GigaOM » Collaboration

Google Apps to Drop Support for Older Browsers

Simon Mackie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:22:54 +0000

In a blog post, Google has announced that it will soon discontinue support for older browsers in Google Apps. Beginning Aug. 1, Google Apps will only officially support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, on a rolling basis. So after Aug. 1, Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3 will no longer be supported. Certain features may stop working in those browsers (and in previous versions), and eventually, Google Apps may stop working entirely. Each time a new browser version is released, Google will begin supporting that update, and then stop supporting the third-oldest version.

As Google’s Venkat Panchapakesan noted in his post, Google Apps takes advantage of the newer technologies supported by more recent browsers, such as HTML5, to power some of its advanced features, like drag-and-drop file uploads. Maintaining support for older browsers that don’t include these newer technologies, or only have partial implementation, means not being able to implement certain features, or having to invest considerable engineering efforts to produce workarounds in order to implement them. As more vendors come to rely on the capabilities and power offered by HTML5 and related technologies to produce web apps that can match the power and functionality offered by desktop applications, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more web apps going down this route.

It’s probably not a decision Google took lightly, as this change will affect a significant number of Google Apps users. Taking a look at WebWorkerDaily’s stats, for example, shows that a small percentage of users do continue to use the older browser versions affected. However, as Google will simply stop testing new features and bug fixes in unsupported browsers, it’s unlikely that affected users will see any serious degradation in functionality for some time.

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Are You Ready for IE9 and Firefox 4?

Charles Hamilton — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:00:01 +0000

I always hold my breath when I install a new web browser, as I never know what might break. New browsers are always a headache for my web development company, but even if you don’t develop sites yourself, I’m sure you have significant web presences.

Last week, Internet Explorer 9 was released, and while Firefox 4 is due to be officially launched today, you can already download it from the Mozilla FTP site (UPDATED: it’s now launched, and you can download it from Mozilla). Luckily, so far, we haven’t seen any major issues with the new browsers, but there have been reports that some widely-used tools will need to be updated.

With that in mind, here is a short list of tests you’ll want to make when a new browser becomes available.

Test your website(s). Make sure layout and interactive functions operate correctly, including content management systems, contact and feedback forms, styles and links.
Test your collaboration tools. Web-based project management, screen sharing, conferencing and collaboration services should be updating themselves continuously, but you should check your intranet and any tools that have been built or are being hosted in-house.
Test add-ons and extensions you and your colleagues are using. When you upgrade Firefox, it will check your add-ons and update or disable any that aren’t compatible. But you should also check the add-on developer’s website to see if there are beta versions available. And some add-ons may no longer be needed. After the controversy regarding hacking tool Firesheep a few months ago, I started using a Firefox add-on called Force-TLS that connected me to websites using HTTPS when possible. Firefox 4 has the appropriate technology built in, so Force-TLS is no longer needed.
Test social media tools you are using. Especially check custom pages that you have created on sites like Facebook.

You’ll probably want to keep copies of old browser versions handy, since a lot of users don’t upgrade right away. This can be tricky, since some browsers, such as IE, don’t allow you to install two different versions on the same machine; virtual machines and browser testing services can be handy.

How do you test new browsers?

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Internet Explorer 9 Released, But Should You Care?

Simon Mackie — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:19:35 +0000

UPDATED: Microsoft has released IE9, the latest version of the venerable Internet Explorer browser. It boasts greatly improved support for standards like HTML5, a new design and greater speed, as well as some nifty new features, like privacy controls and being able to pin websites to the taskbar.

To check out how IE9 compares to its competitors, I installed it (which, unlike other browsers, required me to restart my machine) and ran it through a few different benchmarking tools.

Acid3

Acid3 is a benchmark which checks how well a browser follows selected web standards. The browser is marked out of 100.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

Microsoft has made an effort to improve the standards support in IE in this release, and as you can see, IE9 scores a creditable 95 (much better than IE8 which scored a paltry 21), but it still can’t match Opera and Chrome’s perfect scores.

The HTML5 Test

Acid3 doesn’t test for HTML5, as it’s a newer web standard, so I also ran the browsers through The HTML5 Test, which provides an indication of how well they support the upcoming HTML5 standard and its related specifications.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

HTML5 support is important, because as more browsers are able to handle its advanced features, developers will be able to build much more powerful apps (see Why HTML5 Web Apps Are Going to Rock Your World). As you can see, although Microsoft has made a bit of fuss about IE9 supporting newer standards like HTML5 (even providing some online demos to show off the browser’s HTML5 chops), it’s actually lagging behind its competitors here, although none of them scores perfectly. However, I’d take this benchmark with a pinch of salt, as the standard isn’t finalized yet.

