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IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?

By | January 3, 2012, 1:12pm PST

Summary: IE6’s slow death says a lot about the enterprise, which is one reason the browser stuck around as long as it did.

Usage of Internet Explorer 6 has dropped below 1 percent. Microsoft and security pros everywhere are happy about IE6’s demise.

Microsoft has some shtick about the whole IE6 death meme, but it’s worth asking why this decrepit browser lasted as long as it did. In many respects, IE6’s slow death—it was like watching paint dry—says a lot about the enterprise, which is one reason the browser stuck around as long as it did.

Here are some thoughts on the meaning behind IE6’s end:

  1. Corporations moved at a glacial pace. Yes Virginia, you still can get a laptop with a Windows XP image and an IE6 browser. What’s it mean? A few companies still don’t value modern Web standards and may never upgrade PCs again until employees walk out.
  2. Enterprises boxed themselves in by programming applications to work with IE6. As Microsoft moved on, companies stayed in place. Tight budgets meant that IE6 stuck around way past its useful life.
  3. People view change and then puke. You’d think a browser swap would be simple. It’s odd that Microsoft had to mount a kill IE6 campaign. People—who happen to make up companies—frequently resist change. IE6 was like an old blanket that wore thin after being carried around for a decade.

Check out the tortured tale of IE6:

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Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Web Browsers, Internet, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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Nope.
Lester Young 11th Jan
@Michael Kelly

IE6 was known to be broken with regard to emerging web standards for quite some time, but what was really broken was the dysfunctional relationship between Microsoft and crappy developers. Microsoft allowed developers of substandard software to essentially call the shots for years. When Microsoft would announce intentions to standardize on more up to date and secure conventions, they weren't taken seriously. They had always been the first to blink before, so why should they start acting more forcefully? When Microsoft followed through, all of the bozos who refused to change their substandard practices howled about breaking compatibility with their substandard apps. IE6's (and to a certain extent XP's) long farewell says that the IT world is full of lazy incompetents who thought that they could force the rest of the world down to their level, and that Microsoft fostered that mentality by being wishy-washy with them until problems had festered for way too long.
View in thread
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MS sold their customers on non-standard software
Michael Kelly 3rd Jan
and then after they spent a fortune on it they wonder why those customers are reluctant to spend another fortune to abandon that software.

It's not about disliking change, it's about disliking spending money to fix something that to them is not broken (or should not have been broken). When they spent all that money on their customized IE6 compatible apps they had no reason to believe MS would ever break compatibility.
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Well that's not exactly true
Johnny Vegas 3rd Jan
MS offered their customers the web and their customers said "that's not good enough" for what we want to do. So MS said since the web is moving at a glacial pace we'll let you do a few extra things that are critical to getting your jobs done, with the understanding that if you choose to take advantage of them they are non standard. MS never "wondered" why those who did were reluctant to spend to change and move on. It was always very obvious to all and a business decision those companies chose. Everyone understood that eventually the game would change and MS would not support that stuff forever. They are very clear about their end of life policies and give very long lead times. Same is true of their os's, office, etc. It probably would have made their job of pushing people along easier if the web didnt move at such a glacial pace but it does. It's been how many years since HTML4 recommendatiaon and how many more until HTML5 recommendation? That's why things like IE6 extensions and flash and silverlight get built and take a long time to disappear. There's still tons in flash/silverlight that wont be doable in HTML5 a couple years from now.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
Bozzer 3rd Jan
@Johnny Vegas

I've never heard history twisted so far from the truth. Um, ActiveX...
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
joshandrebekah Updated - 4th Jan
NT
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 4th Jan
@Michael Kelly

"it's about disliking spending money to fix something that to them is not broken"

But it was and is in fact very, very, very broken!

-Security holes galore and zero security mitigation.
-Horrific rendering of web pages.
-Unable to use new web technologies.
-Painfully slow, especially if you want to use the latest web apps built around today's faster JavaScript engines.

The thing was broken to its very core. So very broken it simply wasn't funny anymore. Broken to the point where it's unusable.

