# IE6 Obituary & Funeral Announcement



## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

http://ie6funeral.com/

_Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc. Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as "IE6," is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight.

Funeral services for Internet Explorer Six will be held at 7pm on March 4 at Aten Design Group, 1629 Downing Street, Denver, CO 80218. Those unable to attend the funeral are asked to send flowers.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
7:00 pm
Aten Design Group Office

Funeral attire is encouraged.

Come mix & mingle with Denver's top IE6 mourners. We'll have a special time of remembrance, a round of IE6 darts, and plenty of food & drinks.

Prizes will be awarded for the best IE6 memory & the best dressed!
_


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

While I am all for this, why does Google recommend Safari?! What at POS browser, I would rather use IE. Isn't that sad?


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

With all due respect, IE6's death is premature. Microsoft has announced that they will continue to support IE6 until 2014. And, knowing companies who hate spending any money on IT, they will hang on to their XP desktops and antiquated apps that will only work on IE6 for as long as possible.

And, to these companies, if sites like YouTube, Facebook, LiveJournal, CNN, Gmail, hotmail, and digg no longer support IE6, so much the better. After all, a few less social sites for users to waste time on at work.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

matt1124 said:


> While I am all for this, why does Google recommend Safari?! What at POS browser, I would rather use IE. Isn't that sad?


What's wrong with Safari?


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Mark Holtz said:


> With all due respect, IE6's death is premature. Microsoft has announced that they will continue to support IE6 until 2014. And, knowing companies who hate spending any money on IT, they will hang on to their XP desktops and antiquated apps that will only work on IE6 for as long as possible.
> 
> And, to these companies, if sites like YouTube, Facebook, LiveJournal, CNN, Gmail, hotmail, and digg no longer support IE6, so much the better. After all, a few less social sites for users to waste time on at work.


Microsoft supports it, doesn't mean they want you to keep using it. In the EU they now have to do a browser ballot. Guess what isn't an option, keep IE6.

Companies are a bit different, but there still are a lot of home users using IE6. Anything to get them to upgrade, the better. But it's not restricted to just IE6 users, it's also those that might use another browser but haven't updated IE because they don't use it.

IE6 needs to truly die, and quickly.


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

dmurphy said:


> What's wrong with Safari?


It has probably gotten better now, but back when I used to use it, half the plug-ins I needed wouldn't run on Safari.

For a non-tech side, the stop/reload button being the same bothers me. I usually click it too many times and end up reloading the page I was trying to stop. And the progress bar being in the address bar was annoying to me.

Maybe I should give it another go.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

matt1124 said:


> It has probably gotten better now, but back when I used to use it, half the plug-ins I needed wouldn't run on Safari.
> 
> For a non-tech side, the stop/reload button being the same bothers me. I usually click it too many times and end up reloading the page I was trying to stop. And the progress bar being in the address bar was annoying to me.
> 
> Maybe I should give it another go.


Apple software has never been as good on Windows as Mac. I'd rather use Chrome than Safari myself.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

matt1124 said:


> It has probably gotten better now, but back when I used to use it, half the plug-ins I needed wouldn't run on Safari.
> 
> For a non-tech side, the stop/reload button being the same bothers me. I usually click it too many times and end up reloading the page I was trying to stop. And the progress bar being in the address bar was annoying to me.
> 
> Maybe I should give it another go.


Unfortunately for me, being a Unix guy, I don't really push the browsers all that hard. I don't have any plugins (aside from Flash, for example), and I barely use that nifty new "bookmark" feature. I don't Tab, I don't use much of anything beyond basic rendering.

... and for the stop/reload thing, I tend to use the keyboard -- esc to stop, cmd-R (or Ctrl-R on Windows) to reload. Same for entering URL's -- cmd-L (or ctrl-l) to get to the address bar and off I go. Cmd-backtick (`) (or ctrl-`) to switch between windows. Life be good!

Just different ways to work -- the thing I like so much about Safari is that it's really minimal - the focus is on the content, not the buttons, etc. I like that. OH, and it's fast as hell. Lots faster that Firefox.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

How can it have died (past tense) in the future??


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## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

spartanstew said:


> How can it have died (past tense) in the future??


Because it is Microsoft.

"Best Before: Next Version"


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

As long as there are big bucks IE only sites out there, Microsoft will probably provide support for IE6 and 7. It frustrates me every time I run across a site that demands IE, or click on a link that automatically opens IE. To me, it smacks of incompetent web design.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

> It frustrates me every time I run across a site that demands IE, or click on a link that automatically opens IE.


I just go away from those sites and never return. I have IE disabled so it can't open. In some cases, I've even renamed the directory or the .exe itself to thwart it.


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## HDJulie (Aug 10, 2008)

Mark Holtz said:


> With all due respect, IE6's death is premature. Microsoft has announced that they will continue to support IE6 until 2014. And, knowing companies who hate spending any money on IT, they will hang on to their XP desktops and antiquated apps that will only work on IE6 for as long as possible.
> 
> And, to these companies, if sites like YouTube, Facebook, LiveJournal, CNN, Gmail, hotmail, and digg no longer support IE6, so much the better. After all, a few less social sites for users to waste time on at work.


Yep, I work at one of those companies & I believe we are a Fortune 500 company. We're still on Windows XP SP2, Office XP, & IE6.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

In 2003, after XP had been out for almost 2 years, the IT staff at the Fortune 500 company I was working for seriously considered standardizing on Win 2000, as a replacement for the old Win NT standard that was in use in big sections of the company (read: those who couldn't do their own upgrades). I was one of the people who pushed hard to skip 2000 and standardize on XP, which was lightyears ahead of 2000 in a number of ways that were important to a large enterprise with 16,000 customer service people alone. To their credit, they saw the light early on and chose XP, but there was serious resistance against having to update applications TO IE6.

