If You’re Still Using IE6, You’re Stealing Food From Starving People

I'm am downloading that sooooooo many times just to get MS to give up it's moneys

@Lite: killed Dumbledore: What other ones? Mosaic? Mosaic was killed by Netscape not to mention MS PAID them to use their engine (yes IE ran on Mosaic's engine).

Netscape killed all browsers that ran off of Mosaic (and there were plenty) when it was created. The two browsers were IE and Netscape. Just because some guy made a browser out of his basement that only loaded 1/4 of the sites out there doesn't mean MS squished it. Opera is the only other one in that time frame that could have been affected, but it wasn't because no one used it. This had nothing to do with MS, it had to do with the fact that it didn't work and was beyond buggy.

The time frame that MS was big and bad was the mid-late 90's and in that time frame (over 10 years ago I might add) they flexed every muscle they had against Netscape and they paid for it.

It's also worth mention that we all gained from them killing Netscape as well. It a bizzaro way they are responsible for Firefox's existence. They made their own bed sorta speak which is rather ironic.

Well I can't use IE8 at work. Or FireFox (well I can, I'm IT). Or IE7. We are stuck with IE6. Stupid intranet workflow software only works in IE6. But FF holds it down for all the rest of my work-day internet browsing.

jamjen

@skwash: 1. Click and hold on Download 2. Move to trash.

jamjen

@UnderLoK: Netscape was one of them. Just because you didn't use other browsers during that time doesn't mean they didn't exist or weren't affected.

@JordyO: when a tree falls in a forest does the bear still shit in the woods... what?!

@nerve11: No they horde there apples those rotten apples !!

I'm not sure what's better... a free meal or IE8.

spcomputing

Yes, but what are they feeding them?

dosdelon

I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decedents. But I can't feed on the powerless when my system processes is already over filled.

coyote1284: P.E.T.U.

@ploopsy: Yes, but IT does routine scans and remotely deletes unsupported browsers (Firefox, IE8, Chrome) and other unapproved software.

Jeb_Hoge

Headline should read thus: COGNOS Stealing Food From Starving People

Line4Guy

@Yossarian Threepwood: I know a way to do it....in Firefox.

@Lite: killed Dumbledore: Web browsers? Um... Netscape = 1 and the last time I checked "1" doesn't make browser"s".

How many starving hackers do you feed if you stick with IE6?

Deathknight

@OMG! Ponies!:

Easy now... often the IT guy just follows instructions given to him by upper management.

It's not often that the lowly desktop support guy actually has a SAY in what is installed.

@Andre Ondre:

Giz already gives an error to the comments section saying IE6 isn't supported.

I know this because I'm posting from IE6 right now. Stupid work computer.

@Bigbadbikernerd:

Clearly they didn't have food either or they wouldn't have been starving. (unless they had the food and just chose not to eat it... sillies)

So.... really, you're just stealing something they never had.

Is that REALLY stealing?

And for every copy you don't upgrade, they take food away from someone. Boy, these guys are really playing hardball.

tomsomething

Glad to see that Microsoft is making strides to reduce the impact of this century's largest and most egregious impediment to progress in client-side web development.

Oh, and hungry people blah blah hooray good show and such.

tomsomething

@ploopsy: I have personal experience with such people. My parents.

@Lite: killed Dumbledore: Compared to insider trading and other illegal acts and the general dickitude in advertising and the business model of another popular consumer electronics company, I'd take these issues any day.

I would do this on my mom's computer, but I'm pretty sure the load of IE8 would kill it. It has trouble running IE6.

Holy shirt! a talking squirrel! 「Tayler」

I literally upgraded IE6 to IE8 a few days ago (though I've been using Firefox the whole time), but I didn't know about this. Sorry starving people!

Platypus Man

@Jeb_Hoge: I nominate tomorrow as "Heave A Brick At Your IT Guy's Head Day"

@Jeb_Hoge: Are you allowed to download and extract zip files? cause a quick fix would be...

1. download portablefirefox.zip
2. extract to the desktop
3. enjoy!

ploopsy

I just downloaded it on my Mac and I can't figure out how to install it!!!111!!panicpanic!!!!! Can someone help me?!!!! ;)

skwash

@The Red Comet: Business people do use computers allot for there jobs. But that does not mean that they know anything about computers.

ploopsy

Hmm... I need to install a bot that upgrades from IE 6 over and over...

@Bertone77: Heh. Where I work, not only are we staying on IE6, we're disallowed from installing any other browsers and they just closed down everyone's USB ports. You want to talk frustration, I'm your guy.

Jeb_Hoge

"help give Microsoft's money away" That sounds a bit mean considering they're doing this for charity. Did Apple ever donate any apples?

nerve11

@Bigbadbikernerd: there is a reason the edit button only works for 10 minutes.

ploopsy

"If You're Still Using Internet Explorer 6, You're Stealing Food from Starving People"

Hell yeah we're stealing their food. They sure as hell don't have anything else to steal!

Bigbadbikernerd

@ploopsy: I agree. Why take care of your own, when you could send the food to some kid being starved to death by a bunch of power hungry warlords... **Sarcasm**

Sorry...there....fixed it.

Bigbadbikernerd

I think that money should be donated to help IE users in need download Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera.

seizurelitezrfun

any little thing I can do to keep people starving and without health care, I'm willing to do my part.

PaddyDugan

"to Feeding America® up to a maximum of $1,000,000."

