Tag Archives: Internet Explorer

Google Apps is ceasing support for Internet Explorer 6 as of March 1st

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Google sent us the email below stating that they will no longer support IE 6. So contact your IT staff and tell them you need to make sure you are upgraded. We suggest you get IE 8, Firefox 3.5, or Google Chrome 5 (the fastest browser) and for Mac users get Safari 4.0. You might a well upgrade to the latest version if you need to upgrade.

Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

Popular websites like YouTube dropping support for IE6

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Several popular websites such as YouTube and Digg will soon drop support for Internet Explorer 6. The is a strong move to prompt more people to upgrade to a modern standards-compliant browser.

Hopefully, more sites will join YouTube (third most popular website on the internet) and Digg (48th most popular in the US) to reduce the overall market share at a faster rate of the decrepit browser. Currently IE6 is still being used by 12% of people in the US.

Why are we (and many other developers) concerned with how many people use IE6? It is totally aggravating to have to write all kinds of extra code to ensure that websites that we build will work well in IE6. It is similar to having your keyboard broken on your computer. When you press the “a” button on your keyboard you would expect an “a” to show up on your screen. But if a “q” showed up it would be very frustrating.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it is our company policy that new sites we build will be supported on the current and the previous version of all of the major browsers (IE, FireFox, Opera, Safari and Chrome) which covers over 99% of all internet users. Some of you may ask “Why are you still supporting IE6 since it is 2 versions old?” The answer is we will still support it for now because IE6 still has quite a bit of market share, but it’s days are numbered. We’ll be sure to let you know when we stop writing extra code to ensure that new sites we build will work with IE6.

Sources:
TechCrunch – YouTube Will Be Next To Kiss IE6 Support Goodbye
Browser market share

Internet Explorer 8 is released

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The 8th version of Internet Explorer has been released and it is better than IE7. It offers the typical enhancements of a new version of a browser including…

  • Tighter security features
  • Faster load times for pages
  • An easier to use interface

One of the most innovative new feature of IE8 is called Accelerators, which is an add-on that make things like mapping an address or emailing the page much faster. For example, if you come across an address on a web page simply highlight the text and click on the button that appears to get driving directions. There are many other Accelerators which people are building which will add many time saving shortcuts.

Another new feature in IE8 is called Web Slices which makes some of your commonly used information on the web available as soon as you get on the web. Examples include keeping track of your eBay purchases, staying up to day with the latest sports scores or the weather in your area. It is similar to a favorite (or bookmark) but it displays the page in a small drop-down window.

Overall it is a decent browser. If you are currently using IE7 you should feel comfortable upgrading. If you are an IE6 user, what are you waiting for? In my opinion, FireFox, Opera and Chrome are better browsers, but if you your used to using IE, then upgrading would be suggested.

Some of you may or may not know, it is our company policy that new sites we build will be supported on the current and previous version of all of the major browsers (IE, FireFox, Opera, Safari and Chrome) which covers over 99% of all internet users. Some of you may ask “Are you still going to support IE6 now that IE8 is out?” which is a good question because IE6 is now two versions old and falls out of our policy. The answer is we will for now because IE6 still has quite a bit of market share (it’s currently at 17% and falling), but it’s days are numbered. We’ll be sure to let you know when we stop writing extra code to ensure that new sites we build will work with IE6.