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A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

blog.chriszacharias.com

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Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#51

Post by nvarsj »

cpeterso wrote: post #10

Is this a charming story about helping users upgrade to modern web browsers or a dark parable about the influence of tech giants? Compare with ex-Firefox VP Johnathan Nightingale's recent thread about Google "amateur hour" and "oopses" that only affected Firefox: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871231792455686

Interesting thread... but I really doubt the oopses were intentional. Instead it's just a case of nih syndrome, where the engineers have a myopic view and only test/build for the internal Google infra and apps. The same thing happens in golang and Kubernetes.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#52

Post by kstrauser »

behringer wrote: post #37
dfabulich wrote: post #24

This is the first example I've ever heard of where a browser-upgrade banner worked . Every time I've tried it on sites I've worked on, the "please upgrade" banner does nothing. Years ago, we even tried turning it into an intrusive pop-up for a percentage of users. They just clicked through the pop-up, presumably without reading it. I wonder if it worked in this case because it started a movement? > Between YouTube, G…

There's no way this banner did anything in reality. Corporations didn't upgrade because of their tooling, not youtube. What corporation upgraded to make sure their employees could youtube harder?

I bet plenty of employees upgrade their home computers, though, and eventually started pressuring their IT department to let them use the same modern browsers at work. A CEO asking why they can't have Chrome on their work laptop is sometimes all it takes to get the ball rolling.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#53

Post by DuskStar »

skullt wrote: post #48
dTal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the effect of the banner on the graphs of each was sharp and immediate.

The graph is measuring in six month intervals, so the March 2009 release of IE 8 needs to also be considered.

It's not measuring in six month intervals, that's just the scale at the bottom. There are peaks and troughs that are very clearly higher resolution than that.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#54

Post by kbenson »

behringer wrote: post #37
dfabulich wrote: post #24

This is the first example I've ever heard of where a browser-upgrade banner worked . Every time I've tried it on sites I've worked on, the "please upgrade" banner does nothing. Years ago, we even tried turning it into an intrusive pop-up for a percentage of users. They just clicked through the pop-up, presumably without reading it. I wonder if it worked in this case because it started a movement? > Between YouTube, G…

There's no way this banner did anything in reality. Corporations didn't upgrade because of their tooling, not youtube. What corporation upgraded to make sure their employees could youtube harder?

I think it likely did. When CEO's and upper management read stories about how doing away with IE6 is better for security, and then remember they use IE6 for certain things internally, that can spur conversations that cause change. Maybe not immediate change, and maybe it has to percolate through company boundaries where enterprises express their dissatisfaction with the tooling provided them if it requires usage of tools widely believed to be insecure and change finally starts happening.

Ultimately, I think top-down change at enterprises is much faster than bottom up, and a national news story is just the sort of thing to spur a lot of top-down changes.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#55

Post by c0nfused »

behringer wrote: post #37
dfabulich wrote: post #24

This is the first example I've ever heard of where a browser-upgrade banner worked . Every time I've tried it on sites I've worked on, the "please upgrade" banner does nothing. Years ago, we even tried turning it into an intrusive pop-up for a percentage of users. They just clicked through the pop-up, presumably without reading it. I wonder if it worked in this case because it started a movement? > Between YouTube, G…

There's no way this banner did anything in reality. Corporations didn't upgrade because of their tooling, not youtube. What corporation upgraded to make sure their employees could youtube harder?

How many employees lied to their boss or IT staff about needing ie7 to watch you tube harder.

My guess from my time in the trenches is about 1 in 5.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#56

Post by mherdeg »

cpeterso wrote: post #10

Is this a charming story about helping users upgrade to modern web browsers or a dark parable about the influence of tech giants? Compare with ex-Firefox VP Johnathan Nightingale's recent thread about Google "amateur hour" and "oopses" that only affected Firefox: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871231792455686

Is there a good catchy name for this "oops" stuff? It's very interesting, an interesting modern take on "embrace and extend" or "FUD".

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#57

Post by shawabawa3 »

behringer wrote: post #23
archgoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody used IE6 except grandmas and corporations. And a fifth of YouTube users at the time. "IE6 users represented around 18% of our user base at that point. We understood that we could not just drop support for it"

A fifth of youtube users were people at work. The same people who aren't allowed to change their browser or tell their boss to upgrade to IE8 so they can watch more youtube.

Youtube adding the banner triggered google docs to add the banner.

People could tell their boss they needed to upgrade browser to use google docs for work

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#58

Post by apcragg »

behringer wrote: post #37
dfabulich wrote: post #24

This is the first example I've ever heard of where a browser-upgrade banner worked . Every time I've tried it on sites I've worked on, the "please upgrade" banner does nothing. Years ago, we even tried turning it into an intrusive pop-up for a percentage of users. They just clicked through the pop-up, presumably without reading it. I wonder if it worked in this case because it started a movement? > Between YouTube, G…

There's no way this banner did anything in reality. Corporations didn't upgrade because of their tooling, not youtube. What corporation upgraded to make sure their employees could youtube harder?

Did you see the chart of browser usage correlated with this incident? The only precipitous drop in any browser usage occurred when they launched this banner. It was already on a downward trend, but an immediate drop like that is pretty hard to explain away as anything else.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#60

Post by behringer »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #57
behringer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fifth of youtube users were people at work. The same people who aren't allowed to change their browser or tell their boss to upgrade to IE8 so they can watch more youtube.

Youtube adding the banner triggered google docs to add the banner. People could tell their boss they needed to upgrade browser to use google docs for work

Oh right I forgot that part of the story as soon as I closed out and came back here. Duh. I could see that being the culprit!
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