It’s been a couple of years since the height of the “kill IE6″ web campaigns, and it took that long to hold a funeral that finally seals its fate.
Of course, the IE6 Funeral is an arbitrary event held by the Aten Design Group last March 4, and this doesn’t really eradicate the browser on computers that can’t upgrade.
Over at TechCrunch, commenter Jeff Carlson jokes: “So if someone uses IE6 to browse the web tomorrow, will their web browser be a Zomb-ie6 browser?” You could say that. After all, IE6 is way past its expiration date, sucking the brains out of web designers and developers with its buggy, unstable, insecure features from an ugly past.
Even Microsoft acknowledges it’s time for IE6 to go, as it actually sent over flowers and this note:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
On March 13, Google will end IE6 support on YouTube, following the March 1 pull-out for Google Docs and Google Sites. Gmail and Google Calendar are next on the list, slated by the end of the year.
Combined with the European government security warnings to upgrade browsers, could Google’s systematic phase-out be the final nail in the IE6 coffin, or is this slow death going to take at least another year?
I really hope this is it.
First the iPad, and now a debate on the relevance of Flash. Apple continues to ignore it and touts HTML5 as the future. Google is also pushing HTML5 on YouTube, with other video sites starting to follow suit. Even Mozilla is disabling it in its new mobile browser, Maemo. Clearly, the death knell for Adobe’s most controversial product is getting louder than ever.
But it’s still all talk, all noise. How about some real action? Thankfully, over at Binary Bonsai, Michael Heilemann has taken it upon himself to drop Flash for the whole month of February as a response to this tweeted challenge:
All those who think no flash on ipad is A-OK please uninstall flash from your current browser, use that for a month then get back to me.
Installing a Flash blocker isn’t really a groundbreaking exercise and is tamer than uninstalling Flash completely, but now is the best time to figure out how dependent we are on it.
So can you survive sans Flash? I won’t go out of my way to defend it nor suffer from withdrawal without it, but the status of HTML5 video alone seems troubling enough.
More importantly, most discussions cover only the question of replacing Flash video, not other applications like games. That would be an even tougher nut to crack, even with the dawn of purely Javascript-based games.
A year or so after Google Chrome was first released, it’s now my default browser. While I still use other browsers on a regular basis, Chrome’s speed and minimalism has taken over. Take the omnibox, which merges the address bar and search bar into one. It searches your bookmarks, your recently visited pages, and even detects if the URL you’re typing has its own site search.
Most of these features are available in Firefox, whether by default or as an add-on, but the reason I’m focused on Chrome is that it’s a Google product, and this company can push both its browser and search forward by turbocharging the omnibox the way they’re continually adding new features to Google search.
The Chrome extension Google Quick Scroll, which highlights and jumps to portions of a page where one’s Google search query can be found, is a perfect example of Google search and the Chrome browser working side by side to improve the search—and more importantly, find—experience.
Google’s autocomplete search box is getting more powerful each day, so why not integrate it into Chrome? It probably won’t matter to those who can’t tell the difference between a web browser and a search engine, and use Google as a jump-off point to browsing other sites, but Google can significantly alter the whole searching-browsing experience if it so desires.
One downside would be eliminating the need to visit Google.com itself and contribute to the ad impressions, but that should only happen for quicker, smarter searches such as weather forecasts, currency exchange rates, stock quotes, etc. The fewer clicks, the better.
Web standardistas lament the outdated HTML and CSS support by IE6, but the biggest reason you should drop the browser stat is security, security, security. And if the following evidence from Google, the governments of Germany and France, and Microsoft itself do not convince you, I’m not sure there’s much else that will:
- The Chinese cyber attacks on Google (and at least 20 other large companies) got through because the exploited code worked only in IE6, on Windows 2000 and XP.
- The German and French governments have both asked its citizens to upgrade their IE6 browsers to prevent attacks happening to them.
- Microsoft released a security advisory warning against attacks specifically against Internet Explorer 6.
Mashable includes the three items above in its list, but the last one is the most compelling:
This will not be the last massive IE6 security breach: This flaw was unknown before Google’s groundbreaking China announcement. And it’s not the first flaw ever found with the browser — there are at least 142 vulnerabilities in IE6, 22 of which are not yet patched. Would you use armor that had 142 weak spots?
