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A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

blog.chriszacharias.com

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Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#61

Post by cpeterso »

nvarsj wrote: post #51
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.

If YouTube developers are pushing changes that break IE6 layout for the "hundredth time" or crash the browser or OS, it sounds like they didn't have adequate QA or didn't test IE6, even though it was used by 18% of their users. "Nobody joining the team could be expected to know that early versions of IE" had some quirk could be caught by code reviews and QA.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#62

Post by toast0 »

dTal wrote: post #26

Interestingly, according to the graph at the end, IE6 was already well on its way out and they only accelerated its death by a few months. The real effect seems to have been stopping IE7 dead in its tracks, and almost single-handedly catapulting IE8 to the top. A most peculiar effect, despite the banner's promotion of IE8, since only IE6 users should have seen it! I smell an untold story... maybe one of the other tea…

People who upgraded to IE7 were capable and willing to upgrade, and more likely to upgrade to a later version when available.

IE8 was the included browser with Windows 7, which was generally well received compared to Vista which included IE7.

The timing lines up within the release window of IE 8 (March 2009) and Windows 7 (July 2009), so potentially a lot of upgrade push from other things in the air at the time.

Edit to add: people on ie7 because it came with Vista probably had a more capable/pushy update system than those on XP with ie6; but I don't remember the details on how microsoft system updates worked at the time.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#63

Post by amiga-workbench »

mattmanser wrote: post #33
umvi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (And now we’re back where we started with Chrome as the new IE.) Except for the part where you get BSoD and infinite recursion or any of the other stated IE6 nightmares... Really, the only thing Chrome and IE have in common are market share. Chrome is magnitudes better than IE in every other way as far as being a web dev goes.

And IE6 was similarly tons better the Netscape Navigator. It had XmlHttp, inventing Ajax, which revolutionised the web. Easy to forget that now. Also, did you know IE6 pioneered the browser web dev tools? IE6 was the first browser you could debug your JavaScript, css and html, which was copied by firebug about 12 months later. I can't even remember what it was called now, IE Dev toolbox? Something strange, you had to…

It was the Developer Toolbar, I've got a pet project that I'm making compatible with IE5 and its challenging to work without it.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#65

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

ADP announced deprecation for IE10 and IE11 last year. They apparently didn't realize that Edge doesn't run in Win7 which many of their customers still have deployed, given the issues surrounding Win8 and 10.

I guess they can use this as an excuse to not upgrade their shitshow flash app that beings a multi-core processor to it's knees just navigating between entry fields.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#66

Post by ljm »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #42
ljm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fascinating tech story, but it would easily turn into a horror if we weren't talking about something like a video hosting platform. Imagine working at a medical or financial company and having secretive 'old timer' permissions that basically backdoored the company's engineering processes. Even if the engineers saw a good reason to do so. I mean, who are we to say that this was doing it right ? It turned out to…

Yes. I love the story, and if I had been in charge I don't see how I could do anything but fire the whole lot of them. Although... the number of people involved in the "OldTubers" backdoor seems to have been pretty substantial, I don't know if they could really have fired all of them... But who is anyone to say if doing anything is "right"? We're all equally qualified to have a moral compass.

I'd keep them on board but I'd get rid of that backdoor and encourage them to adapt to the new situation, for a number of reasons:

- 'OldTubers' vs. the new Googlers is a clear us v. them thing. Bad for culture, especially when you get privileges on top. - Their plan was actually successful so there must have been a thing or two to learn on the product side, even if it's as simple as accepting engineering input and understanding the difficulty of maintaining stuff (as opposed to relying on the analytics). - There's some good thinking and ingenuity in there, despite the methodology.

I'd want to keep hold of that talent while dealing with burgeoning elitism. Up to them to quit if they don't like the changes. Fire them if their contribution begins to suffer.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#67

Post by vetinari »

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

I find it ironic that Mozilla complains about this, when they do exactly the same wrt platforms supported by Firefox.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#68

Post by cpeterso »

dTal wrote: post #26

Interestingly, according to the graph at the end, IE6 was already well on its way out and they only accelerated its death by a few months. The real effect seems to have been stopping IE7 dead in its tracks, and almost single-handedly catapulting IE8 to the top. A most peculiar effect, despite the banner's promotion of IE8, since only IE6 users should have seen it! I smell an untold story... maybe one of the other tea…

Here's StatCounter's graph of browser version market share for 2009. IE6 and IE7 were already on their way out, being replaced by IE8 and Chrome.

http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-version-partially-combined...

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#69

Post by stestagg »

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #43
timw4mail wrote: post #11

IE 6 rightfully deserved this. However, the modern policy of supporting only the latest browsers can also be too extreme. Web browsers have gotten to be MUCH more resource intensive than the IE6 days. Try loading any "modern" site on a "modern" browser on a netbook. (Or any computer with an Atom processor). While its "compatibility" has waned, I really appreciate Opera 12 for its performance on humble machines. No mo…

>Web browsers have gotten to be MUCH more resource intensive than the IE6 days. Try loading any "modern" site on a "modern" browser on a netbook. (Or any computer with an Atom processor). They didn't, the current web browsers are faster than ever. The problem is that websites are getting heavier and heavier.

Unfortunately 'resource intensive' != 'slower'.

There are many tricks played by modern browsers to speed up page speeds. Many of them increase resource usage in the process.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#70

Post by jrochkind1 »

ljm wrote: post #66
jrochkind1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I love the story, and if I had been in charge I don't see how I could do anything but fire the whole lot of them. Although... the number of people involved in the "OldTubers" backdoor seems to have been pretty substantial, I don't know if they could really have fired all of them... But who is anyone to say if doing anything is "right"? We're all equally qualified to have a moral compass.

I'd keep them on board but I'd get rid of that backdoor and encourage them to adapt to the new situation, for a number of reasons: - 'OldTubers' vs. the new Googlers is a clear us v. them thing. Bad for culture, especially when you get privileges on top. - Their plan was actually successful so there must have been a thing or two to learn on the product side, even if it's as simple as accepting engineering input and u…

Yes, you're right, there are options available other than 'firing' and that's the right one. This is why I'm not a manager. :)
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