Old == not Chrome?
Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
41–50 of 117 posts
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Mollyc…
Then let's just dispense with the silly idea of having open standards. The idea was to allow graceful degradation. But if you're just going to block out people, just dump the baggage of HTML and CSS and truly move everything forward. I'm not really sure how the rest of your points follow, however. Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core…
Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core is staggering
If people are having consistently poor mobile experiences because of poor battery optimisation across websites, that should create market demand for smarter devices/mobile browsers, better development tools and modern standards etc., right?
I'm not sure how constantly trying to get people to download Chrome makes them either more educated or engaged. It strikes me to be the opposite.
Well of course. When Google nags people to download Chrome, they're advertising their own services and fostering ecosystem lock-in. It might technically equate to a public service if their primary target market is out-of-date IE users, but that's incidental. It's an entirely different issue to what's at discussion here. Regardless, it does at least raise awareness of browser choice and habituate people to such (to users such as us) very basic actions as downloading, installing and trying out alternative software programs.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Mollyc…
Then let's just dispense with the silly idea of having open standards. The idea was to allow graceful degradation. But if you're just going to block out people, just dump the baggage of HTML and CSS and truly move everything forward. I'm not really sure how the rest of your points follow, however. Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core…
Modern browser features have, like all change in the world, opened up some potentially problematic paths. But your frustration is misguided. Be upset with the people/sites that abandon standards or suck up processing power for an article.
I'm curious what prompts this frustration?
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's a problem with your IT department being stuck about a decade behind.
Some may see your comment as flippant, but it is very accurate. Didn't MS shut off support for that combination of OS and Browser? If so, their IT department is exposing them to security trouble. If so, their competence is in question.
Companies can pay extra for XP support even after MSFT's EOL.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then let's just dispense with the silly idea of having open standards. The idea was to allow graceful degradation. But if you're just going to block out people, just dump the baggage of HTML and CSS and truly move everything forward. I'm not really sure how the rest of your points follow, however. Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core…
Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core is staggering If people are having consistently poor mobile experiences because of poor battery optimisation across websites, that should create market demand for smarter devices/mobile browsers, better development tools and modern standards etc., right? I'm not sure how constantly trying to get pe…
If people are having consistently poor mobile experiences because of poor battery optimisation across websites, that should create market demand for smarter devices/mobile browsers, better development tools and modern standards etc., right?
Well, my point is these problems are created by "converting" what would traditionally have been static content into dynamic. I'm not sure there will ever be a way to make that as efficient as static. Creating a problem and then fixing it doesn't mean you've actually advanced anything. But I suppose you're right in that it'll create demand for devices with longer battery life, if not in a roundabout way. There are probably easier ways to achieve that.
Hands down the most common case I come across is constant DOM changes without any growth cap using something like a circular buffer. Eventually the browser just churns doing constant GC. Travis CI was a big example of this, but the huge set of blog widgets out there are typical culprits as well. I'm not sure how new hardware could possibly address that.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#46As a web dev, I'm very well aware of the pain of supporting old browsers. I appreciate what Google did for that very selfish reason.
Google provide a "free" service ("free" as in they don't directly charge you for it, they show you ads and have advertisers pay for it instead). Users sure have the freedom to use browsers of their choice and search engines of their choice, so is Google entitled to similar kind of freedom -- they are free to set their own house rules, whether that's "old homepage for old browsers" or "special homepage for chrome". As a user of such a "free" service either you suck it up or leave. Bitching about something like this is like getting a free lunch and complaining there's not enough salt, imho.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then let's just dispense with the silly idea of having open standards. The idea was to allow graceful degradation. But if you're just going to block out people, just dump the baggage of HTML and CSS and truly move everything forward. I'm not really sure how the rest of your points follow, however. Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core…
Modern browser features have, like all change in the world, opened up some potentially problematic paths. But your frustration is misguided. Be upset with the people/sites that abandon standards or suck up processing power for an article. I'm curious what prompts this frustration?
The idea of the Web as it was sold to many of us was that it allowed for cross-platform access without having to deal with hardware requirements or DLL hell. The best part, was it was completely open and you didn't need to constantly upgrade because the technology degraded. Nowadays, if you run a browser older than 6 weeks old, you're treated with utter disdain by a non-insignificant portion of web developers. We've done a complete about-face on this one.