Internet Explorer 6 is a run-down browser with very little support for exploits. It’s more costly for businesses to leave it lying around like a ticking time bomb than exert effort to upgrade their systems.
The good news is, we’re getting bigger institutions stepping up against IE6. Let’s hope their spheres of influence really are that effective. You can’t get much bigger than European governments, Microsoft, or Google.
According to Ajaxian, the beloved tradition of learning by peeking at someone else’s source code is on the brink of extinction. Because Google is rewarding websites that load faster, people will stop at nothing to look good in the big G’s eyes, including code compression and more notably, obfuscation. This renders View Source useless.
While I feel it’s too early to call doomsday on View Source because of such speculation, like many I feel protective over it. It’s no surprise then that the Save View Source movement has been formed this early. The discussion is sparse, but Alex Russell elegantly explains why View Source matters, also reminding me why I love developing on the Web:
View-source provides a powerful catalyst to creating a culture of shared learning and learning-by-doing, which in turn helps formulate a mental model of the relationship between input and output faster. Web developers get started by taking some code, pasting it into a file, saving, loading it in a browser and hitting ctrl-r. Web developers switch between editor and browser between even the most minor changes. This is a stark contrast with technologies that impose a compilation step where the process of seeing what was done requires an intermediate step. In other words, immediacy of output helps build an understanding of how the system will behave, and ctrl-r becomes a seductive and productive way for developers to accelerate their learning in the copy-paste-tweak loop.
Even in compiling languages people learn better by looking at example code, but the culture of open learning can be felt strongest on the Web. Ajaxian posts a follow-up, in which I couldn’t agree more with this:
I personally feel like the ability to view source fit in perfectly with the culture of the Web, and was especially important early on. I am willing to bet that we have all learned from the notion of view source.
The freedom of access to tons of information on the Web is what it all boils down to. View Source is a sturdy consequence of that. It seems wrong to compare performance versus learning, but between those two, learning should prevail.
Then again, who can stand in the way of site owners desperate to turn up traffic and profit? Sounds like standards versus SEO all over again. What do you think—is the Save View Source movement an overreaction or a preemptive strike?
It’s not just about net neutrality or privacy anymore. Our future internet could be the very opposite of what it is today—free—specifically due to companies dominating their markets and the constant push to simplify the user experience.
Tim O’Reilly predicts a war is coming, one where we are at the mercy of the internet giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple: they stop making the services we are so highly dependent on interoperable.
It could be that everyone will figure out how to play nicely with each other, and we’ll see a continuation of the interoperable web model we’ve enjoyed for the past two decades. But I’m betting that things are going to get ugly. We’re heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it’s more than that, it’s a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we’re facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.
Chris Messina fears something similar as well: the death of the URL, as new formats for delivering web content are abstracting the website-going experience and letting ourselves relinquish control.
By removing our ability to navigate, choose, and share freely — these app stores are exchanging our freedom for a promise that they’ll keep us safe, give us everything we need, and do all the choosing of what’s “good enough” for us — all starting at ninety-nine cents a hit.
I know that if we always look at things with a worst case scenario in mind, we’ll never get any work done from here on out. But better to worry now than when it becomes impossible to undo things. I like how the Web is now, no matter how chaotic and crap-filled it can be.
That said, if the URL disappears, I know few people would be troubled by it, and an overhaul of the system may be needed anyway.
And as for the giants bullying us into a corner, it makes me wish the Long Tail would stand a chance.
Google sfida Microsoft con Chrome by Federico Fieni
Guess whose turn it is to bring Internet Exploder into the 21st century. Google has been dipping its fingers and toes everywhere, including the browser market. But it wasn’t content with creating its own; it just had to meddle with everyone’s favorite browser, IE. And based on the name, Google Chrome Frame quite literally puts Google Chrome into Internet Explorer (versions 6, 7, 8). That is, Chrome’s support for HTML5 and its JavaScript engine.
For ordinary users, it means having to download a plugin for IE so it works just as well as any other modern, standards-compliant browser does. For developers, it means adding a meta tag so their websites actually work work better.
Mozilla has done something similar.