Kraken

Kraken is Mozilla’s JavaScript benchmark, primarily based on the SunSpider suite. It tests how well a browser handles JavaScript and is supposed to simulate a number of different “real world” scenarios.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

JavaScript performance is vital, because we’re all increasingly reliant on JavScript-heavy web apps. The Kraken score above is a the time in milliseconds it takes for the browser to complete the test runs; a lower score is better. Note that JavaScript benchmarks should be regarded with a healthy degree of skepticism; it’s incredibly hard to create a realistic benchmark that accurately indicates how fast a browser will be in day-to-day use, so these tests can only give an indication of how fast a browser might be. That said, once again, IE is lagging behind the best here: It took twice as long to complete the tests as Chrome, and nearly three times as long as Firefox (although it’s much better than the beta of IE9, which scored around 50,000 ms).

Overall

IE9 is a great improvement over previous incarnations; it has caught up to the pack and now doesn’t lag so very far behind the other browsers available. In particular, Microsoft should be applauded for its efforts to support web standards in this release. However, unless you really want some of its novel features, like the ability to pin websites to the taskbar, or your choice is restricted by your employer to Microsoft’s browser, I still can’t recommend it over Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

Internet Explorer 9 can be downloaded from microsoft.com; it requires Vista or Windows 7.

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Internet Explorer 9: A More Beautiful Web?

Simon Mackie — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:25:06 +0000

Microsoft today launched the beta of Internet Explorer 9, the latest version of its venerable browser. Over the years, IE has fallen behind its competitors in terms of raw speed and standards compliance. So has the new version done anything to make up that lost ground? I ran it through some benchmarking tools to find out.

The Tests

In order to test the browsers’ standards compliance, I used Acid3, which checks a browser’s ability with certain aspects of the web standards. The Acid3 test returns a score out of 100.

As you can see, while the IE9 beta is not quite as good as its main competitors in terms of standards compliance, its score of 95 is streets ahead of the old IE8, which only scored a lowly 20.

To test the speed of the browsers I used Kraken, Mozilla’s new JavaScript benchmarking tool, which attempts to test JavaScript performance using a series of tests that attempt to replicate realistic workloads. While benchmark tests results should always be taken with a pinch of salt as they can never exactly match real world conditions, they do at least provide an indicator of browser performance. The score returned by Kraken is the time it takes the browser to complete the tests, with a lower figure being better.

As you can see, IE9 is still lagging behind its competitors a little. However, it’s a vast improvement on the previous version. I haven’t included IE8 on this chart as when I tried to benchmark it, it wouldn’t make it through the Kraken tests without crashing. I did manage to get it to run through on an older Windows XP machine, and it scored an incredibly slow 348,056 ms. Even though the XP machine is slower than my test machine, that’s an order of magnitude worse than the new version, and shows just how much better IE9 is at handling complex JavaScript.

For a More Beautiful Web?

Microsoft’s tagline for the release of this new browser is, “Unleash a more beautiful web.” That might sound a bit overblown, but when you consider that IE’s market share is still hovering somewhere around 50 percent, the fact that the new release has much greater support for the newer web standards like HTML5 is significant.

Microsoft has obviously invested a lot of effort in getting IE up to scratch, and assuming it can get a reasonable proportion of the users of older versions of the browser to upgrade, IE9 should greatly accelerate the development of more powerful, feature-packed web apps. That’s because developers will be much more likely to develop sites that rely on complex JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3 if they know those features are broadly supported in the browser market. I’d hope that Microsoft would consider releasing IE9 for older versions of Windows, too, as that will help to ensure that a greater percentage of users upgrade.

While it would be very hard to argue that IE9 is superior to any of its competitors, it’s now in the same ballpark, at least. Microsoft has now joined the new browser wars: wars that are being fought on speed and capability with the newer web standards. That’s good news for everyone.

You can download the beta of IE9 from microsoft.com; it’s currently only available for Windows 7 and Vista.

Let us know what you think of IE9 in the comments.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d): HTML5’s a Game-Changer for Web Apps

Diigo Adds More Research and Collaboration Features

Charles Hamilton — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:30:52 +0000

When Mike reviewed social bookmarking, research and collaboration service Diigo last year, he liked its simplicity, its connections with other services, and its wealth of features. Since then, the social bookmarking field has continued to mature; witness the recent purchase of Friendfeed by Facebook, and the numerous ways that bookmarks can be shared on social networks. Even MySpace is getting into the act by syncing posts with Twitter!

