Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
1–10 of 117 posts
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#2I know it's wrong, but I'd be happy if they just refused to provide any services unless you had an up to date browser or any interaction would immediately take the user to the what browser site http://whatbrowser.org/
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#3I'm on the latest chrome (v37) on Ubuntu, and I'm getting ye olde schoole Google for omnibar searches. If I hit google.com and then type a search in the page, I get the current Google layout.
Weird.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#4Google has started showing old versions of its search page to people using out-of-date versions of some web browsers.
On the other hand, many of the people using older versions of browsers would probably be the same ones who don't like the changes Google's made to its pages.
As someone who regularly uses various browsers (including text-based), I have a very strong opinion on this: I've noticed the "you must use browser X, Y, or Z" trend become more prevalent over the years, and I think it's against the basic premise of the Internet to be an accessible source of information to all. Users should be free to use whatever browser they want, on whatever hardware they want, with the understanding that some sites may use features their browsers don't support. Most sites on the Internet are still primarily sources of information, and it's rather disconcerting to see "appification" turning easily accessible pages containing text and images into complex behemoths that only work in the latest browsers from the big vendors. I know there is a certain allure to using the "latest technologies" for many developers, but if it needlessly excludes some others, there's a marginalising, discriminatory element to it that I just can't agree with.
She added: "We're continually making improvements to Search, so we can only provide limited support for some outdated browsers."
It would help if she pointed out the particular "improvements" and what features they need.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#5Google has started showing old versions of its search page to people using out-of-date versions of some web browsers. On the other hand, many of the people using older versions of browsers would probably be the same ones who don't like the changes Google's made to its pages. As someone who regularly uses various browsers (including text-based), I have a very strong opinion on this: I've noticed the "you must use brow…
I disagree. The marginalising, discriminatory effects of web developers using the state of the art is critical to moving web technology forward as quickly as possible. By penalising users who use antiquated browsers or computing devices, it helps create pressure and demand for:
a) more affordable modern computing devices b) more intelligent auto-updating browsing software c) more educated and engaged consumers
Mollycoddling stragglers only hurts everybody in the long run.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#6Google has started showing old versions of its search page to people using out-of-date versions of some web browsers. On the other hand, many of the people using older versions of browsers would probably be the same ones who don't like the changes Google's made to its pages. As someone who regularly uses various browsers (including text-based), I have a very strong opinion on this: I've noticed the "you must use brow…
Could it also be a way to reduce the time it takes to perform cross-browser testing and troubleshooting for a new layout?
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#7I may be misinterpreting the article, but isn't that just graceful degradation?
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#8I may be misinterpreting the article, but isn't that just graceful degradation?
Except the degradation isn't particularly "graceful". Google just seems to be sniffing the user agent and sending different content.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#9I'm using Firefox 3.5, and a helluva lot of stuff doesn't work properly any more. For instance, I notice that reddit broke a few weeks ago and I can no longer vote or comment. Why? I have no idea.
"Why don't you just get a new browser?" you might ask. Because new versions of browsers don't work on OS 10.4.
"So why don't you upgrade your OS?" Because as far as I can tell, no upgraded OS that will work on this machine is still available. There's no upgrade path from here to there. OS 10.6 would run on this machine, and OS 10.6 would run the latest Chrome, but you can't get OS 10.6 any more.
So I'm stuck in a bind, with no other option than to throw this (perfectly good) machine out completely. I do have a newer machine, but I keep it in the office, and this one ought to be capable of doing everything I want from it, but web devs keep breaking things that used to work fine.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#10I may be misinterpreting the article, but isn't that just graceful degradation?
Except the degradation isn't particularly "graceful". Google just seems to be sniffing the user agent and sending different content.
Capability checks and run-time tests can only go so far. You end up with a bewildering array of code path fallbacks and polyfills that massively complicates the readability and maintainability of such apps.
I realize web developers think it's kind of marvelous and cool and philosophically pure to serve one page that scales from Netscape 1.0 all the way up to today's bleeding edge mobile browsers, but realistically, it is better to focus team resources on different tiers of functionality and in effect, write two or more difference pages optimizes for different scenarios.