We already know that Paul Boag doesn’t like us very much, but it would appear that Ryan Carson of Carsonified isn’t a fan either. Just take a look at this interview Ryan Carson conducted with Paul Boag, in which Paul bashes IE6 Update:
Ouch. I haven’t felt that kind of sting since the fresh squeezed orange juice from Jerry’s Famous Deli hit my palate at FOWA Miami 2008. Now, Ryan is a cool guy. I know this, because Jim and I had breakfast with him (I’m the fellow on the left playing with his iPhone, Jim is the guy in the black shirt sitting next to me, and Ryan is the one in the hat on the right):
Paul’s post over at ThinkVitamin launched some great debate, which I love (life would be boring otherwise). And in the comments, Ryan gave a nod to IE6 Update’s innovation, which I’m humbled by (although some credit goes to Activebar2, from which IE6 Update is derived). Cool as Ryan may be though, I’m bewildered by what he says next:
“I worry about the folks who are using an intranet or some bespoke internal web app that relies on IE6, which would then break for them.”
If a network administrator doesn’t want their users installing or upgrading software, the machines should be locked down. Period. Networks with machines running Internet Explorer 6 should especially be locked down, due to its terrible security track record. I personally try to steer clear of the phrase “not my problem,” but I fail to see how IE6 Update, which is essentially a link to Microsoft’s website, threatens the integrity of their intranet.
We care about the web very deeply. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have created Validifer, a tool that converts Flash embed code into valid XHTML. Some might say that IE6 Update is an extreme measure, and I’m not denying that, but to move the world onward from a browser that’s nearly ten years old, I strongly believe that IE6 Update is a great option in cases where education has failed. Before loving it or hating it, you have to consider your website’s audience.
Not everyone dislikes IE6 Update. Check out the IE6 Update screencast from ProCasts and the IE6 Update WordPress plugin. Mozilla Firefox is pretty amused as well:
What do you think? Is Ryan Carson right? Or should companies be more careful with their networks?
11 comments ↓
Hey Nick,
I had forgotten we had breakfast together - that’s awesome
I really respect you for going to extreme measures to try to make the web a better place - that’s why I like the ‘heart’ behind IE6Update. I just think the method that you go about it is slightly deceitful. I’m not saying you or Jim are bad guys (clearly not the case), I’m just saying it’s wise to steer clear of things that could be *seen* as deceitful.
Interestingly, because of the debate over at ThinkVitamin I got introduced to Declan Curry, a TV presenter on the BBC and it might lead to going on national television to talk about the importance of upgrading your browser
BTW, I wasn’t aware of http://validifier.com - looks like a great tool.
All the best,
Ryan
That’s awesome Ryan,
I’ve been following your tweets about the BBC appearance. I’m reaaalllyy hoping that goes through, because I think that would hit the ears of people that need to hear it most.
I’m all about educational efforts. I think education has been underrepresented in this whole IE6 Update controversy.
I agree that possibly the wording and the actual icon used might be going slightly too far, which was a part of my motivation to create the WordPress plugin. It makes the options available in IE6Update more readily changeable, so you can make it a little less deceptive, and just use it as a notice to update the browser.
That said, I don’t know if deception is really the right word… but anyway, I’m not interested in a big debate over semantics on it either
Love your work, Ryan, and yours too Nick!
@Japh Thanks Japh!
I like the initiative although I think the possibility of people feeling or thinking it’s a deceitful action speaks against it. For some two years now I’ve had an information bar being displayed at the top of my blog for ALL Internet Explorer users. It points to GetFirefox and GetOpera and was an initiative of “Use A Better Browser”. This initiative doesn’t exist any longer, but http://browsehappy.com/ still does. So an alternative would be to first point to Browse Happy and then get people to upgrade to a non-IE browser.
@Nick: You already know I’m against ie6update, for many reasons which we’ve discussed at length on other posts, and you raise one of the reasons in this post.
You say that IT managers should lock down systems that shouldn’t be upgraded. I completely agree with this, but the problem is that your script can’t discriminate. Users in locked systems will still see the warning. But they can’t act on it and can’t upgrade. So when they visit random websites with the script installed, they will be constantly told their browser is out of date for no good reason. They will probably complain to IT and as I mentioned in my original post about this, IT departments the world over are not going to enjoy having to deal with these kinds of regular complaints/enquiries. For these users, it’s drawing their attention to a problem that isn’t even a problem they should be worrying about. That’s their IT dept’s concern.
@Sebastian: I think it’s a bit arrogant of the web community to tell people what browser they should be using. For many users, it’s a choice and forcing your views on them doesn’t engender good relations in my experience. Browsehappy and other such initiatives have a noble intent behind them, but ultimately are putting out the wrong message.
It’s our responsibility to cater for the browsers that are out there, not simply tell people to use something different.
Just found IE6 Update, and I think it’s great. I can see why some people say it’s “deceitful” but honestly, will users care? If they’re made aware of software upgrades and understand the benefits then it doesn’t really matter how they’re informed. I don’t like the message that’s there by default. I think I’m going with: “Your version of Internet Explorer is more than five years out of date. Click here to upgrade to a faster, more secure version.”
Incidentally, the “Simple Machines” forum software (SMF) uses the exact same method to alert visitors who are not logged in, “You are not registered…”
With regard to the intranet thing - I don’t see that it should break anything. Firstly, employees in those situations would probably not be able to upgrade anyway. Secondly, IE6 periodically forwards you to the MS update site on startup anyway, it’s different from that.
@Matt: Sure, everyone has the right to choose their web browser. But you go and find me one person who knows about IE7 and IE8 and Firefox, AND chooses to use IE6 over those browsers.
IE6 is at least 10 years behind the times and will continue to break on more and more sites, and it will die eventually. Why not help speed that up?
Actually, I think the best strategy is to encourage as many of those big corporations as possible to upgrade their intranet systems to something new and valid and cross browser. It’s obvious this is the major problem - my IE6 stats from Google Analytics form a nice hilly pattern, dropping significantly at weekends!
My personal views aside, I’m not convinced that the script is actually going to have the effect of helping to speed up the killing of IE6. So I’d love to see some metrics that prove the success of IE6update.
It would be interesting for the Done21 team to track the sites that have installed the script and then collate information about users who successfully upgraded their browser.
There are only 3 steps to profit!!
I wanted to develop this script myself, till I came across this solution. I do think it could help the web move forward. We will run this script for two months and see if it helps.
[...] To address this issue I’ve been researching ‘out of the box’ solutions for styling older browsers. My first knee-jerk reaction was to use IE6 Update. This created a sort of safety net for my concerns for a short while; I felt better that while IE6 (and similar) users got a somewhat broken experience at least they were informed why things looked that way. In my testing the IE6 Update bar didn’t quite meet my standards. While it did indeed look and sort-of feel like Internet Explorer’s notification bar, the experience was lacking. The text on the bar was centered instead of being left-aligned, and the bar jumped around on screen while scrolling, and sometimes disappeared for short times, where it should be completely fixed to the top of the viewport. I resolved that while it is an interesting idea with honorable intentions, the bar is a [...]
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