Last week we got the chance to interview in person Internet Explorer 6, the longest-lasting browser ever! Here is the exclusive transcript for our readers:
"I just feel old and tired of all this: I think it's time to retire"
AB: Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Explorer 6. How are you?
IE6: I’m glad to be here, Alberto. I’m fine, just a little bit tired.
AB: Tired? You are just 9 years old! You’re still a kid, you should have plenty of energy!
IE6: Well, you know, browsers’ age is not equivalent to humans’. If you consider how fast technology is evolving I already have more than 80 human years.
AB: Really?! I didn’t know that! And you are still working full time, that’s astonishing… Congratulations!
IE6: Thanks. Yes, actually I’m still in business and still have a good share in the browsers market. In 2009, for instance, 15% of the people who visited your website came through me!
AB: This is definitely a relevant percentage! I didn’t know. How is this possible? Why people are still using you and not, for example, your son IE7 or your nephew IE8?
IE6: This is probably due to machines who still run old versions of windows, such as Windows 2000, and cannot upgrade to my most recent releases.
AB: Anyway, that’s not a good excuse: I apologize for being so straight… but there are so many browsers out there that could replace you… so why people don’t upgrade?
IE6: I appreciate your frankness and I agree with you. Anyway, I’m mainly talking about companies, governmental institutions, schools and universities… Sometimes system administrators are just too lazy to perform an upgrade.
AB. Damned system administrators, it’s always their fault… Anyway, it’s good for you, isn’t it?
IE6: Well, at first I loved the idea of being still on the market. But now, to be honest, I start to feel old, sometimes I don’t even have time to sleep. My wife keeps telling me I’m working too much and moreover several important big companies seem to have already cut back on my support.
AB: Are you referring to Digg, Youtube and Facebook?
IE6: Yes, and many more. Last week even Google announced that my support will be discontinued from March 2010…
AB: Oh, what a bad news… What was your reaction?
IE6: They literally broke my heart! They have no respect for old men, they could have called me at least to say goodbye after so many years… [A tear drops down Mr. Explorer 6's eye - AB]
AB: Ehm… I see… So what are you going to do now? Are you planning to fight and increase your competitiveness in order to cope nowadays young browsers?
IE6: Competitiveness!!?? I just feel old and tired of all this: I think it’s time to retire… [Blows his nose -AB]
AB: Retire? Are you serious?
IE6: Absolutely. I had my moment of glory, now I can retire and spend my last years enjoying life and good food…
AB: It’s not such a bad perspective, is it? Are you planning to move on after your retirement?
IE6: Well, actually I was thinking to go to Florida but they told me that there is this lake in Italy called Lake Como, they told me that also George Clooney has a house on its shore. Apparently Italian food and wine are delightful!
AB: You said it! I’d really recommend you to move to Italy if you enjoy good food and wine!
Thank you very much for the interview Mr. Explorer 6. We wish you all the best with your new life!
IE6: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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Very Creative!
February 4, 2010 @ 11:41 am
fantastic!
February 5, 2010 @ 12:02 pm
The best part: “[A tear drops down Mr. Explorer 6's eye - AB]“
February 5, 2010 @ 4:59 pm
hey, Portuguese-speaking readers: Douglas L. Figueiredo translated this article into língua portuguesa!
February 5, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
Would have been better if AB had kicked IE6 in the nuts at the end of the interview.
Funny though :)
February 5, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
Foarte tare, frate :)
February 11, 2010 @ 10:30 am
Your arguments might, or might not, be valid for commercial internet users. But nothing you have said is relevent to home users.
The problems which you refer to were essentially about the loss of sensitive source code, allegedly, which is not something home users have access to.
Most IE6 users are running some version of Windows 9x, which are not vulnerable to attacks against Windows NT variants such as XP or Vista.
And Google are only planning to upgrade some unimportant aspects of their website. The search engine, the important bit, will continue to function normally in IE 5 and IE 6.
Many IE6 users are running some version of Windows 9x, on an older computer, one that isn’t capable of running IE7. So what Google is really saying is: we demand that you buy a new computer, and a new Operating System, and all-new Windows NT software.
Well, no one is going to do that! Not because one search engine makes a trivial change to its website. Even if Google disappears tomorrow, there are plenty of other search engines.
February 11, 2010 @ 4:26 pm
Ed, as a web developer I hate Internet Explorer 6.
I simply hate it, because it doesn’t follow web standards.
You spend hours design a standard, w3c compliant, web layout and it doesn’t work with IE6… So you start to waste countless hours in trying to make your work compatible also with this old browser which unfortunately is still used by a relevant percentage of internet surfers.
Well, from the perspective of a web developer, I’m happy to see that finally also very big companies are cutting back the support for IE6: finally I’ve a good “excuse” to not support it any more! i.e. I can tell to home users: “IE6 is too old, even Google is not fulling supporting it any more”!
So that’s my (and many other web developers’) point of view. I don’t care about Google (even if I wouldn’t dare to say that Google docs is an unimportant aspect) or Facebook policies concerning IE6! I just want to not deal with it any more (with the same amount of hours I wasted for IE6, I could have learnt another language, or learnt to play a musical instrument!).
Instead of writing Yet-Another-Post-Against-IE6 I just thought to the “interview format” and wrote this in an ironic way… but the concept is still the same: IE6 is at the end.
Personally I don’t want people to change their machines: this would be just another tragedy for our environment! I just mean that you can install another browser in your machine! Firefox for example… If Firefox is too heavy to run on these old machines, then there are a lot of alternative solutions! Just think to some light weight Linux distros such as Damn Small Linux or Feather Linux, they are perfect for old PCs and offer everything the average user may need (browser, office suite, chat, etc…).
February 11, 2010 @ 6:28 pm
Damn IE6! To old for business! hehehe! Nice post! cool!
March 2, 2010 @ 9:09 am
IE6 rocks! Simply the best web browser ever made, it’s so simple to use compared to IE8. I get confused with all the new features.
It displays most websites fine, I don’t know what all the fuss it about. I hardly ever have a problem using it, if I do find a website that won’t work I just dont bother with that site. Or if I really need to use the site I’ll post them a letter of complaint.
It really annoys me that I am alienated and made to feel like a 2nd class citizen just because I prefer to use a slightly older web browser.
March 3, 2010 @ 1:49 pm