They simply want to push everyone to use Chrome.

Kittypie070: There's always DuckDuckGo, IxQuick and Startpage.

I will never put Chrome on any of my machines.

I've found Chrome can do easier and quicker translations of foreign language websites than any app I've found in Firefox, so there is that in it's favor.

Or they could switch to a different browser for free.

So this is only going to effect XP users that use Google Apps and cannot use any other browser then IE? Some government systems might be impacted, but only due to their archaic browser limitations.

jake_lex: Chrome has been clearly superior to Firefox for quite a while now.

Having been forced to use Chrome this summer for slightly bizarre reasons dealing with recalcitrant servers, I still greatly prefer Firefox over Chrome, if nothing else because I hate having to keep track of my half-dozen daily visited sites by bookmarks when I can easily keep them in the dropdown bar.

Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

GAT_00: jake_lex: Chrome has been clearly superior to Firefox for quite a while now.

Having been forced to use Chrome this summer for slightly bizarre reasons dealing with recalcitrant servers, I still greatly prefer Firefox over Chrome, if nothing else because I hate having to keep track of my half-dozen daily visited sites by bookmarks when I can easily keep them in the dropdown bar.

I'm not sure i follow. When you open a new tab/window in chrome it should show you your most commonly visited 8 sites in the middle of the window, no?

Robots are Strong: GAT_00: jake_lex: Chrome has been clearly superior to Firefox for quite a while now.

Having been forced to use Chrome this summer for slightly bizarre reasons dealing with recalcitrant servers, I still greatly prefer Firefox over Chrome, if nothing else because I hate having to keep track of my half-dozen daily visited sites by bookmarks when I can easily keep them in the dropdown bar.

I'm not sure i follow. When you open a new tab/window in chrome it should show you your most commonly visited 8 sites in the middle of the window, no?

I tried that in FF for a while. Annoyed me, and I couldn't figure out how to get half the sites back when I accidentally canceled them from the list.

I like Firefox.
I love Chrome.
I will work with Safari.
I boggle at Opera.
I tolerate IE

On the other hand.... I may well dance a little jig when Windows XP market share drops below 1%.

I don't think there's a lot of people who are using Windows XP while also using IE8 only for Google plugins. Most people still using XP are either geeks running it in a VM, dinosaurs who won't update because it's fine and eff Microsoft anyway, or people whose children have already switched them to a better browser to lighten their PC-repair workload

When people complain about those who haven't upgraded their {OS, browser, office suite}, they're missing the core truth that people are not upgrading because the old thing works plenty well enough. In other words, the new thing isn't enough of an improvement for them to care. If "it's old" is the best reason to upgrade, then the case for upgrading is not very compelling.

/ just sayin
// typed on an iPhone 4s.

I use XP cause my machine can't use anything better and i cannot afford a new machine now or in the possible new future with the possible exception of selling a kidney for the money (being unemployed sucks ass).
Good thing i still use FF and/or chrome. FF drags my system down something horrible, so i mostly chrome except when i need to DL a vid somewhere with Ant Video Downloader.

This of course pretty much rules out Google Apps from large portions of the business market, which don't allow non-IE browsers and will be stuck on IE8 for years to come, but I guess a small company like Google can't afford the expense of developing and testing against as many as four or five different browsers/versions.

LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

If you work in a company, you will find metric ass-loads of legacy bloat that requires IE and is still in active use. Sharepoint, various and sundry intranet portals, ASA configuration screens, lots and lots of custom apps written in mid 2000's Active X controls. ADP Payroll app required IE to work right a few years ago; does it still?

You sitting there at home have options, in a company with software licensing and loads of business critical crap running, you don't just get to pull the plug on legacy supported sh*t all the time, not til the business owner actually wants you to migrate off it, and quite a lot of the time there's politics behind not doing that.

Do you guys even have jobs? Why is this news. Microsoft's made its stuff quite sticky in the workplace. I'm no fan of google and their rampant identify theft project known as Chrome either though.

On every one of these browser threads, I read where people just loveloveLOVE Chrome and hate Firefox. Sometimes people talk about "memory leaks" and other problems, but in nearly ten years of using Firefox, I have never experienced a problem not related to flash or Java or a buggy site itself.

On my machine, I have Firefox configured to where the very top 3/4" are the tabs, navigation, url bar, and search bar. This area also matches my system default color (a nice, dusty teal). This area used to be a rather nice image of the Seattle skyline (and still is on my girl's machine). On the bottom is the usual MS start button and Quick Start stuff. No other browser gives me that much real estate without having to go into Full Screen mode.

