
Google Apps drop support for IE9 - ritchiea
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/11/google-drops-support-for-ie9.html
======
DigitalSea
The only way the web can move forward is if we stop supporting archaic
browsers that can't support half the features CSS3 and HTML5 have to offer.
Google are the only company game enough to make such a move, they should be
praised for this. They've consistently helped push the web forward, IE10 is
exciting and a decent version of Internet Explorer, I can't wait until I can
build for IE10+

Websockets, HTML5 File API, FileReader API, XMLHttpRequest 2, Web Workers,
IndexedDB, requestAnimationFrame, JS Typed Arrays, PageVisibility and a whole
list of other awesome things that IE10+ supports. I'm drooling thinking of all
of these new API's I soon will be able to use in my web applications without
needing shims.

~~~
huxley
Man, I remember thinking how good it would be when I could stop supporting IE6
... I think it was last week.

~~~
DigitalSea
IE6 opens up some painful wounds for me. It was a dark dark time for the web.
Still hurts thinking back to the use of transparent PNG's and all the issues
to get them to work!

~~~
kamjam
I don't think it was. IE pushed a lot of boundaries back in the day and it was
up to others to innovate. Just look at how far we have come since Firefox was
released.

I understand that MS using it's dominant position was bad, but it's exactly
what Google does too. It's business and you take every advantage you have.

~~~
Mahn
> IE pushed a lot of boundaries back in the day

And then fell asleep for years. If it hadn't been for Mozilla, people would
still be using IE6.

~~~
kamjam
Yes, I know that. But competition drives the market and innovation, not just
the browser market but every single market in existence.

The reason, as I see it, that up to IE6 there was innovation was because there
was competition with Netscape. Until Mozilla turned up again they didn't have
that same need to throw money and resources behind a product. I _wish_ they
had, but boards of directors and shareholders may well have argued otherwise.
I'm glad Mozilla turned up when it did.

------
davidjgraph
"The policy is not useful for Internet Explorer, which doesn't update
automatically and has limited OS support."

First point is wrong, from IE 11 the default is automatic updates.

The second point is an unusual way to phrase it...

On the overall topic, I find this strange. Google Docs seems to make efforts
to target Microsoft Office users by writing importers for what are very
complex formats. It then pretty much cuts itself off from most medium and
larger Microsoft based companies, very few of which, in my experience, are up
to IE 10.

I wonder if this says something about them really targeting the small, but
fastest growing companies and anything really big is nice, but not the
priority.

~~~
JohnTHaller
That description is pretty accurate. 58% of the market is using Internet
Explorer currently. Of Internet Explorer users, the breakdown by version is:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.0: 2.57%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10.0: 32.63%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 : 16.34%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 : 37.48%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 : 2.26%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 : 8.49%

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 : 0.23%

(Source: NetMarketShare. Note that this is global so skewed a bit by all the
pirated copies of Windows XP in China, etc)

IE is a bit of a mess browser-wise because we've nearly always had a ton of
users not on the latest version. The reason? IE doesn't automatically update
to a later version. Every other browser on Windows and Linux does. The only
other exception is Safari on Mac OS X, which has specific versions
artificially pegged to the OS like IE is with Windows. That's why we have 38%
of IE users on an outdated browser like IE8 and 8.5% on IE6. Like IE8, IE9 is
lacking in many important areas that users of Firefox, Google Chrome, etc
don't need to worry about. IE9 lacks several CSS3 tags that have been
supported for a while by Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. IE9 lacks columns
support, animation support, transform, and transition support. IE10 and IE11
properly support it.

