Microsoft: we're releasing chromium based edge on 15th of Jan 2020

Government tax website: this website works only on Internet Explorer

Please god put me out of my misery

The only thing slower than IE is the government

Whether it's the government or a private company, change is expensive. The larger the entire the larger the cost. As a tax payer, I don't want that cost to be incurred unless absolutely necessary. So, I sympathize with your perspective, but that particular perspective is not important.

@monkeyboy would stability be deemed necessary? IE is no longer supported by anyone and has security issues. I consider that necessary

@enron456 certainly, and as time goes by that will move the needle. However, even the existence of those special programs by which Microsoft has provided IE support to government entities long after official support ended will give you an idea of the cost. I'm sure it was not cheap to pay MS for that.

@monkeyboy could you please give me an example? Looking online, looks like every other browser adopted all of the features

I have yet to see an example where an upgrade to online softwares actually managed to hurt a company or a gov. entity. On the contrary, it helps relocate your occupied assets working on that particular service to other places.

In a time where I really don't have to go anywhere near a bank, restaurant, store etc and still get the service I want, while the government lacks in this aspect is utterly unacceptable in this modern world, and the fact we do nothing about it is rather shocking.

For this particular case, I pay as high as 30% of my job income, and as high as 40% of my freelance jobs in taxes. Now I don't complain much, I do get other services( like health) for 'free', I would expect to have a simple website to support something other than IE.

The new edge comes with a IE compatibility mode to run websites compatible only with IE.. Microsoft would probably purge IE when they roll it out... Will be an end to all this misery!

Government websites are the goddamn worst. You can always tell that some completely uninformed bureaucrat that wants to leverage the computer doohickey came up with the requirements. "You must use Internet Explorer version 10.6.389 or 10.72.4327 to access this site. If you don't have those exact versions, fuck you".

The amount of code written specifically for IE (and it's COM support) and currently still in use by government entities is gargantuan. They can't just "use another browser". To get that custom software re written, there is an incredibly complicated competition and allocation process not to mention the vagaries of yearly Congressional budgets. It is not incompetence that prevents an instant move away from IE. It is the cost of replacing existing functions that rely on IE. Thinking that it's no different than a 10 person startup's decision process is wrong.

I had should keept that old xp pc

Perhaps it would work to run the government site in emulation mode? But anyway, this should be a wake up call to these dinosaurs to update their software. It probably needs a fresh look and feel anyway; most legacy software has terrible UX.

@monkeyboy do you work for a government entity? :D

Jokes aside, I'm really struggling to understand your logic...

It's an outdated browser with no support from anywhere, not even the community, why still use it? It's a security risk above all other reasons, and government websites should actually prevent you, not force you to use it.

Let's take an example about a startup building their website with Flash. Now that Adobe has announced it's death... Will that startup keep on using it or move to other stuff? Regardless of the costs.

You simply cannot stay in 2007 when we're already in 2020.

@ace48 I think his point is that these gov systems are so massive and interdependent, that the only real way to update them would be to throw everything away and restart from scratch.

But once you start taking into account the huge amount of legal hoops and red tape necessary for such a radical overhaul, you start to realise that it would take a very long time and a large amount of money to get it done properly.

No government can afford to stop its operations for that long, or risk losing data due to incompatibilities and bugs. And nobody wants to be responsible for paying the bill afterwards.

And that's how you get into the legacy software hell, governnent edition.

@ace48 endor explains it quite well. I'm sure there are many people in government who want to switch, but cannot do so quickly or at all because of existing code that must be replaced in that effort.

So what you're saying, unless a big data breach happens there is no chance that a government website will be updated?

Now like I said previously, it is simply unacceptable for a website, a critical day to day government website, to be unsupported on modern major browsers.

I don't think the bureaucracy plays any part in the process, rather knowing my government, it's probably corruption at play here.

For a country that is compared to Silicon Valley, lacking in this aspect is scandalous.

@ace48 it's not there no chance, just that it takes a lot of time and money.

@monkeyboy Modern browsers (better IE options) have been around for 10+ years now?

If that's not enough, I'd say that's the governments fault.

@monkeyboy Also, we've moved past a time where everyone could run IE.

I use Linux (no shit) and can't really use IE and I wouldn't put effort into that if required since there are modern IE alternatives. (My governments websites do run well on modern browsers)

@linuxxx You touch on a reason why I loathe modern software as a service. If you pay eleventy billion dollars to build custom software that exists no where else in the world because your needs are unique. The longer that software runs, the better. It is a tool that you have bought and paid for. It matters not a single rats ass if it "looks dated" or doesn't run in a " modern browser". It only matters that it performs the function it was designed for. Anything else is a waste of money. Being forced to change is colossally bad customer service. What I want as a customer is there right to use version x of product y forever. I hate hate hate hate hate SAAS in the individual consumer market. Sorry, that may sound a little tangential, but my point is that many government entities want things to last forever in no small part because of the budget battles that must be fought every year.

@monkeyboy I can't seem to detect whether you agree with me or not..

@monkeyboy I can agree with you if it was a windows software. That you're not required to port to other Operating Systems.

However, as a website that's supposed to run everywhere, it's unacceptable to be limited to IE11, which Microsoft themselves stopped supporting.

Which not only gives bad UX, it's also vulnerable to many security holes.

@ace48 If you assume the software on question was written in the last 2-3 ish years, then fair enough. But you're talking about software that in many cases was written and has been modified over the last 15-20 years. So, all the comments about such and such being inexcusable are nonsensical because they do not take that into account (Apparently. Correct me if I'm wrong on that count)