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YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

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Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#31

Post by alextp »

there wrote: post #6

from the comments: You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser... i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this. who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with t…

Well, a couple of years ago I was forced to use IE6 on a 500mhz machine running windows2000 in a project in the local government.

It was not pretty, although I managed to install XEmacs and survive.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#32

Post by aardvark »

aichcon wrote: post #16
there wrote: post #6

from the comments: You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser... i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this. who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with t…

The problem is internal legacy applications that only work in IE6. If they upgrade browsers the apps break, so in order to support these apps they keep IE 6. The question for them is 'do we spend time and money to update all of our applications to upgrade a browser, or just leave things the way they are for now?'

That's exactly the situation we had at the place I used to work. Management believed it was better to deal with the limitations of legacy software than with the expense of modernizing it. As of 2006, when I left, they were even still using Windows 98 on a handful of PCs because there was no reliable way to get all the data out of one of the applications and the software vendor had gone out of business.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#34

Post by lawrence_ll »

pg wrote: post #4

This is the biggest example I've seen of the network of YC alumni organizing to do something. YC itself didn't organize this or even know about it. I've been looking forward to seeing what this type of network can do that a traditionally hierarchically structured organization can't.

2^n chicks at the same time, man.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#35

Post by Bluem00 »

j2d2 wrote: post #8
there wrote: post #6

from the comments: You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser... i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this. who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with t…

These unsympathetic robots are all the people that are using Windows 2000. I've seen people in firms that refuse to update their version of windows. They all seem to hate this and don't expect much of a browsing experience from these machines anyway...

Here's an anecdote from my experience:

The majority of the users of my company's web application use IE6 on Windows 2000. Additionally, many of these computers have Vista stickers on them, and are quite powerful. Their IT groups already have established practices to support the machines, and they are used almost exclusively to surf the web and run software that was purchased 5 years ago. Our users aren't even unhappy, as their work does not center around a computer; thus, the corporate IT infrastructure has no motivation to upgrade them.

That said, we still pressure them to upgrade, and I'll be extremely happy when they eventually do.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#36

Post by otto »

sachinag wrote: post #17
alaskamiller wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even the US military subject itself to the stupidity that is IE6.

The U.S. State Department, however, does.

As of how recent?

As far as I know all government machines are running FDCC(Federal Desktop Core Configuration) and the machines I've seen run IE7 with many IT departments recommending Firefox.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#37

Post by Dobbs »

there wrote: post #6

from the comments: You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser... i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this. who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with t…

GM requires the use of IE6, or it at least did when my father last worked there (about a year and a half, two years ago). It could have changed by now but considering they were just moving from 95 to 98 when he left I doubt it.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#38

Post by eli »

drusenko wrote: post #25
aichcon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is internal legacy applications that only work in IE6. If they upgrade browsers the apps break, so in order to support these apps they keep IE 6. The question for them is 'do we spend time and money to update all of our applications to upgrade a browser, or just leave things the way they are for now?'

Same reply here as below: "Sorry, that's not an excuse. IE 8 comes with a "compatibility mode" feature where any site can choose to use the IE 6 rendering engine by setting headers or meta tags appropriately."

Nope.. that compatibility mode is for IE7, not IE6. (And my understanding is that it's not even a perfect emulation of IE7.)

Microsoft's official recommendation for developers is to install IE6 in a VM if you need to test compatibility. It's that bad.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#39

Post by pavel_lishin »

aichcon wrote: post #16
there wrote: post #6

from the comments: You do realize that a large portion of people that are using IE6 are at work where they have NO control over the browser... i hear this every time the ie6 argument comes up, and yet, i've never heard from someone that actually works in one of these IT departments that can vouch for this. who are these unsympathetic robots who, while ironically working in an IT department, are so out of touch with t…

The problem is internal legacy applications that only work in IE6. If they upgrade browsers the apps break, so in order to support these apps they keep IE 6. The question for them is 'do we spend time and money to update all of our applications to upgrade a browser, or just leave things the way they are for now?'

Sometimes the question isn't even "do we spend time and money to update our applications", because sometimes the code for the applications is long gone, along with the company that wrote it, and all they have left is the compiled code running on some server in a back closet.

Re: YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6

#40

Post by sachinag »

otto wrote: post #36
sachinag wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. State Department, however, does.

As of how recent? As far as I know all government machines are running FDCC(Federal Desktop Core Configuration) and the machines I've seen run IE7 with many IT departments recommending Firefox.

Fair - the town hall question referred to IE in general; it may very well be IE7 that they have at Foggy Bottom.
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