Microsoft throws old versions of Internet Explorer under the bus Microsoft has confirmed that it's ending support for old versions of Internet Explorer, and it's giving you just shy of 18 months to get up to date. Roger Capriotti, director of the IE team, blogged on Thursday that beginning on January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of IE on any supported version of Windows will …
"Iceape isn't a 'spinoff' ... it's Seamonkey with Mozilla's (trademarked) branding removed."
And they were forced to remove that branding because ...
Yes, that's correct, they modified the code. It's a fork of Seamonkey, a spin-off, it's a knock-off, it's not the genuine article.
Speaking as an open source developer who is about 5 minutes away from requiring Debian to stop using a trademark for the same reason. Their buggy, broken packages which apply unauthorized patches are damaging to the reputation of many software projects. That's when they aren't introducing huge security flaws (SSH keys etc).
"Sorry but total fail to any IT professional recommending Chrome."
+1 - Chrome has had vastly more security holes than current IE versions. The last 4 major releases of IE have all been faster then the current version of Chrome at the time. Not to mention that Chrome is spyware by design.
"Not to mention that Chrome is spyware by design."
So is windows.
Now excuse me, I need to search for my private documents on my local network, but have that all reported to Microsoft along with my username, e-mail address and password so that they can include Bing results.
Grand.
It's amazing how quickly we've shifted from the idea that software is a product you buy once (with a service pack or two to fix bugs later) to the idea that it's a service which is constantly kept up-to-date. It works surprisingly well for consumers (e.g. on smartphones), but businesses are taking a while to adapt to this new reality. Hence companies still using Windows XP today.
It's also worth mentioning that software is becoming less of a standalone product and more of a subsidy. Google gives away Android to get users buying from Google Play and viewing AdSense ads. Apple gives away OS X because they make far more money on the Mac hardware. Microsoft loses out in this situation inherently, because they don't have any popular products or services that Windows acts as a subsidy for.
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Google gives away Android to steal data and get users buying from Google Play and viewing AdSense ads
I agree with your sentiment, but technically speaking they're not 'stealing' anything since it's all made clear in their T&Cs, even though of course almost no-one ever reads them!
"Google gives away Android ..."
...because most of it was originally free.
And in any case, one of the frequent gripes about Android is that they *don't* give it away free. Instead, you are frequently left with the version that your product shipped with, bugs and all.
"Believe it or not, once upon a time that you might charge money for that was absurd."
Ah yes, the good old days when total vendor lock-in was just taken for granted as the only conceivable business model, if only because no-one except the original vendor had adequate documentation to write programs.
.....that they didn't wait quite so long. I'm working on a project that has as its mandate to support IE9 and later. For the most part I haven't run into TOO many problems with it. But if I had my way I'd drop support for IE9 and say you need IE10 and later. But alas.....because of the reasons stated in the article with Windows Vista, IE9 still has to stay on our radar, and thus things like <input type=number> just can't get used yet.
Anyone at Microsoft listening.....if you could hustle it up a bit and drop support for IE9....that'd be great...really....just....yeah. :)
mandate to support IE9 and later
IE9? Luxury!
I'm working on a project where the "corporate standard" is IE8. Even if you install IE10, there's a setting in Group Policy that makes it pretend to be IE8, and naturally only a BOFH can change that.
Users are constantly complaining about the slow performance of the web UI. It's fine on IE10, but it runs like cold molasses on IE8.
Likewise. At work I am running Windows 8, which only supports, er, IE10. You need 8.1 to run IE11, and the upgrade is not [currently] available to me. My win 7 machine at home runs IE11 perfectly fine of course. Way to go, Microsoft!
Firefox is my usual browser of choice but I still use IE for a few work related sites
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