"When they spent all that money on their customized IE6 compatible apps they had no reason to believe MS would ever break compatibility."

That simply was not true. Not true at all. Everybody and their brother knew that Microsoft wasn't following standards, everybody knew that browsers were constantly changing how they rendered pages due to the IE vs Netscape competition, and everybody knew that Microsoft's broken behavior had to change eventually. If you really, really thought that rendering pages incorrectly was going to last, you were totally ignorant.

I'm sorry, this was never going to last. Especially when Firefox started becoming popular. That should have sent a warning sign all over the place, especially as it began to eat up IE's market share. I'm sorry, there's no excuse. I'm not buying it.
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Nope.
Lester Young 11th Jan
@Michael Kelly

IE6 was known to be broken with regard to emerging web standards for quite some time, but what was really broken was the dysfunctional relationship between Microsoft and crappy developers. Microsoft allowed developers of substandard software to essentially call the shots for years. When Microsoft would announce intentions to standardize on more up to date and secure conventions, they weren't taken seriously. They had always been the first to blink before, so why should they start acting more forcefully? When Microsoft followed through, all of the bozos who refused to change their substandard practices howled about breaking compatibility with their substandard apps. IE6's (and to a certain extent XP's) long farewell says that the IT world is full of lazy incompetents who thought that they could force the rest of the world down to their level, and that Microsoft fostered that mentality by being wishy-washy with them until problems had festered for way too long.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
raleighthings 3rd Jan
Most people are not computer nerds or programmers. To them IE6 is like a hammer. It should be working until it is obviously broken. Telling them to quit using it because of broken things they cannot see or understand (security) just doesn't make sense. There's nothing in their day to day experience that allows them to relate to it.
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Your premise is wrong. It stuck around becuase it's still useful.
Johnny Vegas 3rd Jan
What it says about us is that we're pragmatic and not going to spend resources interating on new tech faster than the roi pays off. It's a pretty positive thing despite how much it's costing Microsoft. MS on the other hand is doing exactly the same thing by not putting IE9/IE10 on XP. They probably could have gotten the upgrade done a bit faster if they had but then they'd have the same problem only worse getting the XP upgrades moving. Again pragmatic and timed for roi.
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IE6 was crap and you know it
Mikael_z 3rd Jan
@Johnny Vegas
Development on IE stood still for many years until the Mozilla team started to develop a real browser that is actually useful for the user, not the malware writers. Today IE still is far behind and just as insecure as before.
IE useful? Who are you trying to convince?
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Sorry, you are clearly out of touch with Mr. Joe Average.
Cayble 3rd Jan
@Mikael_z

IE useful? Uhh...ya, sorry again, but ye without a clue; yes IE = very useful.

And for an unusual number of people, even IE6 is useful. What geeks like you fail to understand is that in the long run, screaming bloody blue murder about security problems don't mount to a hill of beans to the countless millions who never have had a significant security breach. Thats not to say that they might soon at any time, but lets face it; when they haven't, its harder to convince them they may. I just got a cousin off of IE6 over the holidays, and as far as he was concerned himself, he couldn't have cared less. Because he never had a single problem of significance with IE6. Like millions of people.

And this is one of the most prevalent problems with far too many writers and posters around here as they seem to have little grasp on the millions of families who have no real IT knowledge of any significance but still have a computer and laptop in the home thats used daily. So many still do not properly update and there are still many that use a computer online so little that they often do little more then check email once or twice a day or log into Facebook for a quick look. Some of those have little to no awareness of the state of their AV, the version of their browser or if there automatic updates are even turned on. The sheer fact that its so many of these types that have continued to use IE6 for so long is somewhat of a positive testament to the actual risk to IE6 security as opposed to the potential security risks of IE6.

Its like practically 99.9% of the security problems we read about. Even the most potentially dangerous, for the vast majority, the actual effect ends up being ZERO and for them the risk assessment appears to be vastly overblown.

The bottom line is, yes IE is very useful, and quite frankly I for one feel every other browser feels like a plastic piece of crap compared to IE. But thats just my opinion. And that apparently, much the same as hundreds of millions around the world.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
Bozzer 3rd Jan
@Cayble

A simple web page impression is enough to total a XP machine running IE6.

