# War Declared on Internet Explorer 6... About Time



## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Having had to deal with the sheer idiocy of applications requiring the use of Internet Explorer 6, this is truly welcome news.

A campaign has been started to eliminate the use of Internet Explorer 6. Started in Norway and already spreading across Europe, Australia, Indonesia and even getting an endorsement from Microsoft, the campaign is utilizing announcements on websites that users need to upgrade to IE7 or other browsers such as Firefox, etc., as the sites are planning on discontinuing support for the 8 year old browser.

I have ignored compliance with IE6 myself on my web sites for a while now and I have no sympathy for continued use of the old browser. IE7 has been with us a long time now and IE8 is weeks from release. Time to upgrade a get with it.


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## smiddy (Apr 5, 2006)

Intersting, I wonder how businesses who haven't changed to 7 yet will react to this news.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

IE6 is so....so....so....last millenium.....


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## kevinwmsn (Aug 19, 2006)

It needs to go, but a lot of venders won't support IE7, especially Siemens.


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## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

This is great news. Who is going to get all of the vendor apps that don't run on IE7 to update them. I, of course, assume that the updates will be free of charge.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

kevinwmsn said:


> It needs to go, but a lot of venders won't support IE7, especially Siemens.


With IE8 beta out...that's a bit of a surprise...

IE7 has been our "standard" browser supported for quite some time, and IE8 is being tested at this time.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

IE6 is not really good. IE7 is quite nice though, I actually really like it and find it faster than many of the third party browsers, plus plenty secure. IE8 hopefully will improve, some major rendering issues on some sites still.

How many sites/applications honestly still only work on IE6? I have not run into any in the last few years and almost never use IE6 anymore.


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## HDJulie (Aug 10, 2008)

My workplace, a rather large utility, still uses IE6 & as far as I know, they are not even testing IE7 & with budget cuts, etc I doubt they will do anything until they absolutely have to. I haven't had any problems with websites while I am at work.


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## Greg Alsobrook (Apr 2, 2007)

People still use Internet Exploder?!!? :eek2: :lol:

http://www.mozilla.com


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Grentz said:


> IE6 is not really good. IE7 is quite nice though, I actually really like it and find it faster than many of the third party browsers, plus plenty secure. IE8 hopefully will improve, some major rendering issues on some sites still.
> 
> How many sites/applications honestly still only work on IE6? I have not run into any in the last few years and almost never use IE6 anymore.


More than you think Grentz. Last time I looked at the stats IE6 still had a major portion of Marketshare. Enough to warrant our company to still test and support it and anybody building apps should still be validating their app against IE6. As web developers as much as we would love to dictate Browser support, it ultimately should come from your customer needs and your sites should be developed in such a way they work in IE6, IE7, IE8, FF, Safari, and Opera. This fact is one of the reasons we are moving towards Flex to build our applications. We want a richer experience and minimize as much as humanly possible cross browser issues.

Yes it would be great to say... No more IE6, but the reality of the situation is that MS released a browser that was not even close to standards based which resulted in a number of companies creating applications (internal and external) that do not run well in anything but IE6. These applications are critical to business and therefore they have frozen there browser environment in time. Give MS created this Mess and with the corporate implications relating to the death of IE6, I am rather shocked they would endorse such a measure.

Though I do think some of the blame belongs to the companies for doing someone so bonehead as creating applications of this nature. You also have to point blame MSs way for creating this issue in the first place and not quickly correcting it.

Hopefully IE8 with its different rendering options will help bridge this cap but there is a lot of sites frozen in time on the net and if IE8 does not do IE6 rendering exactly as IE6 would then you still are in a situation where you don't have a solution for IE6 based website and for customer to upgrade there has to be that solution.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

LarryFlowers said:


> A campaign has been started to eliminate the use of Internet Explorer 6. Started in Norway and already spreading across Europe, Australia, Indonesia and even getting an endorsement from Microsoft, the campaign is utilizing announcements on websites that users need to upgrade to IE7 or other browsers such as Firefox, etc., as the sites are planning on discontinuing support for the 8 year old browser.


Not likely to happen with one web site that I maintain (District 39 Toastmasters). Since we are a non-profit educational organization, and a good percentage of our membership work for state agencies, I have to maintain that backwards compatibility with Internet Exploder 6.

