Natural Progression or Dirty Trick? You Be The Judge

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-Phasing-Out-Support-for-IE-60-Firefox-20-Safari-20-339442/?kc=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+RSS/tech+(eWEEK+Technology+News)' target='_blank'>http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-...echnology+News)</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Google Jan. 29 said it would cease fully supporting Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 for its Google Docs and Google Sites applications March 1. This pledge extends to other older Web browser versions, including Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Apple Safari 2.0, as well as Google's own Chrome 3.0. The move is Google's push to rid the messaging and collaboration world of the dated, insecure IE6 and put Google Chrome in its place. Chrome has 4.63 percent of the browser market and would love to chomp away at IE's 63 percent share."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1264878756.usr105634.jpg" /></p><p>Doesn't seem on the surface to be anything as sinister as forcing their way into marketshare, appears to me like its natural progression of things as software advances. But I suppose since IE 6 has over 60% of the market for browsers that it would be natural to assume Google was up to some skullduggery wouldn't it? What are your thoughts?Â*</p>

[doogald]

Um, my major thought is that an unpatched vulnerability in IE 6 led to the hack into Chinese gmail accounts last month - a vulnerability that Microsoft has admitted knowing about last August, but which took this PR disaster for them to finally issue a patch - made Google realize that this was important (and obviously not just for an old version of IE), so Google is just doing the right thing. Goodness, why must everything be a conspiracy?

[Joel Crane]

I'm with Google here. I don't care why they are doing it, because IE6 has to go!

[ptyork]

While I agree with Stevie that Google's "do no evil" mantra is BS, I do think that this is just a way of encouraging migration away from obsolete technology and reducing the obscene cost of trying to make IE6 behave like a first class client.

Two points, though. First, IE's market share is 62%, but IE 6 only has 20%. IE 8 is the most used browser version in the world, followed by IE 6 and Firefox 3.5.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2

Second, when Chrome gains market share, it is mostly from Firefox users. Most consumer IE users (like most Safari users) are of the "I use it because it came preinstalled and it works just fine" variety. They are unlikely to be moved away from IE towards an alternative browser. Corporate users (the largest block still using IE6) are even less likely to adopt FF or Chrome. Google's move is most likely just going to cause people to embrace software developed within the last decade--and that is a very non-evil thing.

[Macguy59]

I vote for natural selection :p

[Chris Gohlke]

I doubt a user that is still on IE 6 is suddenly going to go to Chrome, that is just too out of the box for them. This will mostly just result in them upgrading to IE 8.

[drummrsanonymous]

Supporting a 2-version-old browser can be a very expensive task. Especially when trying to achieve advanced functionality like Google Apps, and even more so when you're trying to offer your product for "free". So I don't blame Google for making this decision.

However, there's a twist that makes the move highly advantageous for Chrome specifically. It's been widely reported that a majority of IE6 users are using corporate machines where they lack privileges to install an IE upgrade. Google made Chrome so that a standard user with no administrative privileges would be able to install Chrome - a unique feature among the major browsers. This makes it rather difficult to make Chrome available in a multi-user environment, but could open the door corporate users doing their own upgrades. I doubt Google would advertise this, but Chrome is in a unique position to benefit from the move to stop support for IE6.