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Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

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Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#31

Post by cypherpunks »

glhaynes wrote: post #26
cypherpunks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web user, I'm not grateful. I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. All websites look slightly better, but the client side dies a little bit every time. In the web circa '96, anyone could write a web spider or web browser, and everyone did. There was tremendous innovation both client-side and server-side. Client-side innovations included things like…

With the hyper-AJAXed world, client-side innovation becomes impossible. What?

15 years ago, I could reasonably write a search engine. Myself. 1 person. In a few weeks (modulo bandwidth and server farm). I write a program that grabs a web page, and reads out keywords. Today, if I grab a web page, quite often, that web page has nothing except for JavaScript code. That code grabs the actual content from the server, lays it out, and animates it. To write a web search engine, I need to write a complete JavaScript library.

At the time, we were talking about developing all sorts of agents. Things that would shop for you. Things that would find parts for you. Thinks that would remember what web sites you visited, and let you search them. Things that would track where in a long set of pages you were (blog, comic, etc.), and let you keep reading from there. It happened for a while, and then it died when the web became too damn hard. Writing anything that can reasonably see and parse web pages now takes many, many web years. There are only four or five organizations with that kind of resources (WebKit, Mozilla, Opera, IE, and internally, Google). There are countless things we just didn't even imagine.

It's like the DMCA. You notice all the innovations that happen, but you miss all the innovations it made impossible.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#32

Post by bpeebles »

belthesar wrote: post #17
bpeebles wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And once again, they list specific version numbers for IE, Firefox, and Safari, but just say "Chrome" for Chrome, even though later it groups Chrome with the rest of the two most recent. I guess it's because they don't know for sure what versions of Chrome will be the two most recent released, but it's still kind of funny.

I'm going to go with the fact that unless you NEVER restart your browser, the likelihood is that you are one or two minor versions behind the latest Chrome code at worst. With Chrome's automagical update system, most users barely notice when an update comes down the pike.

True... however, a moderately large website I have access to analytics has about 5% of Chrome users using something older than 11. It's possible to install Chrome without enabling the auto updates, so exactly which versions of Chrome they still support is somewhat useful information, I guess.

More likely, since the versions of FFx, IE, and Safari they support are the versions of another company's product--unlike their own--they feel like they have to be more upfront.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#33

Post by stanleydrew »

cypherpunks wrote: post #22
jarrett wrote: post #16

I'm quite grateful to Google for this. As a web developer, I'd always hoped that some big industry player would start forcing people to use modern browsers, and now it's happening. As small players, dropping support for older browsers kind of pulls us into the morass of a Nash equilibrium. Everyone would benefit if all web developers could agree on requiring modern browsers. We'd all be saved the pain of supporting o…

As a web user, I'm not grateful. I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. All websites look slightly better, but the client side dies a little bit every time. In the web circa '96, anyone could write a web spider or web browser, and everyone did. There was tremendous innovation both client-side and server-side. Client-side innovations included things like…

In what sense is Google a "client-side innovation"?

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#34

Post by cypherpunks »

benihana wrote: post #27
cypherpunks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web user, I'm not grateful. I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. All websites look slightly better, but the client side dies a little bit every time. In the web circa '96, anyone could write a web spider or web browser, and everyone did. There was tremendous innovation both client-side and server-side. Client-side innovations included things like…

With the hyper-AJAXed world, client-side innovation becomes impossible. Are you serious? Have you heard of the canvas element? It allows modern browsers to do things that were only possible 2 years ago in Flash. Have you noticed how there are actual web applications, not just a collection of linked pages these days? Have you noticed how with ubiquitous JavaScript, the usability and ease of websites has improved great…

No. I haven't. I've noticed maybe 1 or 2 web apps I want to use (Google Docs and Google Maps). Beyond that, I don't see anything that couldn't be delivered more effectively without JavaScript that I want or need.

Usability is not up. Each web site has its own, custom, non-standard user interface. I could teach my mom to use the web circa '96. I cannot teach her to use it today. It's too damn complex.

Usability would be up if the browser knew more about what to expect. You can look at things like Readability. The browser ought to know more about the content, and be able to present it in a coherent, usable way. The server-side shouldn't dictate presentation.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#35

Post by asomiv »

jncraton wrote: post #18
maxxxxx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't drop IE8 because too many businesses are still on XP.

The latest builds of Firefox and Chrome both work fine on XP, so they could theoretically force users to upgrade away from IE altogether.

They can't, many businesses rely on Microsoft's browser lockdown support. For example strict IE from browsing through the local disk or restricting settings from being modified. Firefox and Chrome have virtually no lockdown support.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#36

Post by grannyg00se »

ericflo wrote: post #24
Steko wrote: post #10

The old Microsoft would respond by pushing out 2 major releases in 6 months to reduce Google Apps penetration. Ballmersoft? Notsomuch.

That's not really a good tactic, because Google could just change its policies.

It could also add significant attention to the issue, and backfire horribly.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#37

Post by melling »

eiji wrote: post #29
jarrett wrote: post #16

I'm quite grateful to Google for this. As a web developer, I'd always hoped that some big industry player would start forcing people to use modern browsers, and now it's happening. As small players, dropping support for older browsers kind of pulls us into the morass of a Nash equilibrium. Everyone would benefit if all web developers could agree on requiring modern browsers. We'd all be saved the pain of supporting o…

Lets put this into perspective: We are talking about Google-Apps, not Search! Marketshare is very small, and a company even considering working with GApps will not do so with IE7 anyway. Wake me up when Google is dropping GMail support for IE7. Now that would be a story.

This includes Gmail.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#38

Post by cypherpunks »

stanleydrew wrote: post #33
cypherpunks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web user, I'm not grateful. I don't think having more pixel-perfect control or slightly faster JavaScript makes the web any better. All websites look slightly better, but the client side dies a little bit every time. In the web circa '96, anyone could write a web spider or web browser, and everyone did. There was tremendous innovation both client-side and server-side. Client-side innovations included things like…

In what sense is Google a "client-side innovation"?

The Google Spider grabs pages from other servers. That's a web client. It's a web client that was easy to write when Google was started, but is almost impossible to write today. If search engines hadn't been invented 20 years ago, they'd be impossible to invent today. The only reason they still work is tremendous work on Google's end to have its spider be able to spider complex AJAXy pages, and that content creators engage in SEO and develop to Google.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#39

Post by asomiv »

cypherpunks wrote: post #31
glhaynes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the hyper-AJAXed world, client-side innovation becomes impossible. What?

15 years ago, I could reasonably write a search engine. Myself. 1 person. In a few weeks (modulo bandwidth and server farm). I write a program that grabs a web page, and reads out keywords. Today, if I grab a web page, quite often, that web page has nothing except for JavaScript code. That code grabs the actual content from the server, lays it out, and animates it. To write a web search engine, I need to write a comp…

Most people would gladly make it harder for a single person to write a search engine if, in return, it makes it easier for them to make good web pages and web apps.

Re: Google discontinues support for IE7 in Google Apps

#40

Post by grannyg00se »

cypherpunks wrote: post #20

This is what really irks me about Google Apps. You don't have any control over this kind of thing. They can (and do) yank the rug out from under you whenever they feel like it. A while back, they forcibly transitioned all accounts to also be normal Google accounts, with no user input. They did this before they figure out how to transition users who already had Google accounts, so now my users are split into first cla…

It also doesn't sound all that hard to update your browser.
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