It sucks, of course, when one has to hack code to maintain compatibility with IE6 because it refused to follow well-established standards that other browsers have followed for ages. Of course, Microsoft feels it is the superior operating system, and that no others exist. We know better, of course.


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## Brandon428 (Mar 21, 2007)

AirRocker said:


> People still use Internet Exploder?!!? :eek2: :lol:
> 
> http://www.mozilla.com


I was just about to say the same thing but you said it all.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

IE6's Percentage History..
2002 54%
2003 71%
2004 66% Firefox begins to show in the marketplace
2005 63%
2006 50% IE7 begins to impact
2007 34%
2008 19%

With the release of Internet Explorer 8 sometime in April of this year, it is time to move on from IE6. I realize that there are corporate applications out there that rely on IE6 but I am not going to express any sympathy for them. They have had way more than adequate time to update their applications. Windows 7 (as well as Vista) will help move the change along as IE6 cannot run on either system

As IE8 is the most standards compliant browser ever produced by Microsoft, the smartest move would be to redesign these apps to work with IE8, which will automatically allow compliance with IE7 (compatibility mode). For that matter, standardize on Firefox... just get off of IE6. The browser is inherently unsafe and keeps people stuck on XP.

I use or have used Firefox and Chrome and as far as I am concerned, use what you want, but the "compatibility" issue has recently been shown to be pretty bogus with the deliberate efforts of ALL companies to make there browsers "score" well on compatibility issues for bragging rights.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

My wife's company (40k or so employees in the financial sector) has everyone standardized on IE6. I always think it is funny when she has her laptop at home.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Not sure where you got those numbers but 19% still is significant. The numbers I have seen are actually higher. 

As for IE8... Larry my organization is currently testing against its apps that all work on IE7 and IE6 and guess what.. It is not a smooth transition. We have a number of issues we are working out. Since I am working with Flex now I have not been paying attention to the issues in detail, but I have been monitoring the work and it has not been just a simple fact of adding a meta tag or smoothly transitioning. We have had pain supporting IE8 and not just minimal pain.

I agree with redesign the apps, but the redesign them to be standards based principles to sure they work cross browser not just IE8 and it would be great to see IE6 die.

However, Larry I don't think you have spent much time working in the Enterprise level environment. These applications are used daily and frozen with nobody maintaining them. As much as IT would love to switch in some of the environments they can't. I have seen it.. We provide applications to these environments and my company is one of these environments. 

This is a great effort and hopefully it will result in lowering the numbers but even 5% is high enough that as a company we would test the environment. Must be nice to be able to discount such a large market share Larry, but the fact companies that work in the Enterprise space are still stuck with IE6 and I fear this will continue for some time to come. Boy this smells very similar to the Windows XP direction MS is pushing.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

As long as people develop and maintain web sites and pages with MS Frontpage, compatibility with other browsers will suffer. MS needs to make Frontpage tools transparent to browser type. I've visited a number of web sites that demand IE and MS Outlook or Outlook Express. This is absurd. When I've been able to look at the .html on these sites, they all have Frontpage signatures imbedded. I switched browsers from IE to Opera quite some time ago, and more recently to Firefox. It bugs the daylights out of me to have a site inform me that my browser isn't compatible.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Frontpage is dead Cholly, it no longer exists. Microsoft Expression Web is the replacement and is much better and follows the standards pretty well. It actually is not a bad editor and makes stuff that works in Firefox, the IEs, and other browsers just fine.

Realize that there is no browser that totally follows the standards. Firefox, Opera, IE, all stretch the standards in some areas. I know the older IEs were the worst, but still, the others are not perfect either.

I am worried about IE8 too, I am finding lots of sites that do not render properly including some of my own that are standards complaint and do work fine in IE6/IE7, Opera, Safari, and Firefox. So far IE7 is much better, even if it is less standard compliant.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Apologies Ron, I should have shown my sources:

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Admittedly, browser stats are extremely subject to interpretation but most of the sites I checked show IE hovering in the 19-20% range.

Also, I do not expect IE6 to disappear, to the contrary, if everyone started now it would probably take 5 years to get rid of it, but unfortunately I also feel that when IE7 came out, everyone including and especially those at the Enterprise level should have been making long term plans to deal with it. I do have to deal with Enterprise level clients and I know how difficult it is to get a major move started let alone accomplished. Nobody wants to spend the money and they especially don't want to support two or more environments at the same time, all understandable.