I have the NoScript, AdBlock, MAFIAAFire Redirector, AutoPager. and NoSquint addons. When I launch FireFox, my Fast Dial page with icons representing my usual favorites is what I see first. Though it looks a bit like what Chrome gives you, Fast Dial can be customized to display specific font colors, font sizes, background colors, hover behaviors, etc.

Finally, I can go into Firefox via about:config and tweak behaviors, try out things, etc.

So why exactly is Chrome such a big deal? What am I missing.

Generation_D: Do you guys even have jobs?

*shrugs*, I guess I just have a job in a place that doesn't suffer the problems you're describing.

LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

Yes, quite a few actually. How did you not know this?

LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

People still have XP? That's been obsolete for a while now and since 7 came out we have no need for it.

LDM90: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

Yes, quite a few actually. How did you not know this?

Because I've never actually witnessed it.

what, they can't go to ie9?

This post coming to you via the opera browser

Kittypie070: There's always DuckDuckGo, IxQuick and Startpage.

I will never put Chrome on any of my machines.

go to opera

Hand Banana: Yes because let's forget that Windows 7 exists. Besides Windows XP is farking old and needs to go away.

/who uses Google apps anyway?

XP: the choice for poor and homeless people, who can often get it for free.

(Typing this on an "obsolete" Dell Latitude loaded with XP and found in the Orange city hall trash, now using a still-shrink-wrapped copy of Office 2003 Professional found in the Santa Ana PD trash.)

We are inked into deals with vendors that don't even support IE 8 yet. It's sad, and it confuses me how developers are this lazy, but they are and that's how business runs in healthcare.

Generation_D: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

If you work in a company, you will find metric ass-loads of legacy bloat that requires IE and is still in active use. Sharepoint, various and sundry intranet portals, ASA configuration screens, lots and lots of custom apps written in mid 2000's Active X controls. ADP Payroll app required IE to work right a few years ago; does it still?

You sitting there at home have options, in a company with software licensing and loads of business critical crap running, you don't just get to pull the plug on legacy supported sh*t all the time, not til the business owner actually wants you to migrate off it, and quite a lot of the time there's politics behind not doing that.

Do you guys even have jobs? Why is this news. Microsoft's made its stuff quite sticky in the workplace. I'm no fan of google and their rampant identify theft project known as Chrome either though.

I've been using comodo dragon (chrome), which they claim has all of the google tracking crap pulled out of it.

Of course, not being a tech guy, I have no idea if that is true or not. Does anybody have an opionion one way or another on that claim?

Generation_D: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

If you work in a company, you will find metric ass-loads of legacy bloat that requires IE and is still in active use. Sharepoint, various and sundry intranet portals, ASA configuration screens, lots and lots of custom apps written in mid 2000's Active X controls. ADP Payroll app required IE to work right a few years ago; does it still?

You sitting there at home have options, in a company with software licensing and loads of business critical crap running, you don't just get to pull the plug on legacy supported sh*t all the time, not til the business owner actually wants you to migrate off it, and quite a lot of the time there's politics behind not doing that.

Do you guys even have jobs? Why is this news. Microsoft's made its stuff quite sticky in the workplace. I'm no fan of google and their rampant identify theft project known as Chrome either though.

It's not identity theft, there's not a google ai pretending to be you

it's data tracking, which google's just one of the comapnies doing it

BTW, do you have a facebook acct?

loonatic112358: what, they can't go to ie9?

This post coming to you via the opera browser

XP doesn't support it. I think it was a ploy to make those lazy enough to still run XP upgrade to something else.

BolloxReader: So has anyone figured out how to play all those xp games like Diablo 2 and Starcraft on Windows 7 without paying for the Professional upgrade for XP compatibility mode? Last time I searched for a workaround nobody seemed to have an answer. I'm not upgrading my desktop until I know I can play my games without paying Microsoft's gamer extortion fee.

vmware session?

BolloxReader: So has anyone figured out how to play all those xp games like Diablo 2 and Starcraft on Windows 7 without paying for the Professional upgrade for XP compatibility mode? Last time I searched for a workaround nobody seemed to have an answer. I'm not upgrading my desktop until I know I can play my games without paying Microsoft's gamer extortion fee.

Turn UAC all the way off. That seems to fix everything for my older games. If that doesn't fix it, right click on the executable, and set it to be an XP executable. If that doesn't fix it, you're out of luck.

