Even Microsoft doesn’t want you using IE6

Matt Jancaitis 2 Dec, 2009 at 3:36am ET Article published in Tech

Microsoft has started an active campaign to spur people away from using IE6 in favor of, naturally, their own IE8. Their reasons are the same as any knowledgeable tech enthusiast—it’s insecure, it holds back the evolution of the Internet, it smells bad—but anything that gets people off of IE6 is good news to the rest of us.

To start this campaign, MS has targeted users that Just Don’t Know Any Better™ with videos and “web slices”:

The campaign’s first visible elements are a video aimed at online holiday shoppers and a Web slice to promote daily deals at eBay. Web slices are basically live bookmarks that can show miniature Web pages in the browser.

“What we’re doing with the outreach is help users understand how to protect themselves against social engineering threats that exist and to help people understand how Internet Explorer 8 puts people in control of their own privacy online,” said Ryan Servatius, senior product manager for Internet Explorer. via

There may be better alternatives to IE8—and people around Icrontic will be happy to tell you some of their favorites—but any move to free the world of the browser that managed to inspire overly judgmental splash screens is a good one in our book.

Comments

2 Dec 2009 ~ 3:42am Linc Even Icrontic has a splash message, but it isn't overly judgmental because we know some people don't have a choice
2 Dec 2009 ~ 4:12am Snarkasm I should have clarified, but MS acknowledges that there are employees at corporations and others that are forced to use IE6. They're targeting the other group - the Just Don't Know Any Betters - to try and educate them and get them to switch.

Naturally, Windows 7 adoption will increase IE8 uptake and hopefully shrink IE6's numbers; I just hope that's sooner rather than later.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 7:43am ardichoke inb4
I still find it hard to believe that there exists a real legitimate reason for continuing to use IE6 for 99.99% of the world.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 8:17am lordbean LOL @ the code for the facepalm being tim.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 10:14am mirage I don't use any version of IE anyway.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 11:10am Bevans Isn't it mostly the fault of IT people who, for a variety of reasons, don't want to upgrade their company's computers?
2 Dec 2009 ~ 11:18am _k HA watch it buddy. I would love to change some things about the way the company operates but I get told no a lot. Playing the blame game with your IT department never gets you any where, except to the bottom of the help desk queue.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 12:26pm Butters There are legacy hardware / software / OS considerations that still prevent organizations from advancing to the next decade in technology. Fixing one issue will certainly cause several other issues.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 12:27pm Snarkasm It's more often because of proprietary old code blobs that corps run on their intranet servers to that now are a critical underlying piece of some critically-needed software, and nobody wants to pay to have it updated. Guess what sticks around with all of the silly hacks IE6 allowed?
2 Dec 2009 ~ 12:33pm jared http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/15-amazing-anti-ie-resources
2 Dec 2009 ~ 1:02pm Cliff_Forster Maybe Microsoft should just rebrand IE6 as its "enterprise edition" and charge businesses to maintain support for it? Problem solved.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 1:52pm jared As others have said, many corporations including Best Buy, Wells Fargo, etc have software that was written back in the day that only works in IE6.

This counts for a hefty % of IE6 users.

However as a developer, this demographic doesn't really concern me. I could care less if a user went to my website on their lunch hour at work and my site doesn't render right.

What DOES concern me are all the consumers running IE6. These are the people we must get to upgrade. People who actively use the interweb and have some how avoided upgrading to IE7 or IE8 - *cough* Tim *cough*. THESE people are why designers/developers still have to often support IE6 - and can add 5-10% to the project costs depending on the complexity.

I understand some people are stuck with IE6. That sucks. I have sympathy for you, but it's the consumer who either don't know better or refuse to upgrade that chaps my ass.
2 Dec 2009 ~ 5:05pm ardichoke Way to go Tim, you make the internet cost 5-10% more (according to jared).

Yes I realize I'm taking your argument totally out of context.
3 Dec 2009 ~ 1:13pm Tim I think someone is trying to tell me something.....
3 Dec 2009 ~ 1:21pm Thrax

Tim wrote:

I think everyone is trying to tell me something.....

Fixed. Also, good troll.