In short, Google can keep making Google Apps better by dropping support for
dead browsers like IE9. I mean dead as in they're not being developed further.
They're stuck with broken or non-existent CSS3 support. And, as pointed out by
others, the type of organization that's going to try out Google Apps as a MS
Office replacement, isn't the type of organization that's going to be stuck on
IE8/9.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
NetMarketShare's stats wildly contradict everyone else's [1]. If you believe
them, IE is used almost 3 times as much as Chrome/Firefox. If you believe
anyone else, Chrome is ahead of IE.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table)

~~~
JohnTHaller
NetMarketShare's stats are more accurate than any of the others listed there.
The mere fact that W3Counter, StatCounter, and Wikimedia are listed there
shows that whoever compiled it has no understanding of global web stats.
Chrome is only the dominant browser in two countries and elsewhere only
dominant amongst a specific subset of demographics.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
If that's true, maybe you could correct the Wikipedia article? Honestly, I'll
hold my hands up: I don't have an in-depth understanding of how each of those
stats companies gathers their data and, having heard widely-reported
statements about Chrome exceeding IE's market share, my natural instinct was
to accept the majority's figures over the minority. If I - and, no doubt, many
others - are being misled, it would be nice to correct our misconceptions.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I gave up editing Wikipedia years ago after someone kept subtly vandalizing a
page for one of my big websites and removing mentions of it on other pages
which had been placed organically by multiple editors in favor of a
competitor's site in another country operating illegally. To the point that
demonstrably wrong information was in wikipedia and demonstrably correct
information was removed. This went on for months and there wasn't a thing I
could do about it, so I just stopped bothering. Essentially, most pages wind
up self-selecting among people with similar viewpoints or people who feel like
sticking it out the longest in edit wars.

As far as the wikipedia stats links, jeswin correctly points out why the other
measures are inferior (and useless when talking about overall web usage)
above. You're free to update the page to reflect this, but I think I've had
enough of wikipedia egos and edit wars to last a lifetime.

------
freehunter
I wonder if Google will ever end up in legal trouble for such a policy. While
I don't support the notion that any company or person should _have_ to support
_any_ version of OS or browser, knowing the massive effect that Google has on
the web market and the fact that they have their own browser, if there is any
attempt to specifically lock out older competing browsers, the FTC or EU might
have questions about that. If you're pushing to be number one in a massive
market, you have to play by different rules (as Microsoft found out in the
90's).

Google hasn't been playing nice with Microsoft for a while (see how many
Google apps are in the Windows Phone store, the issue where they locked out IE
Mobile from viewing Google Maps, or how they treat Windows Phone trying to
interface with YouTube). In a way it's nice to see Microsoft reaping what
they've sown so long ago, but in another way it's incredibly frustrating from
an end user perspective to be someone who likes Microsoft software (such as
Windows Phone) and also enjoy using Google services like Maps and Youtube.

Google should be careful with how much they're pushing against Microsoft,
especially with Microsoft's new market position versus Google. Microsoft is
hardly the monopoly anymore.

~~~
angularly
Google is doing the world a big favor with this, forcing people to upgrade to
new browsers and defragmenting the web as a whole... not to mention making
life a hell of alot easier for all us web developers. Microsoft can just make
their browser autoupdate like everyone else is doing.

~~~
emn13
But if they don't, ironically, google may be helping microsoft by encouraging
users to upgrade their PC.

And there's no sign that MS will ship new browsers to old platforms.

~~~
louthy
XP has 6 months life left, after that I suspect most 'enterprise' web app
developers will drop support for IE9, I know we certainly will be.

~~~
bradleyjg
I'd love to be able to stop supporting IE 8, the gap between 8 and 9 is almost
as big a jump as 6 to 7, but I don't see that happening until Windows 7
support is no longer offered. Windows 7 came with IE 8 preinstalled and no
automatic updates from that to higher versions. People are still buying
Windows 7 machines.

Dropping IE 9 support isn't even on the horizon for me.

N.B. The company I work for sells to US k-12 schools.

~~~
giovannibajo1
Windows 7 automatic updates include Internet Explorer updates by default:
[http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/ie/gg615599.aspx](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/gg615599.aspx)
[http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/ie/jj898508.aspx](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/jj898508.aspx)

IE9 was optional (users were presented with a dialog and they could decline
installing it), while IE10 was automatic, no questions asked.

Alas, numbers of browser share say that this process is not working as smooth
as MS would hope.

------
csmuk
This really doesn't make sense apart from for the sake of pushing Chrome,
which is using the same bait and switch tactics that Microsoft used in the
late 90's and early 00's. Don't be evil eh?