Chromium + Auto Updater > *

People will likely just change to ff or chrome. This is what I did with my win2k laptop last year when msft stopped supporting that os with ie.

albert71292: jake_lex:
Chrome has been clearly superior to Firefox for quite a while now.

Can't use Chrome more than half an hour on my machine without it crashing horribly. Firefox stable as a rock.

I have the exact opposite experience. FF exhibits a memory leak that kills it every few hours.

IntertubeUser: On every one of these browser threads, I read where people just loveloveLOVE Chrome and hate Firefox. Sometimes people talk about "memory leaks" and other problems, but in nearly ten years of using Firefox, I have never experienced a problem not related to flash or Java or a buggy site itself.

On my machine, I have Firefox configured to where the very top 3/4" are the tabs, navigation, url bar, and search bar. This area also matches my system default color (a nice, dusty teal). This area used to be a rather nice image of the Seattle skyline (and still is on my girl's machine). On the bottom is the usual MS start button and Quick Start stuff. No other browser gives me that much real estate without having to go into Full Screen mode.

I have the NoScript, AdBlock, MAFIAAFire Redirector, AutoPager. and NoSquint addons. When I launch FireFox, my Fast Dial page with icons representing my usual favorites is what I see first. Though it looks a bit like what Chrome gives you, Fast Dial can be customized to display specific font colors, font sizes, background colors, hover behaviors, etc.

Finally, I can go into Firefox via about:config and tweak behaviors, try out things, etc.

So why exactly is Chrome such a big deal? What am I missing.

Well, while you spend time with add ons, configuration, layout, and behavior, Chrome users simply click on the program and access the Internet.

Your post reminds me of the difference between Linux users and Windows and Mac users:

Linux users like to work ON computers.
The rest of us like to WORK on computers.

I can live without Firefox's agile development cycle.

BolloxReader: So has anyone figured out how to play all those xp games like Diablo 2 and Starcraft on Windows 7 without paying for the Professional upgrade for XP compatibility mode? Last time I searched for a workaround nobody seemed to have an answer. I'm not upgrading my desktop until I know I can play my games without paying Microsoft's gamer extortion fee.

Compatibility mode is included in Win7 home editions (all editions if I'm not mistaken).

You're referring to XP mode which is an XP VM running under Virtual PC.

If you need to run a VM use VMware Player, it's free.

I was able to run both StarCraft and Diablo without setting up a VM, but YMMV.

loonatic112358: vmware session?

I set that up for a friend, he hasn't had a complaint about it yet.

The sooner the world finally gets away from XP the sooner PC games will lose any remaining excuses to come as 32bit apps instead of 64bit, which means no more silly ass 4GB memory mapping limitations, I'm happy about this.

if you're still using XP.....odds are you are not using any google apps

divx88: I can live without Firefox's agile development cycle.

I switched to esr - still get security updates but don't have to worry about new bugs features every 6 weeks.

Opera!

redly1: if you're still using XP.....odds are you are not using any google apps

Why not? I was supposed to purchase a Win7 upgrade for my 2.5 year old XP netbook - even though Google Apps work just fine on it? Granted I use Chrome, but that doesn't affect your comment. In fact, I'll spin yours around. Odds are that if you're heavily using Google Apps (and little else), you probably don't need a new computer every two years.

clkeagle: IntertubeUser: On every one of these browser threads, I read where people just loveloveLOVE Chrome and hate Firefox. Sometimes people talk about "memory leaks" and other problems, but in nearly ten years of using Firefox, I have never experienced a problem not related to flash or Java or a buggy site itself.

On my machine, I have Firefox configured to where the very top 3/4" are the tabs, navigation, url bar, and search bar. This area also matches my system default color (a nice, dusty teal). This area used to be a rather nice image of the Seattle skyline (and still is on my girl's machine). On the bottom is the usual MS start button and Quick Start stuff. No other browser gives me that much real estate without having to go into Full Screen mode.

I have the NoScript, AdBlock, MAFIAAFire Redirector, AutoPager. and NoSquint addons. When I launch FireFox, my Fast Dial page with icons representing my usual favorites is what I see first. Though it looks a bit like what Chrome gives you, Fast Dial can be customized to display specific font colors, font sizes, background colors, hover behaviors, etc.

Finally, I can go into Firefox via about:config and tweak behaviors, try out things, etc.

So why exactly is Chrome such a big deal? What am I missing.

