Browsers | Tim Murtaugh

Google Shows IE6 the Way Out

Feb 2, ’10 3:52 PM

Today Google announced it would be gradually phasing out IE6 support for all of its apps: Gmail, Google Docs, etc. This is very welcome news, but I doubt it will be much of a nail in IE6′s coffin — much less the final one.

IE6 is hanging on for one reason: Corporate IT environments. IE6 is the product of a Microsoft that, in 2001, was still trying to monopolize the web — not necessarily the content of it, but the creation of it. This was also right around the time the web was embraced as a way to decentralize information, and a lot of very big companies dedicated a lot of resources to building tools that may have been “web-based” (and therefore decentralized) but used proprietary technologies and coding techniques that made them inaccessible to anyone not using a browser that didn’t support these non-standard means.

Not such a big deal in 2001, when IE had clearly won the browser wars of the 90s, but a very big deal now. Users are much more aware of their alternatives and seemingly much more comfortable making a change. (The incredibly speedy rise in the popularity of Google’s Chrome speaks loudly to this.) They may not know why we as developers prefer one browser to another, but finally the experience of using a better browser is winning users over.

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The only good thing about the new IE: RSS Feeds

Apr 28, ’06 5:26 PM

So, we all know IE 7 is coming. We know it’s likely to not be much better than anything that came previously.

However, there is one thing to look forward to: With the advent of IE 7, a large portion of internet users will be introduced to RSS for the first time. Plus, it will come in a wrapper they understand (IE), so they are more likely to embrace it.

IMHO, RSS is a total no-brainer: set it, and forget it, how cool is that? The site lets you know when it has been updated — no more treks through bookmarks on the off-chance that a site has new content.

I know, I know, everyone who’s reading this likely has a list of 5000 RSS feeds they read, and RSS ain’t new. But the overall adoption numbers are very small, and the new IE will make that better.

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Bahaha — Safari Lightly Mocks IE

Apr 26, ’06 3:51 PM

For whatever reason, I viewed the source of a 404 page I received in Safari — I thought this comment was lightly amusing:

   - Unfortunately, Microsoft has added a clever new
   - "feature" to Internet Explorer. If the text of
   - an error's message is "too small", specifically
   - less than 512 bytes, Internet Explorer returns
   - its own error message. You can turn that off,
   - but it's pretty tricky to find switch called
   - "smart error messages". That means, of course,
   - that short error messages are censored by default.
   - IIS always returns error messages that are long
   - enough to make Internet Explorer happy. The
   - workaround is pretty simple: pad the error
   - message with a big comment like this to push it
   - over the five hundred and twelve bytes minimum.
   - Of course, that's exactly what you're reading
   - right now.

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YES! It’s UP!!1! Seedmagazine.com Lives!

Nov 15, ’05 7:47 PM

So, this is what we’ve been working on for the last few months:

» Seed: Science is Culture

Mike designed it and did all the flash bits, I did the front end and some major Movable Type wrangling.

Yeah — we used a blogging tool for a news site. MT is da bomb, don’tyouknow.

I’ll have more later, but, for now, it’s Miller time.

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“Home” Pages

Sep 15, ’05 6:17 PM

When you first install an OS, or a new browser, or get a new computer, the first time you launch your web browser it has a home page assigned (in IE’s case it’s MSN, for Firefox I think it’s the FF Google Search page).

I understand why the browser-maker wants me to have one, but why would I want one?

Perhaps it’s because I’m on my computer all day, every day. I use the web for a multitude of tasks, so I can’t imagine one site that I would want to see every time I load up the browser. Perhaps a home page is useful for someone who’s not so connected to their PC — someone who goes online to check email or weather or news.

But for me? I tried having Google as my home page for a while, but I still begrudged the two seconds I had to wait for it to load. For all my browsers (at last count, Safari, Firefox (2 platforms), IE6, IE5 (three flavors, two platforms), Netscape 7 (two platforms)) I set the home page to be blank. No wasted time or bandwidth.

I bring this up because of this blog entry by a former IE developer. He recently switched to Firefox, and outlines his reasons why he weeps for IE.

He also describes some weaknesses (as he sees them) in FF, and one of them is that…

Firefox goes against IE behavior and starts each browser instance from scratch. IE intentionally brings the browser history into the new window: the bet being that users who want to continue from where they left off can, and those that want to go their home page can do that with one click.

This is one of my pet peeves of IE — whenever you hit Ctrl-N to open a new window, it re-opens the page you were viewing in the original window. This has always seemed like bizarre behavior to me. I’m opening a new window, why in the world would I want to re-open the page I already have open? Along with it comes possibly all its images, all its ads, all its javascript (which may break having been taken into a new window). All this means I will have to wait to perform the function that I opened the new window for in the first place. (All of this would be a little less annoying if IE’s Stop button worked consistently. But it doesn’t.)

I’m realizing now that this has very little to do with the home page I started talking about, but whatever. You get what you pay for.

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