

Microsoft ask for Internet Explorer to be removed from Spoon Browser Sandbox - necolas
http://spoon.net/browsers/

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axod
IE usage recently dropped below Chrome usage on Mibbit (Including our widget
which is deployed on various non-techy websites).

    
    
      Firefox 55.1%
      Chrome 20.7%
      IE 15.2%
      Other 4.4%
      Opera 3.0%
      Safari 1.6%
    

The time when you _have_ to support IE, for many, is coming to an end.

On a related note, I got a phone call from Microsoft adCenter the other day,
asking why I hadn't spent any money with them for a year (Different website I
run which needs big ad spend).

I said "Last time I tried the interface in Chrome, it didn't work".

She replied "Ah. Chrome is Google and so it's not compatible".

MS never cease to amaze me.

~~~
user24
> for many

Yes, for many sites with a technical audience. But for sites with an older,
less technically sophisticated userbase, IE still has the vast majority over
other browsers.

I hear what you're saying about the widget. But is that downloads? In which
case: selection bias. What do the stats look like as far as impressions go on
the non-techy sites?

~~~
ssharp
Here are stats for the University I work at. It's still not a representative
sample but does show a different picture.

(Current Period):

    
    
      IE      35.01%
      Firefox 33.32%
      Safari  15.68%
      Chrome  14.56%
    

(Current Period - 1 Year):

    
    
      IE      40.61%
      Firefox 38.79%
      Safari  12.92%
      Chrome  4.93%

~~~
mike-cardwell
What country? I suspect figures in Europe are very different from those in the
US. European versions of Windows are now required to offer a selection of
browsers at install time.

~~~
ssharp
US

------
ulf
This is so incredibly shortsighted it hurts. Why on earth would you take away
resources that help people work around your product's suckiness? Maybe they
should just prohibit optimizing for their browser in general, then maybe
people will finally stop using it alltogether once enough pages look totally
destroyed because nobody can check against it...

------
msy
Looks like someone accidentally let MSFT Legal out of the kennel again. That
said Spoon looks pretty damn ropey from a legal perspective, there's very,
very little information but I wonder if the developers of things like World of
Goo know that they're software is being effectively given away or at least
rented for free.

------
niyazpk
Snaky comments aside, I would guess that this has something to do with
Windows/Internet-Explorer licenses. Its totally not cool, but let us give them
the benefit of doubt until it turns out that they have malicious intentions.

[As an aside I wonder how many people actually use Spoon for doing cross-
browser testing of their websites. IIRC Spoon Browsers cannot access websites
in the local Intranet.]

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Their intentions don't have to be malicious. Even if Hanlon's Razor applies,
the mere stupidity of this move is enough to decry it.

------
necolas
We can only hope that they are working on providing their own cloud-based
service now that developers are going to have to find ways to easily and
reliably test in IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9.

~~~
simonsarris
Well, if it helps, you can change the mode in IE9 beta to have it run/render
as if it were 6,7,8.

Actually, I don't recall 6 being included...

~~~
markkanof
I can't find the article now, but I remember reading that the IE7 mode in IE8
had a ton of little gotchas. They were pretty much all the type of things that
weren't a big deal on their own, but cumulatively it mad testing for IE7 on
IE8 totally worthless. I think the tests would be unreliable, plus the amount
of minutia you would have to mentally track about what is emulated properly
and what is not was huge. My feeling after reading this article was that the
simplest route, unfortunately is to have virtual Machines with the different
browsers on them.

~~~
kaylarose
Basically to provide 100% pixel perfect on IE(6,7,8,9) suupport:

IE versions can't be installed side-by-side (and the un/install process on
Windows is very inefficient). So you have to have to have at least 4 VMs/boot
partitions (at least 1 of which must be running XP), each loaded with a
different version of IE. Each with a different version of debug tools.

And unless you force (strict mode) on IE8(& 9?), test IE8 in IE7 mode, IE8
Compatibility mode, and IE8 Strict mode....

Fortunately my employer dropped IE6 support 2 years ago. Plus, I find that
usually just testing for IE7 in IE8's IE7 mode, and forcing IE8 to render
pages in IE8 strict mode, is generally sufficient 95% of the time.

------
mildweed
Till Spoon supports running on platforms other than Windows, this is somewhat
a moot issue for many of us.

------
mike-cardwell
Seeing as people are talking about browser market share I thought I'd pull up
the analytics for exim.org to see what it's like there:

Firefox: 54%

Chrome: 18%

IE: 13%

Opera: 6%

Safari: 5%

Of course, exim.org is a technical website so the figures are bound to be
different to the average website.

------
afshin
My interpretation of this is that Microsoft realizes that developers are
leaving their platform pretty rapidly. As more developers switch to OS X or
Linux as their main development platform, the whole Windows ecosystem will
suffer, not just web browser support for Microsoft's awful browsers.

Forcing developers to use Windows while IE still has enough clout might be one
of their strategies to stem the loss of developers migrating to other systems.

Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

~~~
stuartloxton
Think you probably are - last time I used spoon you still had to be using
Windows; it just meant you could run IE6, 7 and 8 at the same time.

~~~
afshin
Oh, good point :-)

I thought the way spoon worked was similar to those services that give you
snapshots of your site in different browsers.

------
endtime
Does anyone know of any alternatives for IE?

~~~
necolas
IE Collection is meant to be a good alternative - <http://bit.ly/d992Bn>

~~~
jonursenbach
I've always been fond of IETester. <http://www.my-
debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage>

~~~
TeHCrAzY
I think there is a caveat with IETester: It seems to use the currently
installed IE's javascript engine not matter what rendering engine it uses, so
testing mileage may vary.

------
kyriakos
why on earth?

~~~
rbanffy
They must think this will allow them to sell 20 more Windows licenses a
year...

~~~
sequoia
Yeah, people are going to get more Windows licenses, but they won't
necessarily be buying them. If that's their aim it may backfire.