Well, while you spend time with add ons, configuration, layout, and behavior, Chrome users simply click on the program and access the Internet.

Your post reminds me of the difference between Linux users and Windows and Mac users:

Linux users like to work ON computers.
The rest of us like to WORK on computers.

I'm a Windows user and I don't really spend a lot of time working ON my computer.

However, I don't know how people use the Internet without NoScript and AdBlock (or inferior versions of) and how people can be satisfied with not being able to customize things.

clkeagle: Well, while you spend time with add ons, configuration, layout, and behavior, Chrome users simply click on the program and access the Internet.

Sure...and they have to deal with potentially malicious scripts, ads, etc. by doing so. Sure, there's Chrome extensions, but Firefox's add-ons are a bit more mature. Nearly all of them are "install-and-forget", so it's not a big deal for the average user.

I've found that Firefox works better on my Windows 7 desktop while Chrome works better on my Xubuntu 12.04 laptop. For some reason, Firefox on Linux (and I've had this happen with *buntu/Debian, Fedora, RHEL/CentOS/SL, etc.) seems to have a barely-perceptible delay when opening/changing tabs, typing, or otherwise doing ordinary things. It drives me absolutely nuts. Chrome doesn't, which is nice. Go figure.

spelletrader: So this is only going to effect XP users that use Google Apps and cannot use any other browser then IE?

So like, 2 people that matter and one of them is your gran?

Charles_Nelson_Reilly: When people complain about those who haven't upgraded their {OS, browser, office suite}, they're missing the core truth that people are not upgrading because the old thing works plenty well enough. In other words, the new thing isn't enough of an improvement for them to care. If "it's old" is the best reason to upgrade, then the case for upgrading is not very compelling.

/ just sayin
// typed on an iPhone 4s.

But "it's old" isn't the excuse to update from IE8 to IE9 or a different browser, even.

Speaking as a web developer who spends a lot of time browser testing, the browser bugs in IE7 are annoying but fixable, but in IE8 they're annoying and difficult to root out, AND IE8 doesn't support half of CSS2, and none of CSS3.

IE9 is ok, but it still goofs up code in amusing and (as of yet) unfixable ways. And Microsoft, instead of building their browsers to use the same CSS properties that everyone else uses, makes up their own nonsense that we have to go out of our way to accommodate.

As somebody who builds websites for a living, it really sucks when you want to do something cool, but IE won't support it.

/anything is better than IE, wharrgarbl

rideaurocks: I don't think there's a lot of people who are using Windows XP while also using IE8 only for Google plugins. Most people still using XP are either geeks running it in a VM, dinosaurs who won't update because it's fine and eff Microsoft anyway, or people whose children have already switched them to a better browser to lighten their PC-repair workload

I still use XP for most of my web surfing. Mostly because it's easier for me to read on my old P4 on the desk in my bedroom than the quad core running 7 in the living room on the TV.

Mr. Holmes: As somebody who builds websites for a living, it really sucks when you want to do something cool, but IE won't support it.

so it's business as usual with IE then?

IntertubeUser:
However, I don't know how people use the Internet without NoScript and AdBlock (or inferior versions of) and how people can be satisfied with not being able to customize things.

In relation to the final part of your comment and Linux, I suspect it's because Linux is a wholly incompatible mess, it won't event speak to itself half the time. It's built by software engineers to be compatible with standards (POSIX, etc, etc, etc) thus to them it is compatible. That word means a totally different thing to an end user.

Install a Suse RPM in to Ubuntu. Use only the GUI of the software installer (Synaptics). Will this work? No. Now explain to your grandmother why Linux isn't incompatible with Linux, after all BOTH of those packages were marked as "Linux" on their respective websites. Explain what they highly detailed and useful (to either of us) error message means to that same person to whom it's just random bollocks that means nothing.

Feed Win7 (32bit as 64bit lacks the WoW-16 stuff) a 16bit Win3.1 executable, it will work. It won't even biatch & moan about it just *poof* there's your program and look it even kinda maybe looks a little better than you remember it. Hell until very recently you could drop a PPC compiled application on to OS X (10.6.x or under though) and it'd jump up and go "Hey, you need X. I'll install it k?" and presto chango there is your old application running (and Rosetta was damn good, even had Homeworld 2 running in it at one point) and Apple (quite rightly IMHO) get a good kicking over their lack of backwards compatibility.