A few months back, Mozilla released a <canvas> element plugin. It’s really not a new concept; clearly folks at Mozilla and Google are taking drastic measures so they can slap sense into IE.
Isn’t this Microsoft’s job?
And look how well they’re doing with that.
Let’s turn the tables on this one: would Microsoft even think of creating extensions for competing browsers? Would we even find this acceptable? Of course things are different; Firefox and Chrome work worlds better than Internet Explorer ever has. You don’t see Kill Firefox or Kill Chrome campaigns, do you?
This is not a cure-all
If you don’t have enough privileges to install plugins on your workstation, the plugin and meta tag combo is useless. It doesn’t solve the biggest roadblock to dropping IE6. And if you can install programs on your computer, why not just get Chrome anyway?
Though it’s a valiant effort to bring the IE6 user stats down by a few notches, web designers and developers would still have to test for browsers without Chrome Frame.
Can you say passive-aggressive?
But is it really a charitable deal with a hint of “desperate times call for desperate measures”? If anything, this move by Google (and Mozilla) is an elegant finger to Microsoft.
Google could just sit on its pretty throne, throw more resources into advertising its own browser, and wait ’til it eventually dominates the market. Search, email, advertising, online office suite, VoIP, real-time protocol: everything it touches turns gold. History is on Chrome’s side.
But there’s more to Google Chrome Frame as it seems to scream: “when will you ever get your act together, Microsoft!”—masked by a 24-karat, “we’re here to make the Web a better place” grin.
Here’s another technology being given the Real Time Web treatment: RSS. There’s PubSubHubbub (PuSH), created by the mother of all search engines and there’s rssCloud, created by the father of RSS. You can tell just by the people behind both projects that this is a Big Deal.
I won’t get into the technical details—mostly because I can’t—but these two protocols are built on the same idea of push notifications instead of pull, which is the current setup. Feed aggregators won’t have to check every now and then for any updates; they’ll come right in when they’re published.
The score seems to be in PubSubHubbub’s favor right now, and it certainly calls attenion based on name alone. But Dave Winer had the idea as early as 2001. And who knows what will happen in the next few months.
What matters is the feed reading system is getting a much needed upgrade especially with all this talk of it being dead. RSS? Dead?
Like Bwana, I scoff at people who run through the streets proclaiming “RSS is dead! Long live Twitter!” Aside from the obvious non-parallel comparison between a protocol and a web app, he explains it nicely:
Those who claim RSS is dead don’t realize their newfound love for Twitter would be moot if it were not for RSS. Breaking news on Twitter comes from two main sources in my mind: websites and personal experience. For tech news, I doubt there is much personal experience for news unless there’s a conference or an event. Most juicy, 0-day news comes from websites. These websites often have a… wait for it… RSS feed. The race to post tech news first on Twitter usually stems from who can refresh their RSS reader the fastest.
So here’s to RSS: I’m not sure what the Web would do without you. Pretty sure that’s how many feel about Twitter too, but let’s talk again when it goes from webapp/API level down to the protocol level. And when it scales properly, of course.
Postscript: Both PuSH and rssCloud support Atom. RSS and Atom are both feed delivery mechanisms, but you won’t see people yelling “feeds are dead!” or “Atom is dead!”, as they have ignored any distinctions among the three for ages now. So for the sake of simplicity I mentioned only RSS above.
One of the most ambitious efforts to come out of the Googleplex (or anywhere, really) in ages is Google Wave, a real-time messaging, sharing, and collaborating service unveiled last week. Finally, Google’s crack at the Real-Time Web. We’ve been waiting.
Google’s Real-Time Web
You might recall ReadWriteWeb proclaiming the big G missed the boat on that, as Twitter rules over real-time search these days. However, Wave makes one realize there is more to the real-time web than 140-character messages.
It’s a new way of doing things. It’s decentralized, open-source, and poised to take over online communications the way email has, since it’s built as a fundamental protocol. But it’s not even just “the new email”, it lets you do a lot more than that. It was built to service needs knowing the capabilities of the Web today:
Ezra Pound once wrote: “”The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” And elsewhere: “Make it new!”