Oh, and these days "viruses" don't make their presence known. In fact, unless you look hard, you wouldn't even know you were compromised. Your cousin could have had a virus all those years, and they wouldn't have heard a peep from it.

Your advice about security is reckless at best. Sincerely.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
seeknosy@... 4th Jan
@Johnny Vegas -- While what you say is true that it kept on working, so it was "paying off", I think that those in charge were not aware of the actual costs: security holes, lots of extra website development and testing time, lower quality site development to accommodate IE6.

Now we can more easily understand the drawbacks to getting so tied-in to one technology.
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Good riddance
K B 3rd Jan
Now if we can just get rid of IE 7 and IE 8.

IE 9 is acceptable.
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Are the viruses acceptable too?
Mikael_z 3rd Jan
@K B
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 4th Jan
@Mikael_z Haven't seen one in a while.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
tomaras@... 4th Jan
@Mikael_z
What viruses are you talking about? IE9 is the most secure browser in the wild today. Do a little web searching and see for yourself. Sorry to say at some point just repeating that Internet Explorer is a security risk over and over won't cut the mustard against the actual truth.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ItsTheBottomLine 4th Jan
@Mikael_z Never had one...
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Completely ridiculous.
Cayble 4th Jan
@Mikael_z

If you are getting viruses on a Windows machine running XP or higher, and IE8 or 9 then you are clearly someone who is not only absolutely reckless in your websurfing habits, you also clearly are so clueless about computers in general you don't even know how to download and install free AV and antispyware programs that are now so effective they tend to protect even the reckless.

Its really silly statements like "Are the viruses acceptable too?" that simply go much to far to leave even a scrap of integrity to the person who makes such a statement. Its so ridiculous it boarders on an outright lie because it implies that with IE9 for example that viruses are so easy to pick up that you have to accept that as being "alright" because if you use IE9 its inevitable. And the fact is that the truth is 100% the opposite, that in fact the odds of ever picking up a virus with an updated Windows OS with updated AV is now almost impossible unless the user decides to do some seriously hazardous things. Things so hazardous they would be ridiculous themselves.

Bottom line is, if you cant secure a Windows box easily and for free, you simply dont know what you are doing. It really is that simple.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
benched42 4th Jan
tomaras@,

So you believed that Microsoft marketing page about any other browser and any other OS being unsecure and ONLY IE9 and Win7 are secure?
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
benched42 4th Jan
@K B

Acceptable? Yes. Desirable? No. There are many who are willing to accept hamburgers when steak is available.
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It doesn't say anything about us
ScorpioBlue 3rd Jan
It does say a lot about Microsoft, though.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 3rd Jan
"Enterprises boxed themselves in by programming applications to work with IE6."

That really was a problem. A big problem. They wrote software for a single browser (which was never a good idea), and they refused to spend any resources rewriting the software to support more browsers (which, frankly, really wouldn't take that much to do, they just didn't want to re-hire a web guy for a couple days).

"People view change and then puke."

That's probably the biggest problem, more than anything else they claim.

Good to hear it's mostly gone in the USA. Probably a bit more of it hiding inside corporate firewalls, but great to hear that it's not public anymore.
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Depends on the application...
daftkey 4th Jan
@CobraA1

"They wrote software for a single browser (which was never a good idea), and they refused to spend any resources rewriting the software to support more browsers (which, frankly, really wouldn't take that much to do, they just didn't want to re-hire a web guy for a couple days)."

