A Conspiracy to Kill IE6 • Hacker News Board

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#91

Post by reaperducer » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

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.

I really doubt the oopses were intentional.

It doesn't matter if they were intentional. The author mentioned there may hav been hundreds of these "oops" events. Assuming it wasn't intentional, Google knew there was a problem and chose not to fix it.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Or in Google's case, "fool Mozilla a hundred times..."

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#92

Post by pjmlp » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #19

pjmlp wrote: post #15

Incredible how everyone is rejoicing with this story. Enjoy your new Chrome master.

I'm posting from Firefox. You don't have to love Chrome to hate IE6.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Also posting from Firefox.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#93

Post by sonnyblarney » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

It would be a funny thing were it not for the fact that we have a massive company doing blatantly anti-competitive things.

If the Feds every want to try to break up G, this will be submitted as evidence.

Edit: this is exactly what a monopolizer looks like in action. One tactical move at a time, until they have full control of an adjacent layer in the value chain. In this case browsers.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#94

Post by reaperducer » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #67

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.

I don't follow Firefox news. Can you supply some examples?

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#95

Post by reaperducer » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

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?

There's no way this banner did anything in reality. Corporations didn't upgrade because of their tooling, not youtube.

Don't underestimate the power of employees to influence employers.

iPhones didn't end up all over the enterprise space because Blackberry walked away from the market.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#96

Post by syphilis2 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

This is a fun story and an easy read. I like how much hand wringing there was about possibly favoring Chrome. Earlier this year YouTube showed me a similar banner: "Watch YouTube videos with Chrome. Yes, get Chrome now." https://i.postimg.cc/x8cFCcB2/Google.png

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#97

Post by dreamcompiler » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

On behalf of the entire Internet-using world, thank you.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#98

Post by justplay » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

wow. This story is one of my favorite read so far. thank you for sharing it.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#99

Post by gmueckl » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

skunkworker wrote: post #18

acheron wrote: post #16

I like the lawyers being concerned about the possibility they were pushing Chrome. Obviously Google soon decided that wasn’t a problem. (And now we’re back where we started with Chrome as the new IE.)

That part reminded me of the BrowserChoice.eu site that Microsoft had to put up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

Wasn't that at roughly the same time? I think thus explains why the lawyers got nervous about the banner.

Re: A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

#100

Post by aeorgnoieang » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #12

There is another thread about a Code of Ethics for developers. This is an interesting case study. In many ways what they did was unethical but the result was probably positive overall. How do you deal with that? Ethics is hard and very dependent on the details of the situation.

Your comment covers the gamut of ethical theories. A 'code of ethics' is going to be some combination of deontology and virtue ethics and will typically prohibit cases like this post describes.

> In many ways what they did was unethical but the result was probably positive overall.

And that kind of thinking is the other, newer branch of ethics: consequentialism/utilitarianism.

My conclusion is that deontology and virtue ethics are necessary heuristics as actually calculating or estimating the consequences of any action are almost always effectively impossible, but, ultimately, what we care about are exactly those consequences, so we're never able to adequately 'cover' morality without, at least sometimes, explicitly considering them.