Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5 • Hacker News Board

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#41

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

bicknergseng wrote: post #30

derleth wrote: post #15

It would be interesting to know how those pages function in IE5. Does anything they do rely on JS IE5 doesn't understand? CSS IE5 can't process? eBay, Amazon, and Facebook especially might become worthless even though it looks like they render in a usable fashion.

IE5 had XHR, but didn't have native JSON support and a number of other features. I think it was on ECMA 1 or 2 until IE5.5, which had 3. I wager no one uses JSON shims anymore. I don't really know what would happen when you try to use JSON in ECMA 1 or 2.

[deleted]

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#42

Post by mhurron » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #31

ajross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's backwards, though. MS wants to enable new systems to run old software, and they do this very well. The case in hand is running old software against new content, which they don't care about. The relevant comparison would be running IE10 against a cached copy of some website from 1999. I suspect that test would work rather well.

Well ... I do agree that both the standards and best-practices for creating web content have changed, but I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. You could argue they have complete control of both the software and the document format in that instance, but the IE browsers never bothered to be standards compliant anyway ("older IE browsers" - I've been pleasantly sur…

> I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s.

Backwards compatibility is not the same as forwards compatibility, you seem to be confusing them.

You expect an application like Excel to open something made before by an earlier version. MS knows how to handle that format. However, you do not expect Excel 95 to open a xlsx file, it was a format that did not exist when Excel 95 was created.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#43

Post by atesti » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 9:41 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #31

ajross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's backwards, though. MS wants to enable new systems to run old software, and they do this very well. The case in hand is running old software against new content, which they don't care about. The relevant comparison would be running IE10 against a cached copy of some website from 1999. I suspect that test would work rather well.

Well ... I do agree that both the standards and best-practices for creating web content have changed, but I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. You could argue they have complete control of both the software and the document format in that instance, but the IE browsers never bothered to be standards compliant anyway ("older IE browsers" - I've been pleasantly sur…

Unfortunately Microsoft has disabled or removed quite some import filters. e.g. you can't open a PowerPoint 4 file anywhere anymore. They also disabled Works and Word Perfect filters. Probably a victim of the secure coding guidelines: Might have bugs ==> remove feature

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#44

Post by yuhong » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

atesti wrote: post #43

smoyer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ... I do agree that both the standards and best-practices for creating web content have changed, but I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. You could argue they have complete control of both the software and the document format in that instance, but the IE browsers never bothered to be standards compliant anyway ("older IE browsers" - I've been pleasantly sur…

Unfortunately Microsoft has disabled or removed quite some import filters. e.g. you can't open a PowerPoint 4 file anywhere anymore. They also disabled Works and Word Perfect filters. Probably a victim of the secure coding guidelines: Might have bugs ==> remove feature

It is because of security issues with old code that probably mostly dates back to Office 97 or older. How often do you receive Word 6.0 documents via email nowadays?

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#45

Post by nwh » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:03 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #19

I bet Hacker News would look fantastic in IE5, tables and all

Yep, in IE 5.5 it looks peachy.

http://i.imgur.com/XulRdv4.png

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#46

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

ijk wrote: post #33

bicknergseng wrote: post #21

And for my next magic trick, popular modern video games rendered in 256 bit color.

256 colors? Why so high? And not, say, running on a monochrome text terminal? http://www.jfedor.org/aaquake2/

[deleted]

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#47

Post by mynameisvlad » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:07 PM UTC

infinita740 wrote: post #7

Look way more decent than I thought, google is apparently the only one really supporting ie5 as their interface seems absolutely unchanged. Also noticed the irony of microsoft.com being the worst, maybe it shows that the company wants to move forward, maybe it's just lazyness/rationalisation. Also it's kind of abvious that amazon works well, they don't want to lose potentials customers (maybe same for google)

Doesn't shock me. They're one of the biggest proponents of trying to get people to update their browsers. They created http://www.ie6countdown.com/ after all.

It's also probably near impossible to get their current site working on IE5, and to make a completely separate site just for them (and it's a really really small percentage of worldwide users) would be highly cost prohibitive.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#48

Post by burntsushi » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:09 PM UTC

greghinch wrote: post #17

What % of their revenue does traffic from IE 5 represent? Now, what would the cost in internal resources to maintain browser compatibility on the scale of these sites? (hint: it's a lot) The math is pretty clear.

RTFA. It clearly states that this is an exercise in fun, not in judgment or criticism.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#49

Post by warfangle » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

For what it's worth, Google is still usable in lynx.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#50

Post by warfangle » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

infinita740 wrote: post #7

Look way more decent than I thought, google is apparently the only one really supporting ie5 as their interface seems absolutely unchanged. Also noticed the irony of microsoft.com being the worst, maybe it shows that the company wants to move forward, maybe it's just lazyness/rationalisation. Also it's kind of abvious that amazon works well, they don't want to lose potentials customers (maybe same for google)

It looks like the microsoft site is "feature detecting" at some level, and serving up a really basic mobile-oriented site. Think feature phone web browser.