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.
I find it very intriguing that Microsoft chose to redesign its new Windows Phone 7 Series interface this way:
The design and layout of 7 Series’ UI (internally called Metro) is really quite original, utilizing what one of the designers (Albert Shum, formerly of Nike) calls an “authentically digital” and “chromeless” experience. What does that mean? Well we can tell you what it doesn’t mean — no shaded icons, no faux 3D or drop shadows, no busy backgrounds (no backgrounds at all), and very little visual flair besides clean typography and transition animations. The whole look is strangely reminiscent of a terminal display (maybe Microsoft is recalling its DOS roots here) — almost Tron-like in its primary color simplicity. To us, it’s rather exciting. This OS looks nothing like anything else on the market, and we think that’s to its advantage. Admittedly, we could stand for a little more information available within single views, and we have yet to see how the phone will handle things like notifications, but the design of the interface is definitely in a class of its own.
Curveball thrown. While the look has been in Zunes for sometime now, the real challenge lies in whether this will take off for mobile phones. I have to commend their bravery for taking this step, going the complete opposite of Apple’s love for rounded corners, gradients, and shadows. It also looks open and airy compared to all the boxes (no matter how rounded) on the iPhone.
It definitely changes the game a bit, and like several others I’m starting to feel like the Apple interface looks dated next to this one. Pretty big deal if you ask me.
This move could backfire. People tend to shy away from minimalism, not to mention it could actually be underdesigned, lacking in visual cues and icons. It falls short of the unified look Apple has built over the years, and I doubt it could start a UI revolution the way OS X did. Would Microsoft even use this for its desktop OS?
We’ll also have to find how it really measures up in real-world testing because the interface alone won’t determine success, but also performance and features (IE and Bing instead of Safari/Mozilla and Google? What apps will it have?). Still, bold is better than half-baked, and in the mobile space this look definitely sets them apart.
The Apple stories just don’t stop coming, do they? Here’s yet another provocative issue concerning the company, but this time with web development: the iPhone is the new Internet Explorer 6, according to Peter Paul Koch.
The iPhone has become an obsession. If we don’t pay attention, we’ll have a mobile web that only works on the iPhone. And then we’ll have the real mobile web that wasn’t made by us and doesn’t give a shit about web standards and best practices.
Worse, it seems web developers are happy with this state of affairs. It seems web developers are congratulating themselves on excluding 85% of the smartphone users. They certainly never bother to check their sites in S60 WebKit, the largest smartphone browser in the world.
Fucking dimwits.
We’re doing exactly the same as ten years ago. We now say “iPhone” instead of “IE6,” but otherwise nothing’s changed.
No, wait, there’s one more change: the iPhone has far less mobile market share now than IE6 had desktop share back then.
The once most advanced browser is now the most hated, and the same fate could happen with the iPhone and its mobile web browser. However, given that they were made by two very different companies—the oft-hated Microsoft and the much-adored Apple—it’s hard to imagine the revolutionary smartphone gaining a stigma someday. An interesting achievement if that does somehow happen, but what an unfortunate future that would be.
Still, I have two points to make. First: I’m glad that a reputable voice is finally calling out this obsession with creating custom-tailored websites for the iPhone, when it’s supposed to have the most advanced browser, displaying pages as they normally would on a regular computer. Chances are you don’t have to. That’s what the multitouch zoom gesture is for, so that the screen size wouldn’t be such a hindrance.
Second: hype, here we go again. PPK draws back the curtain and tells us that there are other devices far more popular than the iPhone, yet the buzz about mobile web development is strongest with iPhone apps and iPhone app-like websites. It goes against the very idea of web standards, of making websites work in as many platforms as possible, not just what gains the most attention and is considered cool. (As an aside: what can be said about implementing CSS3 properties via browser-specific extensions? Is it the same thing?)
Finally, a minor third point: Koch isn’t addressing every mobile web developer in his article, just the ones that are so caught up in this iPhone-loving bubble that it’d be a shame when they mislead impressionable developers branching out to the mobile arena.
And a far worse shame if because of the hype we somehow get stuck in the rut that is IE6 all over again.
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.
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.
The mark of anything well-made is found in the details, and when it comes to geeky conferences for designers and developers, organizers are coming up with geeky new ways to spice up the offline event experience.
Badges
Gravatar-enabled WordCamp Badges
Let me first say that Gravatars, or globally recognized avatars, should be a staple in every social network or web app that lets uses upload avatars, because why upload one everywhere when it can be pulled from a centralized location?
Now combine Gravatar with sister application WordPress, specifically its conference WordCamp, and you’ve got brilliant automated way to print photos on conference badges. The best part is you can download the source code!
Creative Mornings Q&A Badges
This one’s not so high-tech, but a neat little idea nonetheless, especially for smaller, more frequent gatherings such as Creative Mornings. In place of names on the nametags, participants have to fill in the blank with an answer to a certain question.
Past sessions have asked questions like “What would you like to redesign?”, “What can you teach me?”, “What would you do if you had your own storefront?”, and “What would make you a good client?” Cheap, easy, and an instant icebreaker.
Crowdsourcing
dConstruct Time Capsule
With the theme of dConstruct 2009 being Designing for Tomorrow, it makes total sense to come up with a Time Capsule competition, where the best entry wins free passes including hotel accommodations and a seat at the speakers dinner.
The question is simple: “What do you see that you would like to preserve for the future?” but it also underscores how important understanding the past and present is in order to build for the future. Especially when it comes to the Web.
SXSW Panel Picker
For such a massive event as the South By Southwest (SXSW) Conferences and Festivals, tapping into the wisdom of the masses makes sense. Not only does the SXSW PanelPicker increase interactivity by letting the participants vote for the talks that will go live, but it also builds extra buzz as the speakers themselves campaign for their own panels.