Thomas Le Bas

@Nick Livingston: where do you work that you are still on 2000? I work in the most forgot about crappy downtown Manhattan office and everybody I know is either on XP or now starting to migrate to vista.

HobseyBobsey

I think MSoft can support other more needy people. There offer is still pretty generous, giving money to charity if you dont spend money? thats a great deal! They are doing better than most fast food joints:

"For a limited time, if you buy our least popular item during a full moon on a wednesday, we will donate $0.15 to a charity that we run" (mcdonalds)

ploopsy

@Bigbadbikernerd: Exactly!!! US just spent billions of dollars to ruin the lives of thousands of people in Iraq for years and years.

And we are supposed to feel bad when people from the most pampered child like society in the world are hungry?

ploopsy

@soulfinger: That's probably out of all internet users and all browsers. i meant out of all IE users. Even then it might've been for a specific website with lots of corporate traffic.

@Bertone77: They blocked us from using USB drives where I work.

Bigbadbikernerd

@ploopsy: I agree. Why take care of your own, when you could send the food to some kid being starved to death by a bunch of power hungry warlords...

Bigbadbikernerd

@Lite: killed Dumbledore: That's assuming you know ahead of time that a website will need compatibility mode. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a website and had it crash, auto-recover and crash again before I can hit the compatibility mode button.

jgrnt1

@Dancing Milkcarton: I work for Citi and we have a building that has over 1500 computers. every single one of them still run ie6. oh yeah, and windows 2000.

Nick Livingston

I wrote this crappy python script the last time this was announced if anyone wants to download a lot of copies. Tab spacing is important, it's python...

Oh, and the download link might not work anymore so test before you run it.

import os
import sys
while 1:
(tab)try:
(tab)(tab)os.system('wget [download.microsoft.com]')
(tab)(tab)os.system('rm IE8-*')
(tab)except KeyboardInterrupt:
(tab)(tab)print "Ctrl+c, exiting"
(tab)(tab)sys.exit(0)

edit: replace [download.microsoft.com] with the static link.

@Dafrety: Yes. IE 8 is so bad that it requires a compatibility mode button.

@mricyfire: Well because they are moving folks away from one of the largest problems to internet security to a more secure version. And as in incentive there giving food to poor folk (maybe not in the country where it will be most appreciated but still) This is of course clearly an Evil act.
A much more philanthropic act would be to fudge a hardrives accounting dept.

@Dancing Milkcarton: Uhm, I manage websites and currently 60% of our traffic comes from IE6...

@Lite: killed Dumbledore:

I meant more the money thing comment, I don't use IE firefox and chrome and safari on the iphone.

mricyfire

@The Red Comet: That's a whole lot of man-hours, and a whole lot of regression testing.

Don't forget thousands of corporations still use IE6 because of internal web apps. Luckily I'm able to use IE6 specifically for internal sites and Firefox for external browsing.

miro

@mricyfire: You mean other than they maliciously tried (and effectively succeeded) to drive competing web browsers completely out of the market, and while they were at it they were complete and utter dicks about the whole thing?

Nothing.

You mean other than thumb their nose at international html, xml, and browser display standards after pledging to follow them so that web designers have to develop 2 versions of every web page. One that looks OK in IE, and one that looks OK for the rest of the browsers that ARE standards compliant?

Nothing.

Where exactly would you want me to start?

@GlenTen: 'of which 36% is using IE6'

You need a hipper audience.

@Yossarian Threepwood: I said *some* of the best, not *all* of the best.

ploopsy

"Even if you switch to Firefox immediately, help give Microsoft's money away" why so much hate for Microsoft?

mricyfire

@ploopsy: Best social services in the world? You don't even have free healthcare.

Yossarian Threepwood

Why would I support "Feeding America"? Dont they have food stamps and welfare for that?

They could easily send the money to help poor people in poor countries, not people in a country with some of the best social services in the world.

ploopsy

Sod it, that's worth a bit of my bandwidth. Now, does anyone know of a way I can download this directly into my trash can?

Yossarian Threepwood

@The Red Comet: current stats say more like 15-16%, not 50%.

soulfinger

So if I'm feeling especially generous, I can keep DLing, installing and uninstalling, over and over and each time they will give the charity money? ;)

Or am I stuck with one DL? My windows VM machine I use for work is using an old version of IE...

@OMG! Ponies!: Same here. They block any attempts to download IE7/8 so I switched to my USB portable version of firefox along time ago.

@Dancing Milkcarton: For my websites, its ~52% IE in general, of which 36% is using IE6. Google Analytics tells me that in the past week, at least 2 people viewed my site with IE 5 for Mac.

Whoever those two people are, they need to be banned from computers for eternity.

A lot of sites are slowly dropping support for IE6 including youtube and facebook, so when more popular sites go I wounder who would still use it,

the current Windows Mobile IE and CE IE (NOT the new on 6.5) is so dated that for most sites only mobile versions work.

Andre Ondre

@OMG! SP00N: Compatibility mode?

@The Red Comet: it varies, but it's nowhere near 50%. I'd say ~10-15%.

My parents work laptops still use IE6. I am frustrated everytime I want to show them something on it. I have to open up a completely new window for it. They need IE7 at least.

mynamesafad

I read somewhere that a good 50% of IE users are still on 6, especially at businesses where it's troublesome to upgrade the browsers. That's a lotta donated money! They should get to it.

IE8 has been nothing but trouble at work, submitting corrupted data in forms, causing ATT connect to crash. APOX!

Yeah. Well my office uses IE6. So take it up with the IT Guy.