Google Kills Apps Support For Internet Explorer 8 296
An anonymous reader writes "Google today [Friday] announced it is discontinuing support for Internet Explorer 8 in Google Apps, including its Business, Education, and Government editions. The kill date is November 15, 2012. After that, IE8 users accessing Google Apps will see a message recommending that they upgrade their browser."
Lucky bastards (Score:5, Funny)
I still have to support IE6 :-(
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Re:Lucky bastards (Score:5, Insightful)
The codebase he supports is supposed to work with a given COBOL system.
Whereas said web crap that has to support IE6, also has to work with IE7, and IE8, and IE9, and Firefox, and Chrome, and Safari. And it has to "look good" in the recent browsers without looking like crap in IE6.
Thank you (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't have put it better myself, except you missed out supporting phone browsing too. :-)
I can program in COBOL and its easier than supporting several generations of browsers.
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web crap that has to support IE6, also has to work with IE7, and IE8, and IE9, and Firefox, and Chrome, and Safari.
Very doubtful. The only places I have heard of that still suport IE6 are legacy intranet systems, usually in banks or somesuch, where all the terminals use the same browser version, ie. the same situation you have with an obsolete COBOL system that is still working for various "business reasons".
Outside of such intranet installation scenarios, everybody and their dog have dropped IE6 support long time ago. If they haven't, they should, as I doubt it has even 1% share these days.
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Whereas said web crap that has to support IE6, also has to work with IE7, and IE8, and IE9, and Firefox, and Chrome, and Safari. And it has to "look good" in the recent browsers without looking like crap in IE6.
A lot of the web crap that needs to work on IE6 doesn't need to work on anything else, it's antique ActiveX that doesn't and never will work on something other than IE6.
You haven't paid much attention to the web in the last decade have you?
Re:Lucky bastards (Score:4, Insightful)
Where I work there are dozens of COBOL programmers, it's abanking system, very old.
Unlike IE, COBOL is a standards-compliant platform designed for a long lifespan.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap.
I bought a Win 7 Home Premium based PC - it is a decision I've come to regret; I'm not cheap, but that has been a waste of money and of a lot of time trying to get it to update, backup, get on network .. basically everything I've tried has resulted in messages that something unknown failed, or that it isn't supported in Win 7 Home Premium.
Win XP works, works pretty well, and doesn't have a stupid UI that goes in circles when trying to get to network settings.
Re:Lucky bastards (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you outline this in more detail? Everyone I know that was dragged kicking and screaming in to using Win7 stopped bickering within a day or so of using it. Win7 was the first Microsoft OS my linux buddy liked enough to switch back from linux to Windows for. Your experience is the complete opposite of every other story I've heard out there. I dislike Microsoft for the most part just as much as most people on this site.... but Win 7 is actually pretty nice... reliable even.
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Sure - lets see what I still remember...
Setting up network:
Got into a new dialog in Windows, trying to change a setting (DHCP -> Fixed IP) on a NIC (dont remember if was wired or wireless).
The dialog basically had various options, and in the bottom said something like "To do X, click here". This led me to another, similar dialog, which again ended with "To do X, click here". Clicking there led me to the 3rd dialog, similar to the last two, and with "To do X, click here". Clicking led me back to the first
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If they can't fork out for an OS upgrade once a decade, how else will they be like on the consumer side?
Not nearly as consuming and more like using?
Seriously, for most people Windows XP -just works- at this point, which is what is important to the average user. They see no need to upgrade so long as they can browse the net, write letters, send and receive email, play their favorite games, all of which XP does perfectly.
That said I upgraded to Win7 myself just a few months back and I'm never returning to XP. I had no clue how big a difference DirectX11 made over DirectX9 in games - it's like a whole new experi
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Windows 7 is fairly reliable and can run on some fairly geriatric hardware (I've gotten to a W7 desktop with both P2/450 and K6-2/500 systems).
Except the published specs for Windows 7 require at least a gigahertz. In fact, that right there is why I'm not using Windows 7 on my netbook; XP does more with less, and it shows.
I find it funny that you suggest an unsupported OS installation as a solution to a lack of support for an application.
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For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap.