If you look at the FULL chart they reference[1], there are considerably more
IE8 users than any Apple device for example and there are more IE8 and IE9
users combined than IE10.

IE8 users are likely on Windows XP as that's the last supported browser
version on that. Bye bye XP users unless you install Chrome.

IE9 users are likely on Windows Vista as that's the last supported browser
version on that. Bye bye Vista users unless you install Chrome.

This appears to be Google just being a dick, seeing an opportunity and forcing
Chrome on people.

To be honest, and I really hate saying this, Microsoft are the only damn
company left that has a reasonable support lifecycle these days. Literally
everyone else makes a whooshing sound.

[1] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
monthly-201310...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
monthly-201310-201311-bar) (stats are all bullshit on this anyway TBH).

Footnote: I'm posting this from Firefox on OpenBSD before I get accused of
being a shill...

~~~
fpgeek
Um, Firefox works just fine on XP and Vista, just like Chrome. I'm sure Google
would be happy if people switched to Chrome for Docs, but they're not forcing
anyone to.

~~~
josteink
But Google doesn't tell you to download Firefox on every other page they own
across the entire internet.

They do so for Chrome. "Upgrade your browser", "Get a faster browser" and all
that bullshit we laughed at MS for doing with MSIE.

But now it's Google doing it. Everywhere. With no anti-trust regulatory
reactions in sight.

~~~
DominikR
> But Google doesn't tell you to download Firefox on every other page they own
> across the entire internet.

Why shouldn't they advertise their own products? And why in hell do you think
they should advertise Firefox? Are you advertising your competitor on your
property?

> They do so for Chrome. "Upgrade your browser", "Get a faster browser" and
> all that bullshit we laughed at MS for doing with MSIE.

For an IE user, Chrome is certainly an upgrade. Both in security and speed.

> But now it's Google doing it. Everywhere. With no anti-trust regulatory
> reactions in sight.

Google doesn't have a monopoly in browsers so what are you talking about?

~~~
josteink
_For an IE user, Chrome is certainly an upgrade. Both in security and speed._

I'm by no stretch an IE user, but MS have made great improvements to their
browser. And some users may prefer it simply because it is familiar.

And excuse me for saying so, but as someone who values my privacy I trust
Microsoft a lot more than Google. To me, Chrome is the web browser where
everything I do is leaked directly to the NSA.

Sorry, but I don't consider that "secure" by any stretch of imagination.

Disregarding that, as a Firefox user though, I still get the same crap ads.
Basically they are shown to everyone not using Chrome. And for my needs, I
think Chrome is a significant downgrade compared to Firefox. By using the word
"upgrade" Google is being disingenuous.

 _Google doesn 't have a monopoly in browsers_

But they do have a near monopoly on internet advertising and they are using it
to push their own products in a borderline dishonest way. I mean... If
Microsoft merely bundling a web-browser with their OS (as opposed to leaving
users needing to fiddle with command-line FTP to download one) was bad enough
to warrant regulation, I can't see how this significantly worse.

~~~
DominikR
So basically your argument is that security is better on IE because you
"trust" MS more than Google. (no proof)

I don't know how you came to this conclusion, but I don't need to trust in
Google because I can check the source code myself (link:
[http://www.chromium.org/](http://www.chromium.org/))

And yes, they have a near monopoly on advertising, but in this case they are
not using their advertising network to boost their Chrome installs. (even if
they did it would be legal as long as they don't discriminate against their
competition)

~~~
josteink
_So basically your argument is that security is better on IE because you
"trust" MS more than Google. (no proof)_

My argument is that IE, assuming everything else equal, is safer than Chrome.
Yes.

This is because I do trust that local software I run on my PC, without 200
known or unknown "(Google) cloud integrations" will leak less information
about me to third parties than a browser with all those integrations, present
and enabled by default.

Did you know Chrome by default lets web-apps stay in the background even after
you think you have exited your browser? Oh. You didn't? Well that's certainly
not creepy, isn't it?

When that browser to top it off is created by a company whose business model
is gathering information about you and using that to sell ads, there's really
not much to add.

Those are facts. And from those facts, I can deduce that me and my privacy are
most likely much safer using the browser not made by the advertising company.
Do you honestly find that unreasonable?

