Comments on: Govt depts in no rush to upgrade from IE6

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:14:04 +0000

I'd love to think it was me who prompted this round of PQs from Tom Watson, with this tweet of mine http://twitter.com/neillyneil/statuses/2611210553

...but it probably wasn't.

By: Carl Morris

Carl Morris — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:05:35 +0000

Telnet to port 80 anyone?

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:35:00 +0000

By convenient coincidence: Mashable had something yesterday entitled 'IE6 must die for the web to move on'. There's definitely a growing sense that we as an industry have tried to be nice about this for long enough.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:34:47 +0000

@6tricky9: Heh, "no funds" is certainly a euphemism where I'm currently employed: record profits last year but there's a pay freeze for the lucky ones and redundancy for everyone else.

By: 6tricky9

6tricky9 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:29:15 +0000

@GetReal: It's not so much about flaws but about standards. Microsoft always wanted the web to work its way and because IE was so dominant it was able to achieve that. Now that there is more browser competition Microsoft has become much more W3C compliant with IE8. @Stuart: I understand your dilemma. I don't know what the answer is other than systematic pressure and, of course, education. I've never believed the "no funds" argument; it's just that IT is generally given such a low priority that funds are diverted elsewhere.

By: GetReal

GetReal — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:15:19 +0000

OK, so let's dump our old browser with known flaws for a shiny new one with unknown flaws so that some geeks can write overly complex and inaccessible Javascript. Hurrah for progress!

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:20:38 +0000

It's customary during discussions about IE6 for someone to point out that it's all well and good talking about withdrawing support, but that a large chunk of non-upgraders are stuck behind a corporate policy where intranet applications have been designed solely for IE6 - and there are no funds to ensure those apps get tested with other browsers.

And this time that person is me

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying. And perhaps these government departments have to support old applications too.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:13:24 +0000

Amusingly, this very subject came up in Hillary Clinton's 'town hall' staff meeting at the US Department of State last week. Watch this video (ffwd to 26:30)... and listen to the staff reaction when the question is asked.

By: 6tricky9

6tricky9 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:01:47 +0000

Perhaps if web designers stopped making allowances in their code for IE6 then it would become even more unusable and people/companies/organisations would be forced to abandon it.

I know that the accepted procedure in the past has been to make a website as backwardly compatible as possible, and to construct it so that all browsers are able to parse it (within reason), but maybe this is no longer necessary. After all, how difficult is it to install a current web browser?

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:00:20 +0000

James: you may be the only person on the planet celebrating the prospect of moving 'up' to Vista.

Alex: I'm a little wary on the YouTube story, as let's be honest, Google now have a direct interest in getting people to rethink their choice of browser. But certainly, we're starting to see more and more sites saying 'you know what, it's your problem, not ours.' I mused about HMG doing likewise a year ago; and I wasn't entirely kidding.