Or the application they wrote was so specific, business critical, and complex that it would have doubled the development time to write it for more than one browser, and incredibly expensive to do so after the fact as well, and selling the extra expense to management with a dubious "well, then you can run it on Explorer AND Netscape" argument didn't exactly fly.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
benched42 4th Jan
@daftkey

If you start out designing your web apps and web pages knowing that your customers will NOT all be using the same browser, you can easily keep up. If you start out thinking "no one is using anything but IE6 and Windows" you get that kind of lock-in and the inability to keep up. (Our enterprise did just that)
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 4th Jan
@daftkey

"Or the application they wrote was so specific, business critical, and complex that it would have doubled the development time to write it for more than one browser, "

So write it for standards rather than for a specific browser.
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Some companies don't like change
ben.rattigan 4th Jan
We have partners and suppliers who all insisted in using IE6 and we have been using IE7 and IE8 with various tools to make them work for services designed for IE6 because no-one would update them. Our clients still use and insist on keep using IE6 on their thin clients as it works so why change it?
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What does it say about Microsoft?
jscott418 4th Jan
When you look at Microsoft you still a big company who is afraid to make its core customers upset. Enterprise has restricted Microsoft for so long its pathetic. When you look at what Apple can do vs what Microsoft can do. Its totally different. Apple's core customers embrace upgrades and don't mind Apple pushing its users into its lattest OS and applications. It has no problem ending support and not providing a easy way to downgrade. Microsoft on the other hand cannot shed old versions fast enough and its user base tends to cling to the old versions a long time. Unless Microsoft can change this. It will have a much harder time as applications like browsers and operating systems adapt faster then Microsoft can do without creating problems with its enterprise customers.
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"Apples" & Oranges
mystic100 4th Jan
@jscott418
Apple and Microsoft cater to different customers. Apple caters mostly to consumers while Microsoft caters mostly to the enterprise. Sure there is a small overlap. Enterprise customers look at cost vs. benefits. If an "upgrade" is going to cost millions of dollars without any benefit, it goes on the back burner. Enterprise customers will "upgrade" without monetary benefits only when forced - hardware failures, custom software no longer supported, etc.

Many of Apple's customers have higher than average disposable incomes and can afford to upgrade whenever the trend changes. They are also not as "locked in" as are enterprise customers.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
jkohut 4th Jan
2 Thoughts:
1. Early Vista was horrible. As a result, little reason to move away from XP for too long a period. If you don't move OS, not always a good reason to even worry about changing the browser. We finally did it on XP to IE8, but there was pain there also.
2. When Windows 7 finally did arrive, there was no upgrade path from XP to Windows. That made it much more than a browser issue.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ItsTheBottomLine 4th Jan
@jkohut "there was no upgrade path from XP to Windows." What? we have been doing it here every day with little or no issues. It's been a graduated upgrade but we have VERY few XP machines. Sorry that statement does not hold water.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
benched42 4th Jan
@ItsTheBottomLine

Not on the same machine. Not without first copying off all data and then re-imaging the PC. An upgrade path would be "stuff in a cd and wait for the upgrade to complete", something moving from XP to 7 does not allow.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 4th Jan
@ItsTheBottomLine

"Not without first copying off all data and then re-imaging the PC."

False. You can actually install Windows 7 over XP. You'll need to reinstall your apps (because it's an install and not a true upgrade), but you certainly don't need to completely reimage.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
seeknosy@... 4th Jan
IE7 is the new IE6
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
CobraA1 Updated - 4th Jan
@seeknosy@... Except it's nowhere near as bad. The problems in IE6 were so bad that even the "feature detection" methodology of web applications today wouldn't fix it.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
sissy sue 4th Jan
Most people are not computer geeks. A browser to them is merely a tool they use to access the internet. The technology is moving faster than your average user, who considers constant upgrades a bore and a hassle.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
Blurgle 4th Jan
@sissy sue Not just a bore and hassle. When upgrading a browser costs them money (say, to recreate apps), they tend to believe that the excuses about security and usability are lies told to steal money out of their pockets.

To them, if it isn't broke, the only reason anyone would ever want to change it is to cheat them.
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Another Reason to Hate M$
cougar.b@... Updated - 4th Jan
I so, so, so want to develop using HTML5 and CSS3 to do things that I will not be able to do for years and years because stupid, short-sighted, greedy M$ will not develop IE9 or IE10 for XP. So I'm stuck in the same old quandary of having to stay with yesterday's technology because of a business decision M$ made to try to force everyone to upgrade their operating systems.

