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Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#81

Post by pbhjpbhj »

klez wrote: post #65
vonklaus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while i respect that you personally are constrained in this respect, support for XP has ended. Chronologically, google inc was founded ~3 years before XP was released and it wasn't mainstream on inception. So the point being when XP was released like 13 years ago, it enjoyed mass audience. Now there have been several iterations of windows and according to mores law 10 years forward see more innovation than the preced…

About your nokia example, maybe I'm mistaken but wouldn't it be like you couldn't send a proper SMS without upgrading your phone?

Yes, you can't send an SMS with an "attached" video with your phone unless you update to a phone with a video camera ... you can still do the SMS but the side-channel and video capabilities are missing.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#82

Post by pbhjpbhj »

toxican wrote: post #76
arjie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never understood the "well we have to keep IE6 because of this one obscure program" as the excuse to why IT departments force their users to use IE6. Keep IE6 for that one obscure, poorly-made program. Give then a copy of Firefox or Chrome to use for everything else. I realize for a lot of users that's more choice than they can handle, but those that know better must be tortured by that awful lack of choice.

I've never used one but I understand there are plugins that load a particular URL in an IEframe. So there's no need for the user to know that they need to use IE for one thing and FF/Chrome for another.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#83

Post by dmitri145 »

toxican wrote: post #78
dmitri145 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In what way isn't it easy/fast now? Upgrading from something like IE7 is as easy and downloading/installing and you're done. It'll hold your hand through carrying over your data from the old browser and even ask if you want it to be the new default. Then updates from there are done automatically in the background without any user input.

Can't speak about the M$oft world that I left long ago. However, as far as I understand, the issue is the OS, and many people simply prefer XP.

But Mac OS is no different. I've been on OS 10.5 and when Google stopped supporting Chrome there, it suddenly stopped working with Youtube. Luckily, I've found a hack and wrote a script launching Chrome without that disable setting. Which proves that there was absolutely no reason to forcefully disable what worked for users for many years.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#84

Post by Mithaldu »

yareally wrote: post #55
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…

It can't be understated how disgusting this decision by Google is.

Opera 12 and Opera 15+ are completely different software packages that share literally and explicitly no code whatsoever.

One is a Chrome fork; the other a completely standalone program.

One is as bare-bone as browsers can get; the other has, out of the box, more features than any other browser on the market.

Not even the company producing Opera 15 asks its Opera 12 users to upgrade, since Opera ASA does know it is not an upgrade.

Yet Google decided to join the charade of Opera 15+ being an "upgrade" of Opera 12, since having another Chrome fork putting pressure for compatibility on websites furthers their goals.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#85

Post by dmitri145 »

butterfly14 wrote: post #69

This is great news! Now all I have to do is not update my browser any more and I won't have to deal with the mess of google, facebook etc. changing their UI every so often and making me search for the new locations of the links to the features I use frequently. More seriously, I have set my "google" bookmark to google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en because I LIKE the old style better and don't want instant/autocomplete.

Any source of how to get back other removed Google features? :)

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#86

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lelandbatey wrote: post #48
kijin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I support "links" but not lynx.

However I disagree. Most consumer pages don't need to look decent without CSS, be usable probably but not look decent. CSS is how you make the pages look decent.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#87

Post by icantthinkofone »

vonklaus wrote: post #35
icantthinkofone wrote: post #30

Earlier 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.

tbh the guys who are building the new IE did a reddit AMA a week or so ago. The new IE seems really great and those guys seem smart and receptive to the needs of web-devs and users. The problem, which google is trying to address, is that I doubt the majority share of computers running ie are running the newest most updated version. However, ceterus paribas, your point is well taken.

The new IE is better than the old IE but being better than crap is still crap. IE can't hold a candle to the other browsers despite what Microsoft tells you. Known, provable, verifiable.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#88

Post by marrs »

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.

How is that radmuzom's fault? And more to the point, why should the web be inaccessible to someone a decade behind?

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#89

Post by mccr8 »

Torn wrote: post #57
mccr8 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It looks like they are tracking ESR releases, which get security fixes and not much else, so keeping it updated is probably not too difficult, in the scheme of things. I think they don't have a JIT yet, so that also helps. When they do get a JIT, I doubt it will be economically viable for the standard malware writer to target such a tiny segment of the market.

In any event, it is much more secure than running Firefox 3.5, which has published exploits.

Re: Google 'discourages' users of old browsers

#90

Post by J_Darnley »

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, the issue is that no newer Windows OS is actually an upgrade.
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