 _I don 't know how you came to this conclusion, but I don't need to trust in
Google because I can check the source code myself_

You are confusing Chromium for Chrome.

 _Chromium_ is definitely open-source, but that's probably used by a
overwhelming 0.1% minority.

Most users are using _Chrome_ , which is definitely 100% closed source and
there is no guarantee that Google doesn't add any secret or additional
proprietary bits into it outside what is found in Chromium.

Chrome is about as open as MSIE, and gets none of the open-source defence
arguments which could be used to defend Chromium and Firefox.

------
zmmmmm
> We support the latest version of Google Chrome (which automatically updates
> whenever it detects that a new version of the browser is available) as well
> as the current and prior major release of Firefox, Internet Explorer and
> Safari on a rolling basis

This policy seems kind of broken since browser versioning went crazy. There is
no longer any particular link between a "major" version of a browser and the
actual technical changes under the hood that came with it. Chrome has a new
"major" version what, monthly? FireFox nearly the same? MS sat on IE6 for 5
years and then iterated nearly a major version every year since, but now seems
to be correlating them to new (major or minor) versions of Windows. Tying a
support policy to something that is so different between browsers, and mostly
a marketing device, seems pretty weird to me.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Not really. They're just saying "we have the manpower (and patience) to test
on two different versions of each of these three browsers, and one of our own"
rather than "we'll support however many different browser versions these
vendors care to release in the past X months" \- seems kinda prudent to me.

------
l0c0b0x
\- First, Google extends support for Chrome on XP for a few more years \-
Second, Google ends support for IE8/9.

Sweet move Google/Chrome.

~~~
lotyrin
Yep. Google supports modern web runtime on more of Microsoft's platforms than
Microsoft themselves do. People in companies who are stuck on particular OS
version, but have the freedom and motivation to adopt new productivity
software can probably also download a browser.

Google is making perfect sense here, the real question is why did MS screw
this up so bad and integrate OS and web runtime to such a degree they can't
support more of their user base?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Yeah, Microsoft's failure to keep supporting XP users (who _still_ make up a
whopping third of the entire OS market, 12 years after that OS was released)
is this decade's IE6-lock-in. Hopefully, most will move off IE8 onto Chrome,
but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
sounds
If China is any indication, XP users will end up paying not for the OS
(pirate!) but for continuing support.

I would laugh if some virus writers switched sides and start offering up
patches for XP. They may know the core OS better than the developers still
working in Redmond by now.

------
mratzloff
For some reason this article resists drawing the obvious conclusion, which is
that this is just an effort to turn Google Docs users into Chrome users.

~~~
emn13
See also: Hangouts, which for some reason work well only in chrome, and only
in chrome have an addon that integrates with your desktop.

~~~
chrismonsanto
See also: personal blocklists for search, which STILL aren't available for
Firefox.

------
acjohnson55
Google's not abandoning these people. Microsoft abandoned them long ago. When
I hear from QA that something isn't working on IE8, it ruins my entire day.
Even IE10 is dreadful to work with. Good riddance!

------
Touche
I love this. Very reasonable position. The last 2 versions is very reasonable
in my opinion. This is common on the mobile app side, developers only
supporting the last couple of major OS versions.

And because this is Google they have the weight to make Microsoft think hard
about their policies of abandoning their own customers.

~~~
ericd
It's really not reasonable at all for large non tech-driven businesses... If I
were running one of those, this kind of behavior would be a strong anxiety
driver for me, which would make me stick with Microsoft and their extremely
lax upgrade pushes + strong backward compatibility track record. The reason is
that businesses rarely have time to drop everything and upgrade something
core, and it's not likely to improve their business in any meaningful way. To
them, Google is just being a nuisance with this.

------
dshep
This is the most interesting part for me:

"Android has a much bigger fragmentation problem than Internet Explorer.
Supporting only the latest 2 Android releases (4.3 and 4.4) would mean
targeting less than 3% of the Android devices."