I have an XP machine (mainly for my wife). Cost is not the issue - it's time. I'd probably have to dedicate about 8 hours to installing the new OS, moving the data, setting up all of the applications, verifying backups still work, etc. At that point, I might as well just get a new computer... which is exactly what I will do when the XP security updates keep flowing. Then I just have to make the age-old Mac vs. PC decision :)
Re:Lucky bastards (Score:4, Insightful)
For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap. If they can't fork out for an OS upgrade once a decade, how else will they be like on the consumer side?
Home users do not differentiate an OS from their TANGIBLE hardware enough to care to upgrade it separately from their ancient machines; they just settle for whatever new one pops up with a new purchase. The fact is you rarely see noob users looking for an OS to buy in a software store anyway. Part of the issue is that OS's are *not* sold on TV --think of the I'm a Mac ads aimed at selling new machines and the Droid campaign, at selling NEW cell subscriptions. The few that upgrade the ancient Windows machines I mentioned up top see OS versions as akin to over-the-air IOS upgrades, and won't feel the need to pay a cent for change. They'll pirate only half-aware that the are supposed to go to a computer store.
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You don't need to migrate them off XP. You just need to migrate them off IE and to Chrome.
But, frankly, if you're still on XP, the only lazy around is you. Stop bitching about people not bothering to support your antique setup - they don't have any obligation to do so, and I've heard enough from web developers to know just how painful supporting IE below 9 is.
Re:Lucky bastards (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO chrome has become too much of a behemoth. I'd migrate them to Firefox. A fresh OS with chrome on a 7 year old laptop grinds to a halt on the first page. The same setup is perfectly usable with an up to date Firefox
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Maybe he doesn't feel like paying Microsoft a lot of money for no real advantage. If the Win 7 upgrade was a reasonable price you might have a point but here in the UK it's 83 GBP and there's no guarantee that his perfectly functioning computer will be able to run Win 7 given that manufacturers often haven't provided Win 7 drivers for older hardware. So your remedy is potentially for the parent poster to buy himself or herself a new computer that they don't really need.
Home users with pre-2006 PCs (Score:2)
Maybe he doesn't feel like paying Microsoft a lot of money for no real advantage. If the Win 7 upgrade was a reasonable price you might have a point but here in the UK it's 83 GBP and there's no guarantee that his perfectly functioning computer will be able to run Win 7 given that manufacturers often haven't provided Win 7 drivers for older hardware. So your remedy is potentially for the parent poster to buy himself or herself a new computer that they don't really need.
Anything that came with Windows Vista, which came out in 2006, has Windows Vista/7 drivers for every piece of hardware and access to IE 9. So if people are still using a more than six-year-old computer, they're likely to fall into toejam13's assertion: "For home users, you have to wonder if they're just being cheap. If they can't fork out for an OS upgrade once a decade, how else will they be like on the consumer side?" It's like expecting new games for the original Xbox years after the Xbox 360 came out: M
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Well, tell me why an Athlon 64 wouldn't be perfectly fine to view e-mail, pay your bills, a few older games etc. I have one from 2003 and, coupled with a GeForce FX 5200 - crappy even for its day -, I can even play a few Source games. Why should I have to upgrade my hardware - or OS, for that matter - when it's still perfectly capable to comfortably accommodate my workflow?
This is all rhetorical, of course, since said system is running Debian and, other than the aforementioned GeForce on Gnome Shell, has no
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But, frankly, if you're still on XP, the only lazy around is you. Stop bitching about people not bothering to support your antique setup
To the average user, a computer is an appliance: why should they have to replace it when it's not broken? And, frankly, this position has quite a bit going for it. Why should users have to pay more money just because MS decided they couldn't be bothered to keep their browser up to date in XP?
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IE 8 is not the only browser that runs on XP
Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera...
Google is choosing to require a modern environment so that they can deliver a quality user experience.
IE 8 is three years old, HTML 5 support is wonky, and it's javascript engine is slow. All reasons why Google released Chrome, to provide an environment that delivers a quality experience to their users.
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My guess is that IE8 users will just get a huge chrome browser ad when their support gets cut of.
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At work, I still have to use IE6. It's just dreadful. Practically no websites render correctly and it is painstakingly slow.
Another nail for XP (Score:5, Informative)
The summary leaves out the interesting part: IE8 is the latest version available for Windows XP. And there's no place that XP exists more than business, education, and government. This is Google's way to get sysadmins comfortable with Chrome in the workplace.
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Or Firefox or Safari.