It also appears since new APIs are constantly being made available that devs are in a constant state of learning how to use them. While I appreciate that eventually some of this solidifies and we're better off for it, in practice a portion of the user experience always suffers. And as mentioned, this becomes really bothersome when this comes at the expense of battery life. If everything is to become a web app, and I have N tabs running, then I have N different opportunities for a web site to completely drain my battery. In practice, there's usually more than one site responsible.
And then there's the fun matter where auto-updating browsers sometimes just don't work. And since the update occurs silently, it can take a while to figure out that's what happened and that the failure isn't related to something else. Chrome 36 simply didn't work for me, so I had to change browsers until Chrome 37 rolled out.
For what it's worth, I've spent close to five years working on a Web Consistency Testing service, where we've tested millions of unique pages across tens of thousands of sites. I understand the quirks of browsers better than many. I've measured the performance and memory impact of new browser releases. I've had to debug quite a few customer issues. So, while a large part of my frustration is certainly personal, I'm also coming at this having looked at actual data.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#48Google 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…
Another problem with so many of today's "appified", needlessly animated websites is that they are rarely as accessible (as in, usable by people with disabilities) as their simpler, text-and-image-based predecessors used to be. Just because and cool CSS3 hacks are part of the W3C standard doesn't mean that you can use them wherever you want. If you use CSS3 hacks to convey meaning, that meaning is lost not only to old…
I'd just like to join you up here on this soapbox and point out three nice benchmarks I've personally used to keep things I make nicely accessible:
- It must be simple to use your api via command line Curl
- Any site you make must look decent or at least be usable without css or javascript
- All sites must be fully navigable and understandable in lynx (the command line browser).
Keep with these, and the way is easy.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I've noticed the "you must use browser X, Y, or Z" trend become more prevalent over the years..." I believe what you are actually seeing is the opposite of "Don't use IE". Instead they are saying "Use anything but IE" (best viewed in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera). And that's good advice.
I've adopted the "I don't care if you use IE" mentality. I'm on OS X - if a browser doesn't run there, to hell with them. I'm not wasting the money to buy an OS I can't stand just to test a browser. I'm also not wasting time having to reinstall a VM every 30 days for the same reason. When MS makes it painless to run IE on a Mac, then I'll actively test against it. I might not try to actively break it, but I'm not goi…
And, in the same breath, could you also tell me which sites/applications you develop? That will help me avoid them!
This is precisely the kind of developer arrogance that I advise against in my sessions. Catering to a segment of population, or otherwise, should be a carefully-considered `business' decision. If you are making them based on your preference for OS X (or whatever) and your laziness to install a VM, you are actively inflicting harm on your business.
Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Mollyc…
Then let's just dispense with the silly idea of having open standards. The idea was to allow graceful degradation. But if you're just going to block out people, just dump the baggage of HTML and CSS and truly move everything forward. I'm not really sure how the rest of your points follow, however. Modern browser features have led to higher battery consumption on the whole. The number of sites that can peg a CPU core…
The motivating factor for auto-updating browsers is to deal with security matters, not jamming features consumers aren't really asking for down the pipe.
Absolutely. I don't think anyone would disagree to updates for fixing memory leaks, buffer overflows, and similar security-related bugs. But when they come with disruptive changes including removal of valuable features and increased system requirements, it becomes more of a dilemma and in some ways almost feels like they're using security as an excuse, a "tool of obedience" to pull all the rest of the unwanted changes along too.
To me, the whole "we must move the Web forward" notion (I've heard it far more recently than before) is increasingly looking more like change for the sake of change; an indication that Web technology is reaching a saturation point - progress is outpacing demand - for a lot of use cases, and hence the stronger attempts to promote newer technologies that are adding more complexity while yielding diminishing returns.
The increasing browser requirements for websites is not unlike that of increasing hardware requirements for software - the average user probably doesn't require anywhere near a machine as powerful as the ones today to serve their needs (mostly email and realtime chat, watching videos, reading webpages, etc.), but is basically forced into upgrading due to newer versions of software requiring more resources than before. (The machine I'm using is currently ~6 years old, and it still serves my needs just fine.) This "progress" is arguably beneficial for the economy of those in the business, but it also creates enormous amounts of waste for everyone else, and I don't think it's sustainable either.