These are the words web designers, the world over, have been waiting to hear for a very long time.
Microsoft announced the decision earlier this week to roll out silent updates – starting in January – for users who have not, for whatever reason, updated to the newest version of IE. There are a few points:
If you are on Windows XP, you will be upgraded to Internet Explorer 8. IE 9 does not work on XP.
Windows Vista and 7 users not using IE 9 will be upgraded to IE 9.
Windows Automatic updating must be turned on.
Corporations unable to upgrade their IE 6 legacy applications OR corporations who have IT staff who test upgrades before rolling them out to the rest of the company, will be able to opt out of the upgrade using the IE 8 and IE 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits.
Truth be told, I have stopped developing/supporting applications for IE 6 and 7 and I only marginally support IE 8. If someone is using IE 8, there’s no reason why they should not switch to IE 9. If their favorite site works in IE 8 but is broken on newer browsers then the problem is the people developing the site. Write them and tell them to join the rest of us.
In the news recently, Google has made accusations that people within China have used exploits within Internet Explorer to access Gmail accounts of activists and dissidents as well as going after tech and industrial companies in the United States. Versign’s iDefense unit confirmed that attacks had taken place.
A couple of days later, code used in the attack was released publicly. Microsoft confirmed that the code is included within Internet Explorer 7 and 8 but that the code could only be exploited in Internet Explorer 6 on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Microsoft used this opportunity to tout Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 saying, “Hey! We have more secure products right here!”
I have a huge problem with this for a couple of reasons. Only a few months ago, Microsoft reiterated it’s continued support of IE6 explaining that people expect everything they got in an operating system will continue to work throughout it’s life span. Even with the massive security problems, Microsoft continued to support IE6. But with this newest and probably worst security flaw for IE6, is Microsoft singing a different tune? No, they are not. They only want to sell more Windows 7 DVDs.
As I explained in this posting, there are many companies – large and small – who are still using Windows XP. Many of those companies are still using IE6 to support web-based software written by hacks who thought it was a good idea to only develop for IE6. In that posting, I pointed out an Ars Technica article which supported Microsoft’s take that they could not stop supporting IE6. I still believe that this is a bad position to take. I can only point out the troubles I have developing web sites and programs trying to support a NINE YEAR OLD program. Web technology has left IE6 in the dust but yet we web developers are still expected to support it. And then we are told that while we support it, we need to tell people that they should upgrade to IE8 because, “It’s more secure!”
Cut the crap already! People won’t listen to people like me. I’m just some asshole with a blog. But they will listen to Microsoft. And the best thing Microsoft could say is that they will kill support for IE6. As for other web programmers, stop writing code for IE6. IT Admins, move the company to IE8. Stop hiding behind lame excuses about money, time or the “training” it will take to bring all of the automatons in the company up to speed with IE8.
For the past week I have been scripting, using the XMLHTTPRequest object. I use a check to see if the object receives the correct oks from the server so it can continue executing. It’s two items wrapped into a JavaScript if() statement. I test the readyState and the status. This was the if() statement I had written:
The code executed correctly in all browsers I tested (FF 3.5, Chrome 3, Opera 10.10, Safari 4 for Windows) and IE 8/IE 8 as IE 7. However, IE 8/IE 8 as IE 7 threw out an “Unspecified Error at character 3” error message. I did some googling and played around with some solutions (this try/catch solution worked as well). Then, I looked at some older code I did and I saw that I had written this if() statement backwards. So, I changed the if() statement to this:
The error no longer appears in IE 8/IE 8 as IE 7. I don’t understand why it matters to IE which goes first but this was just a big waste of time for something so trivial.
Last week, on their YouTube IE8 channel, Microsoft released a video in an attempt to push the poor souls who are still using IE6 to move to IE8. If this campaign looks familiar, it should. Well, at least in the States it should look familiar. Microsoft used kids in it’s campaign to inform the masses that Windows 7 was coming.