The biggest problem I have with most IT departments is their poor planning. I do not expect to deploy my first Windows 2008 server until January 2010... but I have two test servers running right now as learning tools and an additional PC here running it so I can spend time with it.

I am also not planning any mass conversions to Windows 7, but any PC or laptop purchased after July 1st 2009 will have the Windows 7 OS on it and we will integrate it on a rolling basis at all of my clients... most importantly we have machines with beta Windows 7 on them now looking for problems, identifying them (VPN) and seeking solutions.

I do not have any clients with "thousands" of computers, so I guess my experience with that level is pretty limited but I do work with several clients who, with their own IT people, do control thousands of PC's and we have these discussions frequently. They have made the painful transition to IE7 and are testing IE8. They are between 45 and 50% converted to Vista but have pretty much decided to suspend that and continue their conversion efforts with Windows 7 and they have started testing Windows 2008 servers.

Whatever happens, there are going to be outside forces effecting all IT environments... Microsoft is going to put a halt to XP, for them to do anything else would be "bad" for them, so we probably only have a window with significant XP presence of 5 years maximum.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Not being an active web designer, I was unaware that Frontpage is no longer distributed. However, there remain a lot of Frontpage users, I'm sure. My limited experience with web page design was with Coffeecup software. I toyed around with designing pages for the local senior center, and everything I did was fully compatible with IE, Opera and Firefox.


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## 1980ws (Mar 18, 2008)

At my work just about everyone uses IE (not sure what version) except me. I brought Firefox in on my own. I hear them all complain and I just smile. I know the IT guys know I use it and I suspect they do also. But of course for any company work we all have to us IE. Others complain about the speed, and I breeze along, aided with a 2GB speed boost from my flash drive.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Cholly said:


> Not being an active web designer, I was unaware that Frontpage is no longer distributed. However, there remain a lot of Frontpage users, I'm sure. My limited experience with web page design was with Coffeecup software. I toyed around with designing pages for the local senior center, and everything I did was fully compatible with IE, Opera and Firefox.


Totally understand, was not trying to cut you down, just informing you. There definitely is a lot of frontpage stuff still out there as you said. It was the easiest way to make a webpage for normal users for a lot of years, even if it was not always the best.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

LarryFlowers said:


> Apologies Ron, I should have shown my sources:
> 
> http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2
> 
> http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp


Thanks Larry.. Not sure how Marketshare gets theirs, but w3schools is mainly web type people so the numbers are going to be skewed higher. Just look at the Firefox numbers. Way too high..

Have to see if I can get some numbers off our sites to see what our mix is. Any case 19% still high.

Well lets hope this initiative has some legs and reduces, but I still personally think MS should really test the heck out of IE8 in IE6 environments and do what ever it can to make IE6 specific sites run on IE8 with no tweaking to give the IT departments that have machines in the 10's of thousands a means of which they can move off IE6 with the ability to still run IE6 apps. It is the only way that departments in that category and that is what I consider Enterprise to be able to update with minimal pain.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

It would be cool if they made an IE6 mode that could be turned on for specific URLs. Could be an addon pack or something that could be installed (preferably for free).

Problem I am sure is that they want people to start moving away from IE6, and giving firms the ability to still use apps that only work in it would let many continue to slip and not invest in working to upgrade their solutions over time.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

I thought IE8 had an IE6 mode. My understanding is that there is three rendering engines in IE8. One for IE8, IE7 and IE6.. Since I can't install it because it will take out my IE7, can someone with IE8 Veryify it. Larry?


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

IE8 has a compatibility mode but only for IE7. Microsoft basicly rebuilt the browser when they released IE7 which is why apps require so much work to move from IE6 to IE7. IE8 has a manual compatibility mode that you can switch on if you have trouble with a web site and the browser will behave as if it is IE7. IE8 also has an automatic compatibility mode for known web sites with issues. Currently there are approximately 2500 web sites in the compatibility database including ironically enough several Microsoft web sites.



Ron Barry said:


> I thought IE8 had an IE6 mode. My understanding is that there is three rendering engines in IE8. One for IE8, IE7 and IE6.. Since I can't install it because it will take out my IE7, can someone with IE8 Veryify it. Larry?


