IE7 tax

List overview All Threads
Download

newer

older

who can merge into core/master?

Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax

Arun Ganesh

14 Jun 2012 14 Jun '12

6:21 a.m.

As someone who writes css, I am particularly frightened by IE7. And I can imagine there are a lot of frontend developers and staff out there who spend significant time on fixing things for this niche audience, when they could be working on more constructive things. I came across this service today which has started to levy a a surcharge on IE7 users [1] and it got me thinking. 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the following: - IE6 ships default with XP - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by buying some new hardware (or switching to linux) - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce hostage through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands it. - People new to computers and are not really sure how to use the mouse. They need to be told IE7 is bad and how to upgrade - Those without an internet connection. Can be solved by not using the internet. - IE7/mspaint hipsters. No solution. As one of the most visited places on the internet, it is probably in the best interests of the planet that we decide its no longer worthwhile to support this fallen angel. Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering? [1] http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet-explorer-7-tax/ -- j.mp/ArunGanesh

Show replies by date

Sébastien Santoro

14 Jun 14 Jun

6:39 a.m.

Hi, If you didn't take the Arun Ganesh's proposition seriously, you can ignore this mail. On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Our mission isn't to "save the internet a lot of pain and suffering". The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.". I don't know if there are mission statement for the Wikimedia tech or the MediaWiki developers communities, but I don't think to improve some developers comfort pushing so strongly issues like not supporting a product help DIRECTLY our objectives WITHOUT BREAKING OTHER OBJECTIVES (like for the WMF, "to disseminate [the educational content] effectively and GLOBALLY"). I fear this GLOBALLY includes the 1.5-5% IE7 marketshare. -- Best Regards, Sébastien Santoro aka Dereckson http://www.dereckson.be/

Stephen Bain

6:39 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:21 PM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering?

Unfortunately this is only going to encourage people to downgrade to IE6 :) -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com

Chad

6:46 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 7:21 AM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

As one of the most visited places on the internet, it is probably in the best interests of the planet that we decide its no longer worthwhile to support this fallen angel. Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering?

Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. -Chad

Andre Engels

1:45 p.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Just to give some data: Looking at May, this 1% limit would mean supporting the following browser versions (May 2012 data): * Chrome 18.0 and 19.0 * MSIE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 * Firefox 3.6, 11.0 and 12.0 * Safari 534.55 (desktop), 6533.18 and 7534.48 (iOS) * Opera 11.62 and 11.64 * Safari 533.1 (Android browser) Furthermore, the following have no version at or over 1%, but do get there or at least near when all versions are combined: * Opera Mini * WikipediaMobile (our own mobile app) * BlackBerry browser * Apple PubSub (rss reader) -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

Ryan Kaldari

2:16 p.m.

You do know we still support IE6 right? We should probably discuss dropping IE6 support before IE7 :) Ryan Kaldari On Jun 14, 2012, at 11:45 AM, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Chris McMahon

8:57 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the

...

following: - IE6 ships default with XP - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by buying some new hardware (or switching to linux) - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce hostage through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands it.

I'd like to reframe these examples. First, as I understand it, most IE6/IE7 users globally are running pirated versions of Windows. For financial or political reasons, they will not or can not acquire legal versions and thus can't upgrade their browsers. Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, I worked for a company that processes complex financial records for pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses pharmacies for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny part of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech. I don't think we can dismiss IE6/7 users cavalierly.

Derric Atzrott

9:04 a.m.

...

Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, I worked for a company that processes complex financial records for pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses pharmacies for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well

over 50% of

...

our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny part of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of

dollars

...

passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech.

I can second this. I used to work for a Credit Union and we made extensive use of IE7. It wasn't that we in the IT department liked IE7, it was just that the cost of replacing the interface our tellers and MSR worked with was too high to justify the change. Someone ages ago had decided that the best way to build the GUI version of the teller interface was to use ActiveX in Internet Explorer. Thank you, Derric Atzrott Computer Specialist Alizee Pathology

John Du Hart

9:08 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Chris McMahon <cmcmahon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the

No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a pirated version they can still update their browsers. -- John

Derric Atzrott

9:20 a.m.

...

No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a

pirated version they can still update their browsers. Not sure about Internet Explorer 8, but as of October 2007, you don't need a genuine copy of Windows XP to move from IE6 to IE7. [1] I'm not sure when they made this change, but it appears that you may also download IE8 without having a genuine copy of Windows these days [2]. [1] https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.as px?Redirected=true [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43

Max Semenik

9:28 a.m.

On 14.06.2012, 18:20 Derric wrote:

...

No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a

pirated version they can still update their browsers.

...

Not sure about Internet Explorer 8, but as of October 2007, you don't need a genuine copy of Windows XP to move from IE6 to IE7. [1]

...

I'm not sure when they made this change, but it appears that you may also download IE8 without having a genuine copy of Windows these days [2].

...