Most businesses are starting or have already switched to Windows 7 since support for XP officially ends in 18 months.
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Yeah, but what is support anymore? In a world where your device is not much more than a dumb | smart client (browser as OS, essentially), the device is replaceable. Simply. No more worrying about an entire hardware stack, all you care about is the browser and the web.
I think it has been highly insightful of Googoo to develop the apps they have. I use them fairly often, and mostly because of the convenience. And hey, if it enlightens some M$ drone to the benefits of an alternative back office, the all the b
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Support is required because even tho you might be using the device as a dumb client, it's really an extremely complex piece of equipment with plenty of places where security holes could be found, and with no support from the one vendor capable of supporting it those holes will never be fixed.
On the other hand, if that's what you're using it for them it's ridiculous to run such a complex system... Run something as simple as possible which is still being actively updated, plenty of lightweight linux distros,
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Or Firefox or Safari.
Most businesses are starting or have already switched to Windows 7 since support for XP officially ends in 18 months.
The ending of support is irrelevant. What "support" could you possibly need for XP? Anyone who is currently running XP will continue to do so until their last computer dies and cannot be repaired.
Businesses are switching to Windows 7 only because all the new computers they buy come with Windows 7 installed. If they could still get new computers with Windows XP installed, they would buy them.
Re:Another nail for XP (Score:5, Informative)
Support = security fixes.Come 11 April 2014, no more security fixes for XP. Good luck getting Office 2014* that will install on XP as well.
* or 2015, 2016, 2017....
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Depends on the business. A company with 20,000 to 200,000 employees? Yes, they have their own custom builds. A mom-n-pop retail shop? No, they use whatever comes installed on the machine, or whatever the IT business they've contracted with installs on it.
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What kind of business would do that? The brand new Dells we purchase are reimaged with a ready-made XP-image. We don't care about what OS the computer comes with. This is pretty common, and you apparently know nothing about enterprise management.
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Depends on the size of the business. You can't do that (roll out a standard image) without buying a separate license for Windows, which means that it's pretty much limited to larger businesses. Small businesses tend to take what the computer comes with.
Support means inclusion in Patch Tuesday (Score:2)
What "support" could you possibly need for XP?
Continued repair of kernel and system library defects that could lead to security compromise.
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The summary leaves out the interesting part: IE8 is the latest version available for Windows XP. And there's no place that XP exists more than business, education, and government. This is Google's way to get sysadmins comfortable with Chrome in the workplace.
Having read the FA (hanging my head in shame (which is stressing my youvh yypinh dkilld) ), it looks like this is only touching upon the web-access apps.
Does anyone know if there are Google Appliance apps, similar to Google Search appliances? I know that I've run across Google search appliances on small & large scales (various gov-controlled, closed networks), but I've not seen (or recognized) any implementations of their apps on these aforementioned appliances.
It seems to me that affecting _those_ ne
This is Google's way ... (Score:2)
... to make sure corporates thinking of moving to web applications actually decide to stick with Office.
The article seemed somewhat negative... (Score:4, Interesting)
whereas I am quite positive about this move. It was Microsoft's choice to not port their more recent browser to XP in an attempt to kill it.
It's quite amazing how much marketshare IE has lost over the last 4 years (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-ww-monthly-200807-201209). Firefox has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 4%, while IE has lost 30%+ mostly to Chrome.
It's moslty the US, Australia, and China holding up IE usage (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-ww-monthly-201209-201209-map)
*Note all of this is according to statcounter, while other sources give different results, still with the same trends though.
Big businesses won't move (Score:5, Interesting)
It takes a LONG time for big businesses to move to new versions of anything. They are just now moving off of Windows XP and IE 7. Many major software systems used by big companies (such as GE Centricity) still don't even support IE 9, so customers of such software can't move forward even if they wanted to!
It looks like Google is taking a page out of Apple's book. It's stunts like this that keep Apple out of the office (for the most part). Microsoft, on the other hand, has a reputation for supporting legacy software just about forever...lots of old DOS programs still work! Microsoft has been rewarded by businesses in a big way.
Is this an opening for Yahoo?
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Or you know, they could just install Firefox or Chrome to access Google Apps and retain the obselete IE to access the obselete services.
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Apparently not on XP any more. The latest IE won't even install. At least Firefox and Chrome will install.