Even more than the application itself, I love the way Wave doesn’t just build on what went before but starts over. In demonstrating the power of the shared, real-time information space, Jens and Lars show a keen understanding of how the cloud changes applications.
When I saw Wave for the first time on Monday, I realized that we’re at a kind of DOS/Windows divide in the era of cloud applications. Suddenly, familiar applications look as old-fashioned as DOS applications looked as the GUI era took flight. Now that the web is the platform, it’s time to take another look at every application we use today, and ask the same question Lars and Jens asked themselves: “What would this look like if we invented it today instead of twenty-five years ago?”
This is not another reboot of the social network format the way Google redid email with Gmail and redid search with Google Search. But it does feel this is the way social interactions on the Web were supposed to be. Aren’t you tired of signing up over and over for the hottest new web service, OpenID/etc. not withstanding?
I love the diversity and downright chaos of the Internet, but the future has got to be seamless integration between all things. Text, photos, videos, blog posts, polls, calendars, petitions, lyrics, jokes, LOLcats, whatever.
Now when Google says real-time, it means your friend’s message appears on your screen by the character, instead of a “your friend is typing…” notice as you twiddle your thumbs. It also means you can reply to any part of your friend’s message, edit any part of a document, and replay exactly how everything happened when you’re done. See video above. It’s brilliant.
Terrifying ramifications?
That’s barely scratching the surface. I’m not sure if the protocol will succeed—not everybody lives in real-time online, or can handle this many features (see Twitter).
If it does succeed, it might become too successful that users are addicted, possibly trapped in this real-time space. We continue to blur the line between the real and the virtual, and even if at this point we can tell the difference between the two, will we ever reach the point of being “too” connected, transparent, hyperreal?
I’m not even sure if we should be trust yet another invention from Google—there has to be something in it for them, right?
Are you terrified yet? I think I am, but I’m pretty excited too.
Some chunks of good browser-related news at the turn of the new year: Firefox browser usage is more than 20% now, while Internet Explorer, especially IE6, is declining—forcibly and otherwise!
Firefox market shares are rise, IE shares decline
Browser market share from October to December 2008
For the first time ever, Net Applications is reporting that Mozilla Firefox market shares passed 20% while Microsoft Internet Explorer dropped below 70%. Four major factors are said to explain Firefox growth, from the US elections to longer weekends/holidays, and higher unemployment—all US-centric factors.
Browser version market share December 2008
Here’s a chart by browser version. IE7 remains the dominant browser in the market, while IE6 is still at number 2, having almost the same percentage as all Firefox versions combined. But it has declined from the 21-22% range in the last quarter of 2008.
Google Chrome barely leaves a dent at 1%, but surpasses Opera at 0.7%.
Google urges IE6 users to upgrade
Get faster Gmail notice in IE6 (image courtesy of Ars Technica)
According to TG Daily, Google’s Gmail is now sporting a message specifically for IE6 users to upgrade and “get faster Gmail”.
The link leads to a page that promotes Chrome and Firefox 3. “Browsers are getting faster and better at running web applications like Google Mail that use browser technology to its limits,” the page reads. “In order to get the best experience possible and make Google Mail run an average of twice as fast, we suggest that you upgrade your browser to one of the fastest Google Mail supported browsers that work on Windows.” The page offers direct download links for Firefox 3 and Chrome. IE7 and Apple’s Safari are listed as supported Gmail browsers.
Several modern browsers are listed in the linked page, and unfortunately Opera is no longer qualified on that list. At least Google is trying to be fair by mentioning competitors to its own browser, Chrome. More importantly, at least it realizes that the browser share for such an old and run-down browser are alarmingly high. Looks like it’s getting costly to maintain backwards compatibility for JavaScript-intensive web applications like Gmail.
This is not the first time that a large company is forcing its hand. Apple’s MobileMe recommends only 2 browsers: Safari, which it owns, and Firefox.
There is hope!
With the combination of natural factors and some nudging from the big, influential companies like Google and Apple, the obsolete browser that is IE6 might just retire sooner than we expect, sooner than never.
Between Apple computers gaining popularity and Google remaining just as powerful, their influence on which becomes the default browser in controlled environments will be needed to level the playing field, ultimately pushing the capabilities of web browsers forward.