A brief history from my POV…
Internet Explorer has been a pain for web developers everywhere for years now. Back in the days, Microsoft had the intention to remake the web the way they wanted. Microsoft had an advantage with the fact that Internet Explorer was bundled with Windows. While regular users were unaware, those who cared knew the effects of Internet Explorer on the internet. These effects can be listed as effects on security and effects on standardizing the development of web pages and the programs that are written for these web sites.
A group called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) drafts “standards” which define how web pages can be developed. They also define programming methods for web programming languages. While Internet Explorer has adhered to a good deal of these standards, Microsoft has developed Internet Explorer in a way that goes against these standards by making it’s own rules for web sites.
In the early days of commercial web development, most developers would either make web sites that would either work correctly in Internet Explorer or Netscape – the major competitor to IE, or both. This was a challenge for two reasons: 1. Back then there just was not enough information widely available where developers could easily find the information needed to make web sites correctly. 2. As stated above, Internet Explorer came bundled with Windows making it more appealing to developers to just make web sites that worked in Internet Explorer without checking if the site worked in another browser. After all, everyone has Windows!
Along comes a Firefox…
Some years later, Firefox came along. Netscape was dying a quick death. It had been beaten hands down by Internet Explorer which was enjoying well over 90% of the browser market and was eventually sold off to AOL. Firefox appealed to people because it was more secure than Internet Explorer, which was integrated into Windows. It was faster than Internet Explorer. And for web developers, it was nearly standards compliant.
Firefox was a godsend for web developers who now had a poster child to point to “Internet Explorer Only” web developers and say, “See, this is how the web is supposed to look like!”. Since Firefox’s release, other worthy competitors have come out with their own standards compliant web browsers such as: Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Opera. These web browsers not only have excellent support for Cascading Style Sheets, but they also have excellent support for JavaScript.
Meanwhile, Internet Explorer continued to lag far behind. Internet Explorer 6, which is most at issue here, was released with better security (Ironic, considering IE6 and it’s integration into Windows was one of the big security problems pre Windows XP SP1) but little change in it’s support of web standards. IE6 still enjoyed widespread use and Microsoft saw no reason to change the way it approached the internet. However, because of the massive security problems that plagued Windows and IE, IE began to lose it’s lead in the browser market to the alternative browsers. IE7 was released with better (read: it’s ok but nothing big) CSS support and tabbed browsing – just like the alternative browsers. IE7 marked the time when an Internet Explorer browser was not part of the Windows shell – meaning it became a standalone program.
When IE8 was released IE’s dominance in the browser market had been seriously degraded as Firefox ate away at IE’s share with other alternative browsers far behind but slowly gaining. Internet Explorer finally had excellent CSS support but continued to have lousy JavaScript support. I maintain several web site and in the past year I have seen the number of visitors using IE drop sharply. The users still using IE6 have dropped even further.
Final thoughts and the video
It might be hard for someone who does not do commercial web development to understand the problems that I have run into over the years with web developer and Internet Explorer. Multi-browser testing is now a required part of web development. Web sites must be tested in all “major” browsers such as: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Opera. Throughout the time of commercial internet use, smart people have developed “hacks” in order to ensure that what a web site is supposed to look like, looks exactly the same way in Internet Explorer. This is not how it should be. All competing web browsers should display web pages the same way while developing ways for the browsers to render these pages faster and add additional features which will enhance your web surfing experience.
Getting all browser makers on board the standards train is imperative now. Microsoft, having been nearly defeated in the browser wars, is finally starting to realize that it needs to stand in line with everyone else. This is why it’s beginning this campaign. While this is a good thing, I don’t understand how this campaign will convince corporations and smaller businesses to move to IE8. I say this because there are, unfortunately, companies who use software that is specifically made for IE6 and lower. Upgrading this software for these companies will be expensive. The second reason is because IE6 will continue to enjoy some support from Microsoft for some years to come because Windows XP will have extended support until at least 2014. This is unfortunate and regardless what Ars has to say about it in that article, Microsoft does have some responsibility in killing support for IE6. After all, it was Microsoft’s fault in the first place.
GophaSpeak 