[1] https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.as px?Redirected=true [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43

Furthermore, whatever Windows you have or whether you paid for it or not, there are lots of free browsers that are much better than even newest IE anyway. But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience. -- Best regards, Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])

Amir E. Aharoni

10:10 a.m.

2012/6/14 Max Semenik <maxsem.wiki(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Furthermore, whatever Windows you have or whether you paid for it or not, there are lots of free browsers that are much better than even newest IE anyway.

+1.

...

But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience.

We are site number 5 in popularity, more or less. We are talking about annoying less than 10% of our audience, and for pretty good reasons: giving them a faster and more secure web, and saving ourselves time, effort, money and mental health. Google, which is the number 1 site in popularity, is annoying over 60% of its audience with a Google Chrome advertisement right at the top of http://www.google.com . Google is giving this to all versions of IE and Firefox. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

Chad

10:21 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

...

2012/6/14 Max Semenik <maxsem.wiki(a)gmail.com>om>:

But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience.

10% of our audience is still a huge number of people. Hell, so is 5%. We don't know their reasons for using an older browser--maybe Grandpa is still using his Compaq from 2001, maybe you work at a company like other people have alluded to. Maybe someone's just crazy and likes IE6/7. I think you're horribly exaggerating the effort and mental health expense required to maintain these browsers.

...

Google, which is the number 1 site in popularity, is annoying over 60% of its audience with a Google Chrome advertisement right at the top of http://www.google.com . Google is giving this to all versions of IE and Firefox.

That's their prerogative--they're trying to sell a product. I personally think IE6/7 users would be better served by ditching IE entirely--preferably to a WebKit-based browser. Others might suggest Firefox. Others would say to grab the latest IE. There's even some weird kids who might suggest moving to Opera ;-) We should not implicitly advertising any browsers. -Chad

Derric Atzrott

10:33 a.m.

...

That's their prerogative--they're trying to sell a product.

...

I personally think IE6/7 users would be better served by ditching IE entirely--preferably to a WebKit-based browser. Others might suggest Firefox. Others would say to grab the latest IE. There's even some weird kids who might suggest moving to Opera ;-)

...

We should not implicitly advertising any browsers.

Not to get off topic, but to throw it out there, we can avoid the problem of not recommending any particular browser in a method similar to Microsoft. [1] Of course, that begins to get into more work than is reasonably needed for this. While I'll be the first to say that people really ought to not use IE7 at this point, I agree that asking them not to isn't really our decision, especially considering the mission statement of the Wikimedia Foundation, as mentioned earlier. If it turns out there is something significant that we can't do because we must support IE7, then I'll be all about dropping support for it in order to move forward. But without a very good reason, I don't think that is the best way to go; at the very least we should wait for their usage to go down. 5% of ">2500 per second" [2] is still quite a number of readers. Thank you, Derric Atzrott [1] http://www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.htm [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_in_figures_-_Wikipedia

MZMcBride

9:28 p.m.

Max Semenik wrote:

...

But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience.

Let's put that in a sitenotice. :-) MZMcBride

Jon Robson

2:19 p.m.

Another approach to consider for IE6/7 users is where it makes sense ship a stylesheet which hides everything other than the content. I believe Wikipedia should be accessible to all regardless of their browser choices. Here is the IE6 one for those who haven't seen it - there is also an IE7 equivalent somewhere. code: http://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/ demo: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/content/demo/2009/05/21/forabeautifulweb.html On 14 Jun 2012 06:57, "Chris McMahon" <cmcmahon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad(a)gmail.com

wrote:

6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the

following: - IE6 ships default with XP - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by

buying

some new hardware (or switching to linux) - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce

hostage

through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands it.

Brion Vibber

2:31 p.m.

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Jon Robson <jdlrobson(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

This is basically what we did for Netscape 4 when we gave up supporting it back in the day. We switched the style loads so they wouldn't load any skin CSS on Netscape 4, giving you the raw Monobook skin layout. Not pretty, but still functional. :) On 14 Jun 2012 06:57, "Chris McMahon" <cmcmahon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF,

worked for a company that processes complex financial records for pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses

pharmacies

for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny

part

of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech.

My experience has tended to be that folks have two browsers in such environments -- the IE 6/7 for "work stuff" and Chrome or Firefox for "other stuff" (Facebook, Youtube ;) -- brion

David Gerard

15 Jun 15 Jun

7:06 a.m.

- d.

Platonides

4:36 p.m.

On 15/06/12 14:06, David Gerard wrote:

...

- d.

» Yes, I switched to IE because I liked better the typeface it was showing the pages...

4342

days inactive

4343

days old

wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Manage subscription

18 comments

16 participants

tags (0)

participants (16)

Amir E. Aharoni
Andre Engels
Arun Ganesh
Brion Vibber
Chad
Chris McMahon
David Gerard
Derric Atzrott
John Du Hart
Jon Robson
Max Semenik
MZMcBride
Platonides
Ryan Kaldari
Stephen Bain
Sébastien Santoro