For years, IE6 has been a major regressive force in the updating of web technology, and now we have M$ making the same regressive decisions which will influence us all for the foreseeable future.

I am so sick of having to worry about cross-browser compatibility issues that mostly are caused by M$'s self-serving business decisions. There are so many web developers all over the world who have to do so much extra work because of M$'s decisions! How much more creativity would be available if those millions (or billions?) of hours were not wasted making things M$-compliant?

Reviewing CSS3 galleries is like being a kid in a candy store with no money, because as cool as those applications are, I'll never be able to taste them so long as M$ doesn't support XP with it's latest browsers.

I guess spinach is better for you than candy...

(Sigh...)
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ItsTheBottomLine 4th Jan
Sniff booo hooo...wow that just sad.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ItsTheBottomLine Updated - 4th Jan
cougar.b@... wow take a pill dude.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
benched42 4th Jan
@ItsTheBottomLine

And yet everything he says is true. If he were to "take a pill dude" the problems he cites would not go away.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ItsTheBottomLine Updated - 4th Jan
v
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Old hardware here.
kidtree 4th Jan
We're still running a couple of PCs with Win 2000, and IE6 is the latest version that OS supports. We use Firefox almost exclusively on them, but some vendors' websites demand IE, and that means IE6.
Yes, they're slow; yes, we need new computers. We're scraping by for now.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
DocuMentor (Doc) 4th Jan
Good article, Larry. Doc agrees with many of the posters here ??? IE6 served a purpose and many of the flaws were somewhat transparent to the average user. Not everyone is fully up-to-date with technology and when something continues to work, they continue to use it. But it is surely well past time to move on and Doc's glad there are so many good choices now in the browser department.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/doc
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
ggrow 4th Jan
The companies I worked with used IE6 with their internal network, which was hooked into IE6 code. Their employees didn't browse the web much, if at all, so they had no real need for a modern browser. And still don't.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
rich3page 4th Jan
Yes, many applications were programmed for IE6. Many of those applications were able to work because security weaknesses in IE6 and windows. Many enterprises were not able to upgrade from IE6 until vendors were able to reprogram the applications to work with newer browsers and certify the compatibility. Add to that changes in SQL specifications, and server OS changes, a vendor may have to spend the majority of an OS lifespan to be able to fully certify all components of a complex suite of applications designed for the enterprise.

Of course, there are some enterprises where there is not a compatibility issue with web-based application, just a resistance to change from something that seems to "work".
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
bergrrt@... 4th Jan
People and a lot of companies hate change, I work at a large hospital which is stuck on Windows XP and IE6. When they changed to XP there was much gnashing of teeth. They buy new computers and load them with this crap. Maybe they are the 1% you mentioned. It's funny (and pathetic) because they are so pro active in every other area.
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
edkollin 4th Jan
Actually surprised IE6 got that low. Whether its XP, 2000, IE6 "it just works". They know from experience that "upgrades" mean errors, downtime and working the bugs out and them having to pay a price to fix it. As sharp business people who have dealt with other sharpies they have figured out upgrades are a result of things being designed to become outdated. IT got spoiled in the 1980's and the 1990s when the public and business were bedazzled by tech. Back then programmers were magic men and most business got the internet within a year or two of Netscape's release. They didn't know what to do with it but felt they would become dinosaurs without it. Today with the exception of Apple tech has become just another part of life. Most importantly there is a depression going on. Companies might have half of the employees they used to have and people are working 80 hours a week and are on call 24/7. The mobile world means 2 days downtime for an "upgrade" is much more damaging then it used to be.
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New virus is reinstalling IE6 on infected machines
atatiyants 7th Jan
just when you thought IE6 was dead and buried:

http://tatiyants.com/new-virus-reinstalls-ie6-on-infected-machines/
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RE: IE6's long farewell: What does it say about us?
shanedr 9th Jan
It says what it has always said, Enterprise runs something to death because of the difficulty in changing over. That will only end when different versions of software can run on different computers within the same Enterprise. That way Enterprise can do partial upgrades without having to do a complete upgrade all at once.

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