Granted, XP is ancient now and I don't really blame MS for not supporting it anymore, but it seems they are now actively sabotaging it.
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for what, another year?
its beyond time
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Microsoft offer no guarantee whatsoever with IE, they will offer "best effort" support, where the level of effort is directly related to how much you pay them.
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You'd be surprised just how cheap and stupid a lot of companies are. At my last job, I was getting six figures in pay, but for the longest time they kept me stuck with a shitty, old, slow PC running XP (and I had to use tools that only ran in Cygwin! because they wouldn't get Linux) with a tiny 17" monitor. Builds took forever, wasting tons of my time. After about a year of that, they finally got us new computers, but that was a lot of wasted time there.
I think these companies are just poorly run, by bea
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But then they'll cut costs in other places, especially IT since it's a cost center.
One of the biggest fallacies in the whole bean-counting mindset. IT is more commonly a savings center. They've forgotten how much not employing all those Bob Cratchett-types over in the "profit center" helps make that "profit center" more profitable.
Anything that doesn't look like a bean doesn't exist for a bean counter. Nor, for that matter, do any beans that appear outside their computed timeframes or their constricted view of the Universe.
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One of the biggest fallacies in the whole bean-counting mindset. IT is more commonly a savings center.
It's worse than that. I read a few months ago that the business guru who developed the concept of "cost center vs. profit center" (Peter something, I don't remember his surname) in, if I'm not mistaken, the 1960s, abandoned it about 10 to 20 years ago as the BS concept it is, saying he was sorry for the consequences. His new thesis was a return to the previous one, something like (I quote from memory) "a business' profit center is a customer's check that doesn't bounce", i.e., as long as everything within t
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I think that if they are so change-resistent that they can't even deploy Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome Frame or Google Apps Sync for Outlook (all of the supported options) then what chance is there that they would even move to Google Apps at all.
It's well deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone still using IE 8 deserves to be left out in the cold. Modern browsers are free, and work much better than that ancient piece of crap. If your IT department doesn't have it's shit together enough to let you run a real web browser, you can't expect most of the internet to work for you either. Don't complain to Google, you should seriously be considering replacing whoever it is who is making your IT decisions for you.
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I'm no fan of Internet Explorer, but that's just complete bullshit. IE 8 isn't that old and not that bad. It isn't as good as Firefox or Chrome, but it's not that bad.. I really wonder if there is any legitimate technical reason for not allowing IE8, or if it's just anti-Microsoft bias -- sort of the reverse of what used to happen back when IE was the dominant browser.
For example, years ago when Firefox was just starting to become popular, there were some bank and credit card websites that would not all
Re:It's well deserved. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are wrong. There are a number of HTML 5 technologies (especially canvas objects) that IE 8 doesn't support. Many special concessions must be made to support IE 8 from a modern web-based application. It often means writing two versions of you code, one for IE 8 and one for everything else. Supporting IE 8 means limiting the functionality of you application while adding complexity to your code. I'm sure there was a collective sigh of relief among web developers when they heard Google was dropping IE 8, it means their employers will soon follow suit.
They aren't blocking IE 8 users, they're just dropping support for the browser. That means some features won't work correctly or at all, and as time goes on the whole site will stop working as the continue to roll out new features that aren't supported in IE 8.
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Um, isn't IE8 a free download for XP users? Why would corporations spend millions to upgrade to it?
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Because Microsoft actively worked to prevent organisations migrating away from IE6 to other browsers. This has come round and bitten everyone on the arse since any upgrade to a better browser has required extensive testing to ensure that the shit from IE6 still worked. Had Microsoft been punished properly by Bush perhaps we could have all been spared the worst of IE6's awfulness. Microsoft's incompetence with regards to IE7 and 8 also didn't help. IE9 isn't much better but it's a start. However they se
Re:It's well deserved. (Score:5, Informative)
Off the top of my head: :nth-child, etc)
Opacity (real opacity, including opacity on PNGs with an alpha channel).
