On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:04:52 +0100, Tom Livingston <tom...@gmail.com>
wrote:
If I may...
if you're happy with your web experience in IE6, then you need do
nothing IMHO. Eventually, and I imagine IE9 will speed this up,
developers are going to stop giving as much care to IE6 as they do now
- if they do at all. Your web experience in IE6 will begin to dwindle
to text-only pages. Sure, the info is there and If that's all you
want, you'll be fine. ;-)
No, I never said I was happy with the IE 6 situation, I use it to the
absolute minimum, and never browse with it, or indeed with IE 7 or IE 8.
The whole point of my comment was that too many people think this is all
going to be fixed with the advent of IE 9. I fear that it is just the
opposite.
Many users are 'locked' to IE 6 because of Operating System
specifications, do you think that IE 9 being locked to only Vista and Win
7 users is going to ease this problem.
My point was that with around 64% of the Windows user base still using XP,
a far bigger problem is about to land on our desk.
At minimum an XP user must buy a new operating system to have access to IE
9, and in many cases that upgrade will require a new higher spec system to
run on.
The 'corporate' world does not appear to have embraced Vista or Win 7 and
it could be a considerable time before they do, given the current
financial climate the small businesses that I have spoken too will extend
the life of their systems as far as possible. 'Domestic' users are feeling
the pinch just as much.
Anyone who has recently bought a new machine will probably have little
trouble when IE 9 is released, but consider the costs involved for a user
with an older low spec machine. New system, new operating system, and in
some cases a need to upgrade other software to match the new system can
run to quite a sum of cash.
Can we reasonably expect this expenditure purely to have the functions
that IE 9 will bring, and what exactly are those so essential functions.
Perhaps if they were so essential, the corporate world would have been the
first to head toward system upgrades.
The overriding problem is not really the browser itself, it is the fact
that IE is so tightly bundled, and locked into the Operating System.
I am well aware of the problems of keeping IE 6 happy, IE 7 is not a great
lot better, but until the operating systems themselves have truly gone
extinct, those browsers are still going to be around.
Unless authors and businesses, particularly eCommerce sites, consciously
make the decision to exclude an unknown chunk of their potential market we
will soon have another member of the IE family to deal with.
We will never 'kill' IE 6 by ignoring and potentially alienating its user
base, only if Microsoft take the browser out of the operating system and
produce a competitive stand alone browser will we have a chance to emerge
from the whole IE mess.
Were a personal computer only a tool for browsing the internet, we 'might'
be justified in applying pressure to users to upgrade their system, but in
the real world a PC has many wider uses, possibly much more important to
the individual user.
Should we continue to try and communicate with those users, even if it
means presenting the information in much simpler form, or should we be
responsible for alienating and denigrating those users and potential
buyers of our information/product.
Duncan
(sent from my ageing, low spec machine using Opera 10.54)
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