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Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#51

Post by dmitri145 »

userbinator wrote: post #4

Google 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…

Indeed, I'd also love to know what these "improvements" are. What I see look more like removing features, or hiding them, making harder to find and access.

There used to be a "Map" link, where I'd instantly send my search text into Google Maps. Where is it, and what was wrong with it?

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#52

Post by A_COMPUTER »

burgers wrote: post #27
afafsd wrote: post #9

I'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…

I'm not sure what the possibilities of your particular system are, but GNU/Linux systems, i my opinion, do a a fantastic job of letting all kinds of systems use the latest and greatest browsers. I remember running Debian on a tangerine clamshell iBook a couple years ago. https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc Looks like even the latest Debian 7 is supported. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/release-notes

I do this. I have stacks of Apple PowerPC machines (lamstand imac, 5 mac minis, G5 Mac desktop) and honestly, it's not worth wasting time on. Linux on PowerPC is really a second-tier architecture. 3D acceleration is subpar and there's no Flash, so you're really limited for a browsing experience.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#53

Post by dmitri145 »

vonklaus wrote: post #14
userbinator wrote: post #4

Google 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 think HN self selects for a bunch of corner cases that are atypical to the problem google is trying to correct for. People who have refused to update due to dislike of a certain OS, browser configuration, have extensions that limit functionality or otherwise knowingly don't update their browser for a specific reason based on technical understanding or aesthetic choice are the corner cases. Obviously, there are just…

As web dev, I am aware of a pain to work with old browsers. However, as user/customer, I perfectly feel for people who have better things to do with their lives, then download, upgrade, update, sometimes spending hours, breaking things, spending more hours to repair them, and so on.

In the ideal world, upgrading should be easy and fast, and provide an easy reverse if the user is not happy. As we know, this is not the case, so how can we blame the user for getting stuck with the old system that reliably worked?

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#54

Post by realusername »

radmuzom wrote: post #28
vonklaus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HN self selects for a bunch of corner cases that are atypical to the problem google is trying to correct for. People who have refused to update due to dislike of a certain OS, browser configuration, have extensions that limit functionality or otherwise knowingly don't update their browser for a specific reason based on technical understanding or aesthetic choice are the corner cases. Obviously, there are just…

It's not that people refuse to update. At work, we have not yet upgraded from XP so nothing above IE8 works here - you are not allowed to install any software on your own so no Firefox. If news sites, where the primary content should be text and maybe a couple of images, don't work because they require all kinds of fancy "modern web" features - then it is not a problem with users but a problem with the developers of…

Yeah sure, if IE8 could display CSS properly, that would be the case but unfortunately even basic CSS is quite broken on IE8, it's not just graceful degradation.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#55

Post by yareally »

userbinator wrote: post #4

Google 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…

As an Opera 12.x user I noticed them dropping support the other day. There's a huge difference in dropping support for 8-10 year old versions of IE and a browser that was receiving new features until the other year (and is still on par with most CSS/JS/HTML features of current browsers[1]). Especially when it's just search results. Opera themselves still recommends Opera 12 for long time users until all features are ported to the Blink based Opera and still patch it for security issues.

It's all done by user agent sniffing though, so if you're an Opera 12 user still and haven't found a way around it, you can switch the user agent to something like Mozilla for Google sites only in Opera's override.ini file and search results work just as they did the previous week. Other sites run by Google, such as the Android developer's console and Admob will also work correctly using this method. If unsure how to do that, here's an example[2].

Users of other browsers no longer "supported" could do something similar with an extension of some sort for their browser and just change the browser version of their user agent to something newer (something farther in the future would be a good idea).

[1] http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+11,firefox+34,chrome+40,safar...

[2] https://gist.github.com/yareally/7c6c76fb79fa5846665f

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#56

Post by walshemj »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #34
radmuzom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that people refuse to update. At work, we have not yet upgraded from XP so nothing above IE8 works here - you are not allowed to install any software on your own so no Firefox. If news sites, where the primary content should be text and maybe a couple of images, don't work because they require all kinds of fancy "modern web" features - then it is not a problem with users but a problem with the developers of…

No, that's a problem with your IT department being stuck about a decade behind.

No your giving publishers a lazy get out - if you actually work for a large publisher online you would be shocked by how non technical and sclerotic they are - makes The laundry files bureaucracy seem fast and responsive :-(

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#57

Post by Torn »

mccr8 wrote: post #19
afafsd wrote: post #9

I'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…

You should check out TenFourFox. Some heroic developers have ported the latest versions of Firefox to old versions of OSX, including, it looks like, 10.4. http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

This looks really awesome for people with PowerPC architectures.

As part of the porting, though, are there security guarantees?

I imagine if they're re-written low-level implementation details they'll be opening themselves up to risk (not to mention the chance for backdoors). I wonder what their process is for fixing new security holes as they are fixed in firefox.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#58

Post by dmm »

DieBuche wrote: post #13
afafsd wrote: post #9

I'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…

Buy a used copy of 10.6 on ebay or just simply download it somewhere.

He's describing a powerpc mac that literally cannot run anything newer than 10.4

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#59

Post by SEMW »

millstone wrote: post #31

Riiiight. "Old browsers." Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected? Google has already proven their willingness to degrade their search experience for non-Chrome browsers, by splashing a Chrome banner ad on the Google search home page[1]. This is about capturing more marketshare for Chrome, pure and simple. Eventually "old browsers" will be replaced by "browsers we don't care to support" will be replace…

> Riiiight. "Old browsers." Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected?

Not sure about search, but for gapps, Google's chrome versions support is the least generous of any browser. They only support the latest version (as opposed to the two most recent versions of other browsers). Effectively they only support chrome with autoupdate enabled. (Which presumably they feel they can do because they have the most aggressive - but also most smooth/invisible - autoupdate of any major browser).

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#60

Post by 1971genocide »

millstone wrote: post #31

Riiiight. "Old browsers." Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected? Google has already proven their willingness to degrade their search experience for non-Chrome browsers, by splashing a Chrome banner ad on the Google search home page[1]. This is about capturing more marketshare for Chrome, pure and simple. Eventually "old browsers" will be replaced by "browsers we don't care to support" will be replace…

Google has done amazing stuff for the web, so has microsoft, IBM,etc before it. The trick is to not give any one company a lot of power and diversify the power among many corporations etc. Google is still the most innovative company out there but lets hope we realize the time when they will need to step-aside and let other more innovative companies take its place.
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