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## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

Larry - XP will continue in "extended support" until 2014. It is going to be around for a long time. Companies with thousands (and tens of thousands) of computers ARE different than smaller shops. It isn't a lack of planning - it is a difference in priorities. 

We skipped Vista - totally - but I am already putting the plan together for Windows 7, or Vista That Works. IE8 is VERY early now. It's a nice beta, but it is nothing more than that. Ballmer insists Vista is ready. It's OK for home use, but it is simply not worth the effort (and cost in memory) to upgrade thousands of machines.

Large organizations, that require standard desktops and images to keep the TCO as low as possible, can't change the OS, application and browser everytime Microsoft does. Firefox is fine until the first time the customer calls your help desk with an application issue. Then it falls apart. 

We have IE6 now, and are running the program to test every application to find those that don't work. And then decide how to mitigate that risk (use a Citrix desktop or Virtual PC) and what the long term plan for the application is.

I use IE7 at work, IE7 and IE8 at home. As soon as we have a plan, we roll out IE7. And then fine MORE applications that don't work...

It's an ugly cycle.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

LarryFlowers said:


> IE8 has a compatibility mode but only for IE7. Microsoft basicly rebuilt the browser when they released IE7 which is why apps require so much work to move from IE6 to IE7. IE8 has a manual compatibility mode that you can switch on if you have trouble with a web site and the browser will behave as if it is IE7. IE8 also has an automatic compatibility mode for known web sites with issues. Currently there are approximately 2500 web sites in the compatibility database including ironically enough several Microsoft web sites.


I will have too look into this. Have not payed much attention. Early in the Beta stage they talked about an IE6 compatibility mode in IE8. If there is not one in IE8 in my opinion MS did not do a enough and once again they just don't get the Enterprise. MS needs to provide a means for customers who are on IE6 and have IE6 based websites to be able to drop to IE6 and run those apps while in the same browser experience allow web developers to go standards based. If they don't address the IE6 issue in IE8 then companies on IE6 might have to stay there which means web developers will be stuck with IE6 platform for a while.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

The IE7 compatibility has not always been perfect in IE8 either. I noticed a few sites worked fine in IE7 but would not work in IE8 with IE7 mode turned on...kinda odd. 

In any event, it is an early beta with still some WIP I hope.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I think this may be a mistake... as Windows Mobile 7 will use IE6 as its browser, according to some sources.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

There is some confusion over this... Mobile 6.5 & 7 will use the RENDERING engine from IE6, but the browser itself is a new design.



Stuart Sweet said:


> I think this may be a mistake... as Windows Mobile 7 will use IE6 as its browser, according to some sources.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

LarryFlowers said:


> IE7 has been with us a long time now and IE8 is weeks from release. Time to upgrade a get ith it.


Each successive version after IE5.5 has been a bigger pile of problems.

The long term secret to success is to move everyone away from browsers that think they have a better way than the W3C standards to implement everything. As long as Microsoft controls the market (domination is their only real goal), IE will be an attempt to subvert (and pervert) the standards to favor Microsoft.

Micro$oft is evil and self-serving.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

smiddy said:


> Intersting, I wonder how businesses who haven't changed to 7 yet will react to this news.


Businesses aren't generally swayed by the activities of a group of citizens in Norway.

My workplace is swayed by the fact that FTP drag and drop was damaged in IE6 and rendered essentially useless in IE7. If it weren't for FTP drag and drop, we would have dropped IE altogether years ago.


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

maybe some programers will get back to writing programs instead of addons. I miss the days when a program didn't need 30 other huge programs (and usualy just a small part of it) just to run..


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

houskamp said:


> maybe some programers will get back to writing programs instead of addons. I miss the days when a program didn't need 30 other huge programs (and usualy just a small part of it) just to run..


Or perhaps actually spending some time coding instead of using code generators and translators?


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I've updated the District 39 Browser Compatibility Page to reflect the updated browsers. Among the changes is the bumping of Firefox to 3 because of 2.x EOL, and some changed notes regarding IE6, 7, and 8. I also added Chrome.

Still, Internet Exploder 6 still must be supported. According to one service, both IE6 and Firefox 3 have 20% of the market share.


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