Twitter & Co. Mashups
MIX09 Flotzam
These days everybody is contributing to the coverage of any one event, and it’s even more awesome to experience that collaboration during instead of after the fact. Mashups such as Flotzam grabs streams from Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, and the blogosphere. This one looks especially nice with the Tetris skin, which was originally built for Microsoft conference MIX09.
Read more about the process here. Grab the .NET and Silverlight source code here.
Carsonified @HelloApp
@HelloApp, which debuts at the Future of Web Apps – London 2009, lets conference-goers meet new people via Twitter. First you tag yourself during check-in, earn badges and points for meeting new people and completing certain tasks, and browse the seating chart according to professional background (design, development, PHP, Rails).
A perfect blend of socializing and tweeting at the same time. Read how Carsonified created it.
What’s your great idea?
Got a great conference idea already executed, or still brewing? The moral of the story here: don’t leave your geekiness behind when you go offline. Embrace it, because it makes things a hell of a lot more interesting.
In yet another interesting turn of events, two of the biggest issues when it comes to web design and development make way for the newer, better versions of themselves.
Goodbye, IE6!
Asa Dotzler of Mozilla reports that IE6 usage has now been overtaken by IE8, based on the browser tracking data from Net Applications. This happened as recently as June 2009.
Of course, specific demographics on your respective websites will vary, but this trend is a sign of things to come. And we’re not talking about years anymore, but months.
I’d have to commend Internet Explorer team on their great marketing efforts to improve the IE8 adoption rate. Even if Microsoft’s latest browser is up to snuff compared to the likes of Firefox, WebKit (Safari/Chrome), and Opera—see these comparison charts for HTML5—it’s a big step.
This is it, guys. Freedom.
Goodbye, XHTML2!
Slashdot reports that the XHTML2 Working Group charter is expiring by the end of 2009, and it will not be renewed. The W3C has also decided to pour more resources into the HTML5 working group.
Those who weren’t paying attention to this seeming sibling rivalry between XHTML2 and HTML5 can now rest easy. Though I’m not sure if XHTML2 ever stood a chance given how all the web gurus were backing HTML5 as early as last year. Google is on board, too. And everybody else is starting cash in on its growing popularity.
The good thing about XTHML was that it enforced well-formed markup, with strict provisions for lowercase code, quoted attributes, and trailing slashes for empty elements. Thankfully HTML5 this coding convention too, and can be served as a serialized XML document dubbed XHTML5.
At least we wouldn’t be forced to choose between the two anymore. Competition is good, but not here. We need standards.
Unwanted competition eliminated
How convenient is it that we have two less things to worry about now? Very, but now that they’re gone, it’s time to make up for lost time:
- Microformats. (This is the easiest to jump into.)
- Fluid layouts.
@font-face and custom web fonts: this time it’s not just the browser makers that web designers and developers are up against, but the type foundries. TypeKit and Kernest are attempting to bridge that gap.- CSS nested declarations, variables, and operations: LESS
- CSS if statements: Modernizr
- Animated PNGs.
Exciting times, people!
I don’t know about you, but I avoid clicking on PDF files like the plague simply because it takes ages for it to load, whether with a browser plugin or a desktop app. Microsoft Office files are almost the same. Why can’t these documents be opened as easily as webpages, anyway?
Enter Issuu, a cool platform that makes viewing digital books, magazines, and other materials much easier—try using it right now—and Smart Look, which is a piece of code you to be placed in your website that embeds various document formats (PDFs, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations) into a Lightbox-meets-Acrobat interface. Only it’s lighter and more portable because the viewer (which you can also find on Issuu itself) is powered by Flash.
What actually happens is that to copy the code, Issuu scans your site for documents to import, under your account (which you’ll have to sign up for). The files on your site stay intact, but copies are stored on their servers under your username. Try Smart Look in action here.
Better browsing experience
Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on the irony in using one Adobe product (Flash) to view another one (PDF). Isn’t that a sign that something is terribly wrong with the way Adobe has been handling PDF files? Will Adobe correct this anytime soon, perhaps through Buzzword, and eventually kill Issuu?
Issuu and Smart Look make sense. To quote TechCrunch, Issuu really wants to kill the document download
. I think that doing so makes for a better browsing experience.
I’m not saying you axe the download option altogether. Just don’t make it the default action because it’s extremely disorienting. Not everybody has the foresight to look at a URL they’re about to load and choose to save it instead of view it. “Do I choose ‘Open’ or ‘Save’? Why is my computer hanging? Why, gawd, why?”
Competition means progress
Scribd and Docstoc. Too clunky.
And as far as inteface design goes, Issuu is a bit more polished than competitors Scribd and Docstoc, which remind me of the PDF viewers I’m avoiding in the first place. Although both have text selection while Issuu does not. Smart Look, however, erases the need for embedding the files in your pages since clicking on a link will do that for you.
Now I don’t want to do any more comparisons among the three because whichever webapp you’re using, I like that there is actual development going on in this space. It’s certainly worlds better than having to open documents in a bloated old program like Acrobat!
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.
Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft is committed to building a better web with with a redesigned MIX Online and its horde of interesting resources, from articles to web development tools to delightful goodies.
We’ve all been guilty of bashing Microsoft for several different reasons, but now is a great time to give it a second (or a hundredth) chance. After all, it’s Christmas!
Articles and Opinions
Let’s start with readable sources on MIX Online, the Articles and Opinions sections. Skim through them and you’ll get a good sense that MIX Online shaping up to be a reputable web design source that’s passionate about web standards, user experience, and best practices. Read Nishant Kothary’s walkthrough of the site redesign, transforming moleskine sketches to a cool community running on their new CMS platform (more on that later).
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