So how can a lesser-known app like Diigo compete? The latest version of Diigo has just gone live, and from what I can tell, it’s growing beyond social bookmarking and going for the “kitchen-sink” approach: Add as many features as possible, so that no matter what a user wants, it’ll be there. Among the list of new features are a few that caught my eye:

Similar to Iterasi, users can now archive web pages from a particular point in time — even ones that are dynamically generated or password-protected. Multiple versions of the same page can be saved, either as HTML or images. Toolbars to control this function are available for Firefox and Internet Explorer.
There are now several options for commenting on web pages — highlighting in multiple colors, and different sizes of sticky notes, all of which can be private or shared.
Links to the archived and annotated web pages can be shared via email, Twitter or Facebook, and recipients don’t need any special software to see your comments.
Groups can be set up to comment, tag and collaborate on projects.

The site is still in beta, but its redesigned interface is intuitive. Searching and tagging have also been improved, and an iPhone app is on the way. The site is free and advertising-supported; educational accounts are available.

Oh, and by the way, Diigo is one of the few sites I’ve seen that offers an explanation of its name:

Diigo is pronounced as “Dee’go.” The name “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.”

If Diigo’s impressive feature list hasn’t convinced you to try it, I’m sure that will!

Have you tried Diigo?

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More Than Half of Computer Users Now Run Firefox

Charles Hamilton — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:00:38 +0000

Statistics from the exo.performance.network indicate that over half of computer users (50.6 percent) are now using the Firefox browser, InfoWorld reports. Despite this, Internet Explorer is still widely used, with 84 percent of users still turning to it “regularly.”

These numbers indicate that a large number of people use more than one browser. This is hardly surprising, given the addition of newer browsers like Google Chrome and Safari for Windows, and the recent upgrade of Opera.

It’s evident that web designers and developers will continue to need to support multiple browsers, and while modern browsers are generally more compatible than they have been in the past, developers will need to plan testing of their applications accordingly.

Which browsers do you test your sites for?

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Browser Updates: A Faster Version of Chrome, and More

Samuel Dean — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:00:32 +0000

This week brings several pieces of significant news on the browser front, about Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 8. As covered on the OStatic blog, Google has announced a new, stable version 3.0 of Chrome. It’s downloadable here, and if you’re already using it, you’ll get an automatic update. Meanwhile, Mozilla announced new tools, and Internet Explorer — which has been steadily losing market share, to Firefox in particular — bested all other browsers in an interesting set of tests.

Chrome 3.0. Google’s announcement post on Chrome 3.0 provides walkthroughs of several of the new features in the browser. There are improvements to the Omnibox, which is the combination search/address bar in Chrome. You can now get drop-down lists in the Omnibox that show not only URLs, but also bookmarks, search options and more. Themes are also now supported in Chrome, and there are also HTML5 enhancements, which could make working with video and audio much more flexible.

Probably the biggest news about Chrome of all, though, is that the JavaScript performance is much improved. Below are Google’s own benchmark charts showing JavaScript tests (bigger is better in the first chart, and smaller is better in the second one).

Internet Explorer 8. I rarely use Internet Explorer any more, and I feel that most of the meaningful innovation is going on in the open-source browsers, with Firefox and Chrome leading the way. However, AnandTech came out this week with a very interesting browser face-off, which focused entirely on which browser preserves battery life the best on portable computers. The surprise winner was IE 8. The tests involved constantly loading and unloading various browsers and tracking battery life. I would have thought Chrome or Opera would win in these kinds of tests, but no.

Firefox and SeaMonkey. Mozilla released its Jetpack project a few months ago, and this week it updated Jetpack to version 0.5. Jetpack is an API and framework designed to make building extensions for Firefox easy enough for non-developers. You can get the new Jetpack here, and create your own extensions. Meanwhile, Mozilla has also released a second beta of version 2.0 of its SeaMonkey project, which is a collection of Internet apps. At the core of the collection, there is a speedy browser based on the same engine that Firefox uses. You also get a simple HTML editor, IRC chat functions, and more.

Is IE8′s apparently low power consumption enough of a reason to use it?

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Is It Time to "Just Say No" to Internet Explorer 6?

Charles Hamilton — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:00:49 +0000

As web workers, sometimes we have to walk a fine line between keeping clients happy, and providing the best possible services. For web developers like me, the issue of whether to continue supporting Internet Explorer 6 is becoming a major headache.

It would seem to be a no-brainer to ditch support for a browser that is slow, prone to malware attacks, and incompatible with modern standards. Those of us who design and maintain web sites have to resort to all sorts of time-consuming (thus expensive!) tricks to make the sites we create work with IE6 — a browser that is now almost nine years old.