Must be accurate coming from Google.

~~~
camus2
You can easily support old Android versions with compatibility libraries, and
get most of the features of the latest os.

IE6 will never support ES5 or CSS3.

A 2.1 Android device can support fragments and action bars via libraries.

Comparing the two is just dishonest. Furthermore Android doesnt run on web
standards like HTML or CSS.

If you want to compare things then compare the fact that Microsoft dont allow
XP users to upgrade IE to the latest version , whereas Google provides
compatibility libraries for old devices to use the latest APIs.

~~~
ars
> IE6 will never support ... CSS3.

CSS PIE 2.0 comes surprisingly close. Although you do have to add custom rules
in the CSS file.

------
hbharadwaj
There are reasons for MS not auto updating IE and leaving update settings to
system admins. SAP in my company works only for IE9. One cannot simply drop
whatever it is and start working on bug fixes for IE10/11, Firefox and Chrome,
irrespective of whose fault it is. Google is being Google in this matter.

------
filipedeschamps
God bless Google for pushing the internet forward.

------
c23gooey
I wonder if Google are shooting themselves in the foot a little bit here. The
corporate world doesnt move that fast, many companies still use IE7 for
instance.

If corporate users cant use gmail etc its going to force them to things like
hotmail which im sure will work fine in any version of IE7+

~~~
giovannibajo1
outlook.com only supports IE8+.

IE7 is totally unsupported by anyone, including MS. There are no patch
updates, no security bugfixes. There's also zero reasons to use it, as
enterprises can upgrade to IE8 and configure a GPO to force IE7 compatibility
mode for Intranet site or whatever broken resources they need to access
through IE7.

~~~
icebraining
They had a security fix for IE6, 7 and up just last month:
[https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/security/bulletin/ms13-0...](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/security/bulletin/ms13-080)

The patch for IE7 is called IE7-WindowsXP-KB2879017-x86-ENU.exe

------
com2kid
Because HP never upgraded my graphics card drivers on my laptop, I cannot
upgrade past IE9 on my Windows 7 machine. (For whatever reason IE10 takes a
dependency upon some point release of DirectX that requires driver revisions).

So, umm, gee thanks Google? Ugh.

~~~
cmircea
So why don't you get the drivers directly from AMD, Intel or NVIDIA, as
appropriate? Don't rely on computer manufacturers to supply up to date
drivers.

~~~
com2kid
Laptop with a dedicated GPU. AMD's unified drivers were, last time I checked,
still unstable. I am stuck using HP's custom drivers, which never receive
updates. This isn't too uncommon for Laptops.

------
laichzeit0
As someone who has psychological scars from having to create and maintain IE6
compatible webapps I can't help but have absolutely no sympathy for the web
experience of any IE user.

Google could very well go "We don't support IE. If it happens to render or
work at all on your browser, count yourself lucky." and I wouldn't care a
damn.

------
outside1234
I bet there were cheers in the Office 365 team when they heard this - that is
an enterprise non-starter.

------
Aldo_MX
That was fast... but I'm really glad as a developer, the less old versions to
support the better.

------
JEVLON
Even though Chrome automatically updates on people's personal computers,
bureaucracies like my university still use a version that is more than a year
old (could be over 2 yrs). I hope Google finds a way to force such luddite
organisations to update regularly.

------
beauzero
This could actually lead to more Windows 8/8.1 and PC sales. Don't
underestimate the stupidity of the public.

------
quaffapint
My mega-size company is still in the process of moving from XP to Windows 7.
So, our 'new' browser is IE9.

~~~
driverdan
Why isn't it IE10?

------
xacaxulu
Forced extinction of a horrible browser. Sounds alright to me.

------
GnarfGnarf
Kaspersky AV flags the link as "phishing URL".

------
so898
So next time Google will drop Windows or Mac OSX to introduce their brand new
OS system? I hope it will not be the Chrome OS or Android.

~~~
superuser2
Modern IE is still supported. This doesn't make sense.

~~~
zobzu
actually while the comment author is pushing _right now_ his scenario could
very well happen in the medium/long term future..

------
ffrryuu
Good news for everyone.

------
zobzu
that stats counter graph looks pretty flawed

------
andyl
Why the heck doesn't MS auto-update its browsers? Chrome and FF have been
doing it for years.