Being able to define colors using RGBA
CSS3 transforms
Fully supporting @font-face for real web fonts
HTML5 video support with H.264/MPEG4 so we can drop flash video players finally
WOFF font support instead of the EOT (IE-only font format)
Box shadows
multiple backgrounds on a single object
CSS3 selectors (:last-child,
Stuff even IE9 doesn't support:
text-shadows
3d transforms
aync on script tags
web sockets
Filereader API (Smarter upload buttons)
CSS3 transitions
CSS3 gradients
HTML5 form elements (date picker, range, integer, etc)
Yes, those are all things that we use on our web site, or wanted to use and either had to write custom fallbacks just for IE, rewrite to use a different (more difficult, less efficient, larger) technique, or just let IE look like crap.
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Re:It's well deserved. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
So we deserve to be left out in the cold, because we have a need for applications that have yet to be upgraded to support IE9+? Our IT department employs 260+ people, and while you may claim that they "haven't got their shit together" I know these people pretty well, and they're pretty competent. IE8 is three years old. That isn't stoneage. And since IE breaks compatibility every single release, that means that more than 600 of the applications we provide (most external, some internal) have to be updated, re-tested and pushed. Almost once a year. Are you f*cking kidding me?
Chrome with their incremental upgrade model is a complete no-go. We can't have the browser suddenly upgrading and breaking a critical system either. Firefox has major revisions every other week, which is even worse for an enterprise setup.
In a small IT shop with Office and little else, being stuck on XP and IE8 would be gross incompetence. For a large company supporting more than 3k applications, it's not so much a choice. And it's not as easy as switching to other applications either, since many of these are specialist apps for which no alternative applications are available.
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HTML5 has been coming down the pipeline for quite a while now. There're no excuse for not being ready for it. If you're picking external applications, don't pick someone using ancient technology. If you're developing internal applications, future proofing is even easier. If you already know that IE breaks compatibility with every new release, and that they have a great deal of difficulty keeping to standards, so you shouldn't have been using IE in the first place. There has always been a better, more standa
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So where do you work? How large is the company? How many staff does it have in the IT department? How many applications does your IT department support? Any legacy applications that have worked fine for 10 years and would require a lot of money to replace?
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So we deserve to be left out in the cold, because we have a need for applications that have yet to be upgraded to support IE9+?
No, you deserve to be left out in the cold for refusing to install either Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
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Why is it that it's always company intranets that break with new browsers?
Because company intranets/portals contain lots of links to third party apps and are limited by what those vendors support. When you have major software companies like SAP which have products that only added IE 9 support in major upgrades provided in the last two months, it is no surprise that lots of corporations aren't on the leading edge of supported browsers. Support for Chrome or recent Firefox (including extended support release 10) is virtually non-existent among lots of enterprise software, so thos
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Like you know what you're talking about fuckwit. Insightful my arse.
A nail for XP? lol np (Score:2)
just load chrome or firefox on XP
I really wonder if MS knows it lost that battle, you have the IE6 crowd using their slow janky, hard coded 640x480 database front ends, and then people like my parents, where "fox, ... fire" has been a part of their everyday existence for over a half decade
IE? whats that, a sporadic TV commercial with nearly 2 decades of pure SHIT to remind us of why we dont use IE in the first place?
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There was a bestselling magazine called Foxfile [wikipedia.org] back in the 70s and 80s that had something to do with Appalachian folklore and traditions. Maybe all the people who know who call it that are older and remember that magazine.
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That, or maybe "Fox 5" [wikipedia.org] if in the New York metro area.
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IE What? (Score:3)
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Just occurred to me that I honestly have no idea what the current version of IE might be. I think I've used it maybe twice in the last year?
Woah! IE still exists? Really?
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I Can't Wait (Score:2)
"... recommending that they upgrade their browser" (Score:3)
IE8 users accessing Google Apps will see a message recommending that they upgrade their browser.
Oh, just like the ugly box I occasionally see on google.com when I'm visiting with any other browser than Chrome?
As a web developer, it's good that Google is moving people off of the old browsers. While IE 8 does have much better selector support than IE 6 and fixed a lot of bugs, some of the really convenient styling stuff didn't show up until IE 9.
Although, it's also a bit ironic, as I gather the stock browser on all but the most recent Android have a bunch of issues. And I'm not seeing Google stepping up to fix that by some kind of semi-forced upgrade - it's actually a very similar situation.
Taste of their own medicine. (Score:2)
Google apps will work on all browsers that support the following web standards. [list]. Google will test its features in the last two versions of the popular browsers for bug fixes, regressions and security issues. Users using older versions or untested browsers can still use the apps, but performance is not guaranteed.
