that you've assumed the same number of people in each country. By simply taking an average of the %ages, you've given China (pop ~1.4bn) the same significance as Finland (pop ~5m) and every other country in between. What you would need to do is to work out the total number of people in each country, and the total number using IE6, and use that to calculate the global average.