Then you come up to the claim of "It'll run your Windows software" that a lot of people make. Yeah... it might... kinda... unless it's Microsoft Office in which case the installer WILL explode on certain versions of WINE or you need .net (not mono, actual .net) or the legion of other software people have that does weird things that WINE can't cope with. That's assuming PuleAudio doesn't throw a massive shiat fit and you end up with zero audio from WINE... again.

Hell half of this famed customisability, which would be an awesome selling point I agree, requires using hacked together tools most of which have a help system that can be summed up as "Lol n00b" OR you can use the stuff that's had a bit more loving spent on it and you end up being able to change the desktop theme... or icon set... which is pretty much all you can do in Windows (or indeed OS X).

Man, what a bad idea. It's not just XP users - do you know just HOW MANY ordinary users are still on 8? I worked as a computer tech at a store for two years up to July, and probably 80% of the systems that came in, even the Win7 systems, were still using IE8.

Normal people just don't know that Windows Update exists, and the only way they get another browser installed is if they go to download another poker game, it makes them update flash, and the download bundles Chrome with it.

An awful lot of "normal" users are going to be locked out of Google apps when they do this, and only a portion of them will be able to figure out how to run updates or install and use a different browser.

Then again, maybe they're hoping that they can just give IE8 users a Chrome download link and pick up some market share.

theflatline: redly1: if you're still using XP.....odds are you are not using any google apps

odds are you do not know anything about computers....

I had a computer than ran XP until May of this year. It lasted for 7 years and I still made $50 when I sold it and the lcd screen. My new computer runs Windows 7 64 bit,it's like all the good things of xp but prettier.

steamingpile: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Wait, people use Internet Explorer?

People still have XP? That's been obsolete for a while now and since 7 came out we have no need for it.

At least 70k machines at my company do. You'd be surprised...

There are still companies out there that have to log onto websites that are NOT IE9 compatible...STILL! There is one law firm that I know of that downloads case information that is ONLY IE7 compatible. It's a sad state of affairs...

/Love Firefox
//Dislike Chrome
///LOL@IE

I still can't get ie9 on my parents vista box. It won't install the "platform update" or some damn net framework update from 2010.

And I've scoured the web for the last 2 years looking for a solution and trying everything suggested by microsoft and anybody else who offers a solution.

Only thing left is to reinstall vista for them, which I wouldn't do if they bought me a house. They backup nothing, and it would take me a week to get it back to the way they have it now. IF I could find all the original install disks for the dozens of crappy programs they have on it. 

And from what I gather, it is a pretty widespread problem.

Generation_D: ADP Payroll app required IE to work right a few years ago; does it still?

Yep.

Subby apparently doesn't understand Windows, Windows users, or the relationship between Windows and IE. IE8 =/= Win8, and vice versa. I'm running IE9 under my Win7 side right now, and have been for some time: it was released over a year ago, and is not tied to OS versions. Dropping support doesn't mean that the thing stops working: it keeps working, just gets buggier over time, and more vulnerable. The very fact that there are still people using XP, or using *any* version of IE, should sugggest how sensitive typical Windows users are to such issues: not very. Many of them will keep using it until it just doesn't work at all or something bad happens to their computer, and only then will they upgrade. Subby is right that for a lot of them, this will happen during the Win8 release cycle, but that's unrelated and, more to the point, inconsequential: a breakdown in IE8 forces no one to buy Win8, because IE9 runs perfectly fine under Win7 (and, I presume Vista; maybe even XP?).

For those complaining about page requirement issues, you should at least try spoofing first. I find this fools most of the pages that 'require' IE (including, amusingly enough, nearly all Microsoft pages). The much smaller proportion that apparently do some sekrit behind-the-back handshake to verify that you're really using IE (such as a few MS pages) will indeed require IE, but this isn't a big deal. If that's happening to you all the time, then you're either doing business with MS all the time -- in which case, it's not really out of line for them to encourage you to use *their* product -- or you need to ask some third-party webmaster what the hell he's doing and why. Anyway, this is also unrelated to either IE or Win versions. (Are there any sites *requiring* IE versions above 7?)

It's a cute headline, just very mistaken.

There are people in offices that have IE 8? What luxury! We're still running IE 7 and 32-bit XP on systems that were clearly designed for 64-bit 7 Pro. Yeah, I have an i7 2600 with vPro in my work desktop and I'm only running 4GB ram and XP. IT claims 7 is too problematic for their network of 25,000 PCs or so. More like they're too freaking lazy.