This is what I would call not-evil. Waiting for someone to change the
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Re:As they should (Score:4, Informative)
Only support current browsers
8 was released in 2009. IE9 last year. I'm not really sure it matters for google, but if you do custom web applications 3 years isn't really a long time to have to keep it alive.
The big thing with IE8 is that it's the last IE for windows XP. Which is why it has a larger markeshare than IE9 still. marketshare from June [hitslink.com] and more marketshare by a lot. (25% vs 18%).
If windows 8 looked like it was about to take off like a rocket and Windows XP was on a rapid trajectory to obsolescence then sure, but that isn't really what's happening. Windows XP is slowly dying away, but it's still slowly, and especially in the business market lots of potential customers are locked into the browser on XP for the moment.
Granted, google probably has a lot of metrics and they probably know this isn't a problem for *their* products, but for the us little guys it's a different problem.
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Many of the schools still have desktop computers running XP, because of this I doubt that google did look at a lot of metrics because creating that kind of issue for one of its largest Aust
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XP users do have the option to install the latest and greatest Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
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Nothing, apart from no more updates, is stopping intranet applications from continuing to be used. That isn't the issue. It's the "I want everyone to use the same outdated, buggy software that runs the outdated, buggy intranet applications to run web apps that use HTML 5 functionality like I use on my iPad / home PC and if you peon developers can't do that you're fired" mentality that is the issue. Upgrade or GTFO.
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Well if this doesn't help XP finally be put to rest maybe the announcement that the next photoshop won't run on XP [cnet.com] will finally do it.
What surprises me is the fact that Adobe is making a "next plastic disc version" of Photoshop as opposed to forcing "Creative Cloud" on everyone. I wouldn't have bet a counterfeit wooden nickel against Adobe making CS6 the last version of the suite that didn't use their rolling updates/monthly activation DRM scheme. I now make that statement for the CS7 editions - I don't think there will be a plastic disc successor to CS7.
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Only support current browsers
8 was released in 2009. IE9 last year. I'm not really sure it matters for google, but if you do custom web applications 3 years isn't really a long time to have to keep it alive.
IE8, while a significant improvement of 7 and 6 in a number of respects, was already seriously out of date on the day of release. The difference in testing and fixing effort associated with supporting IE8 compared to supporting IE9 is much larger than the two year difference in release dates would suggest.
Unfortunately for some of us, refusing to supporting IE8 is not a luxury we can currently afford. Hopefully the likes of Google taking this step will help push out corporate clients into the right decad
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the only time I have noticed it is on link2 -g
running all sorts of generic gecko browsers the only thing it would bitch about is the lack of javascript
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no unified buttons
Clarify?
menu bar
You can activate it by pressing Alt as usual. Then you can go and check View -> Toolbars -> Menu bar to keep it on if you want.
normal size address bar (not the tiny one IE9 has
Do you refer to the fact that address bar is on the same line with tabs, and is squeezed to the right? If so, then right-click on any tab, and select "Show tabs in separate row".
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use firefox/chrome/IE9+ for a whole week and forget about it like the rest of the world?
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Bit of a shame you're an AC and so many won't see what you've said - but you're absolutely right. As soon as you start to run the business on web-based applications, you find you have to run your IT to the beat of someone else's drum.
Things start to get messy when one application will only work in IE 8 or below (and not firefox/chrome) and another won't work in any version of IE below 9. Though I suppose you could always put an icon on the desktop that fires up Chrome for just a specific application.
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* It saves it's EXE in the Windows profile. I thought Program Files existed for a reason....
The Program Files folder requires admin permissions to write to. So storing the exe in profiles makes it possible to install and update a program without admin rights.
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The second result of a Google search for "chrome program files" [ghacks.net] points to this download page [google.com]. I can't verify this exact page still works (I'm on Linux right now, so Google doesn't give me a Windows download), but I do have Chrome installed in Program Files on my Windows system.
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I'm going to assume you're managing a large XP network with roaming profiles, because none of your complaints make sense otherwise. I'm also not a Windows admin, so forgive some lack of familiarity.
Did you redirect the entire Application Data folder onto a network share? If you did, stop it--it's huge even without Chrome's cache. If you didn't, stop worrying about a gig of local disk.
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Said it better than I was going to. I have a hard time believing this person is actual an administrator with these complaints. Maybe just for his family home network.