browsers at The Observer's Log

Posts Tagged ‘browsers’

Make April 1 “IE6 Dies” Day

1 Feb 2010

At the moment, IE6 still holds about 20% of the market (according to today’s metrics from NetMarketShare). That’s far too large a share for a 8.5 year old browser, especially one that has been superseded by successive releases of its own code by two versions. It’s far too much for a browser that costs too much to support, and despite several service packs still bears significant security issues. It continues to haunt the internet, acting like a lazy bouncer allowing the seediest of activities to go on unchecked.

I propose April 1st be “IE6 Dies” Day. It’s time that IE6 be shown the door. But we’ll need help.

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You can’t kill IE6

5 Aug 2009

There’s been a massive upswelling of support for eliminating Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), the much-maligned former-heavyweight and former-saviour of the world that now lies as one of the worst pieces of web browsing software in common use. It started more grass roots, but now includes such fan-favourites as YouTube, Digg, and a whack of other Web 2.0 firms.

The hope, particularly around the web development world, is that this upswelling will finally put nails in the coffin of IE6 and eliminate the bugger from the software world, thus heralding in a new era of (near-)web standards.

There’s only one problem: Web 2.0 companies don’t mean jack to Corporate America.

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I (heart) Google Chrome

2 Sep 2008

Not 45 minutes ago, Google released their latest contribution to the internet: Chrome. This effectively ended years of speculation that Google was writing a browser, that it would throw its hat into the ring and kick off another heated browser war.

Figures that Google wouldn’t just drop a bomb, it would lay waste to the expectations of a browser. My hat is off to the Chrome development team — you guys pulled off a doozy.

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Web 2.0 Expo: Even Faster Web Sites

28 Apr 2008

Hanging out with Schill today, and he’s giving me some really great suggestions on what to see. Although the CM team did suggest something different, he’s saying we should see this one. Naturally, Schill knows the guy, but from his POV, this is a cannot-miss session.

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RIP: Netscape

28 Dec 2007

Back when I started with Critical Mass in 2000, the browser wars were still hotly contested but it was already clear that Netscape was losing. Standards were slowly (finally) creeping into the mix, and Netscape was on the wrong side of the fence.

Despite being the IPO that really kicked off the first internet gold rush, Netscape just didn’t have the business clout to keep it going. Netscape’s browser was free (so no revenue), and its web server was not having the same kind of hot sales everyone had hoped for (it was later sold to Sun, where it became iPlanet, and has mostly withered).

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