Chances are very good that they're wiping Win7 off new computers and installing that same base XP-SP2 build today. I can only imagine the uproar over having to re-code all the new web apps to get away from IE6, especially when the developers who wrote those apps are all LONG gone...


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

BattleZone said:


> Chances are very good that they're wiping Win7 off new computers and installing that same base XP-SP2 build today. I can only imagine the uproar over having to re-code all the new web apps to get away from IE6, especially when the developers who wrote those apps are all LONG gone...


Not only that, but much of the internal IT department, including the IT help desk, has been outsourced to a overseas support center that can only remote into the desktop.

Some of it is because of the current economic climate. Sure, companies are making money, but if you look closely at their balance sheet, it has been done through cutting jobs and reducing expenses. Guess what IT is considered? You guessed it... another expense that has to be minimized. In addition, final decisions on IT expenditures are made by people who aren't technologically savvy. They treat IT equipment the same way as an adding machine, photocopier, or fax machine in that it is an one-time expense that has to be amortized over several years. They also apply the question, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" along with "Why replace it when it can be fixed?", thus the web developers who still maintain the obsolete code has to apply bandaids when simply a upgraded version would resolve the issue because the fixes are cheaper than the replacement.

Upgrades, even free ones, have a cost. You have to take people out of their normal routines, and sit them down for training. People do NOT like change, they like things to remain the same, and they treat training as a imposition on their busy schedules. The higher up they are, the more resistant they are to upgrades. And, if managers don't like the upgrades, they will let their feeling be heard by their department.

And, the killer part? I see some of these CEOs and top executives get paid MILLIONS in bonuses. The IT departments look at the raises and said, "Gee, a PORTION of that bonus money would have paid to replace software that is used, but was end-of-lifed about three years ago. $200,000 would have paid for four additional techs. And, what about that badly needed server upgrade?"

Sorry if I ranted a bit. I unintentionally get to see things from both the employers and employees point of view. For most of my working career, I have worked for two small businesses where every dollar counts, and you have to stretch it, even fighting for a necessary anti-virus update. Then, I see major companies act like paupers to their employees, and then make millions. It makes me even more upset that the companies have stopped looking and planning five years into the future, and all decisions are based upon what's good for this fiscal quarter. I'm all for making a profit. However, under this economic climate, many people are burning up because they can't switch jobs easily, and have to chant the mantra of "More work, same pay, no bonus, no raise, thank goodness I have a job." This, indeed sucks.

Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out Of Their Cold Dead Hands


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

HDJulie said:


> Yep, I work at one of those companies & I believe we are a Fortune 500 company. We're still on Windows XP SP2, Office XP, & IE6.


And you basically have until July to move to SP3 as they'll stop releasing security updates for SP2. Or maybe your IT department doesn't keep up on those either.


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## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

So Google is now the boss of software. Right.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

njblackberry said:


> So Google is now the boss of software. Right.


That is what I found kind of ironic.

Frankly MS has wanted to kill IE6 for a long time as well and has been trying to get people to move off of it for years. The issue are large corporations that would be very upset and left out in the cold if MS just dropped all support for it right now.

Keeping IE6 has nothing to do with enthusiasts or home users, it is all about corporations with old IE based apps right now.


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

Grentz said:


> That is what I found kind of ironic.
> 
> Frankly MS has wanted to kill IE6 for a long time as well and has been trying to get people to move off of it for years. The issue are large corporations that would be very upset and left out in the cold if MS just dropped all support for it right now.
> 
> Keeping IE6 has nothing to do with enthusiasts or home users, it is all about corporations with old IE based apps right now.


They should just pull the plug. If the organizations that are clinging on too a bad generation of brower won't change, then too bad for them.

They would have 3 choices.
1) Stick with what they got and be left behind.
2) Upgrade to IE8 and get current
3) Switch to another browswer and be current.

If they arn't willing to do #2, they sure arn't going to do #3.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Your missing the bigger point. They cannot just upgrade or switch browsers as it is internal applications that have to be redesigned.

Again, limited cases and many are clinging on to IE6 for truly no good reason...but where they are hanging with IE6 for specific reasons like internal web apps it is many times huge install bases in very large corporations. People MS does not want to piss off and the reason MS is king in the corporate world (they do not just snap switch things over and they try their best to keep things backward compatible).

I think it is stupid for corporations to do, and MS keeps having new programs and communications to try and get them to move forward...but it is not MS's place strategically to just cut them off and piss them off.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

There were millions of cabs in use across the country made by Checker Motors too until there was no more Checker Motors. Then everybody had to scramble to find something else. Some hung on for as long as they could buying used stock from other companies.

These companies will continue to use IE6 until it is taken away from them. They would continue to use it until 2050 if M$ continued support for it. Drop it now and move on.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

It's all because of custom applications they paid for to be designed are not going to work properly without being updated. The longer they can put off paying for newer versions they are going to. Even Intel has posted that they cannot migrate to Windows 7 right now due to custom applications not being supported properly by the OS and IE 8.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent..._faces_challenges_in_windows_7_migration.html


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Mark Holtz said:


> Not only that, but much of the internal IT department, including the IT help desk, has been outsourced to a overseas support center that can only remote into the desktop.




I was the Help Desk Manager...

And of course, everything you wrote is exactly, precisely true of where I worked.


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