Unfortunately, up to a quarter of web users still use IE6, and in big companies, the percentage is even higher. According to Forrester Research, “60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser.”

There have been a few “kill IE6″ sites for a while, but a new one, “IE6 No More“, is getting attention thanks to some very high-profile backers. They’ve come up with some simple code for insertion into web sites that I think is prominent without being obnoxious.

My company is still discussing the issue, but it’s likely that we’ll offer clients a choice:

ignore IE6 altogether during testing for browser compatibility;
include the “IE6 No More” code, or something similar to it; or,
provide IE6 compatibility at a significant cost premium.

Even YouTube is reported to be phasing out support for IE6. When some more major sites do the same, IE6 users may finally be forced to upgrade. In the meantime, though, the extra costs to provide IE6 compatibility are passed on to everyone. In this economic environment, when every dollar counts, corporations, nonprofit, employees, customers and taxpayers need to ask why money is being wasted on maintaining old browsers.

How do you deal with IE6 compatibility issues?

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Microsoft and IE: Getting Desperate?

Simon Mackie — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:00:40 +0000

Microsoft’s latest attempt to get people to use Internet Explorer is a competition, being run by Microsoft Australia, that promises $10,000AUD ($8,000) to the winner. In order to win, you need to “upgrade” your browser from the “old” Firefox and follow clues to find a page that’s only viewable for IE users, ironically harking back to the bad old days when web sites were “optimized” for either IE or Netscape and not accessible to users of the other browser. Is this competition — which is highly unlikely to make anyone switch to IE long-term — a sign of desperation in the face of diminishing market share for the once-dominant browser vendor?

This Microsoft browser comparison chart made me chuckle. Apparently, IE is superior to both Chrome and Firefox in terms of ease of use, privacy and security, and matches them on speed and standards compliance.

The truth is that even though IE8 is a vastly improved browser over IE7, it’s still lagging behind its competitors in terms of speed, customizability and standards compliance (see my post on Opera 10 for tests on all the major browsers for JavaScript perfomance and standards compliance), and so users continue to switch to the alternatives. In visits to this blog, for example, IE has slipped from 34 percent of visitors to 28 percent over the past year, and that’s despite the release of IE8 in the meantime. Unless Microsoft can release an improved browser, gimmicks like this competition will not get savvy users to switch to an inferior product and its market share will continue to slide.

If you prefer IE, let us know why in the comments.

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Surf Canyon: Targeted Search Extension for Firefox Gets an Update

Samuel Dean — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:00:37 +0000

As Simon noted in his review of the Search Site Firefox extension, some browser extensions can really help streamline online searching. One of the best extensions for this is Surf Canyon, which has just come out in a new version, 2.0.4. It’s only a tiny 33K extension, but it can be a great help in steering you quickly to the most relevant information on any search topic. Here’s how it works.

Surf Canyon is available as both a Firefox and Internet Explorer extension. You can use it to get more relevant results when searching on Google, Yahoo, Craigslist, Lexis Web and MSN Live Search.

In the screenshot above, note that there are small bullseyes to the right of the Google search results shown. With Surf Canyon, you click on these bullseyes to get recommendations for more relevant search results for you. Surf Canyon have written a good post that describes the process for drilling down its relevancy recommendations. The example focuses on a classic search engine context problem, which is, in this case, whether a searcher looking for “dolphins” means actual dolphins or the football team.

If you are searching on “dolphins” in Surf Canyon, and you subsequently click on a bullseye for the Dolphins football team, the extension then knows what your original intent was. The Surf Canyon client-side application communicates with a centralized server where relevancy algorithms are hosted and maintained, so as you continue to click on bullseyes for dolphin-related results, it gets better and better at knowing what types of results you want. The best way to understand how good the extension is at this is to try it.

The new version of Surf Canyon includes several useful features that I’ve been trying out today. The most useful of these is a new top-of-page collection of search refinement suggestions, as seen below for a search on “dolphins.” The extension is smart enough to know that dolphins are intelligent, and that I may be interested in this aspect of them, and it also draws a relationship between dolphins and whales, in addition to other connections it makes. Across a whole lot of searches, I think I’ll find this useful, especially if I’m searching for something that I don’t know a lot about.

In addition to the suggestions, the new version adds the features summarized here. One handy addition (for Firefox users only) is that a bullseye status bar icon in the browser allows you to instantly turn Surf Canyon’s recommendations on and off.

Most of us spend a lot of time searching online. If you do, I recommend this extension.

What browser extensions do you use?

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