What is this?

This knowledgebase contains questions and answers about PRTG Network Monitor and network monitoring in general.

Learn more

PRTG Network Monitor

Intuitive to Use. Easy to manage.
More than 500,000 users rely on Paessler PRTG every day. Find out how you can reduce cost, increase QoS and ease planning, as well.

Free Download

Top Tags


View all Tags

Why are Internet Explorer IE6 and IE7 not supported by PRTG's Ajax Interface?

Votes:

0

From Microsoft's browsers, only Internet Explorer 8 is supported. Paessler recommends using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome instead.

Why?

browser chrome firefox ie6 ie7 ie8 internet-explorer prtg

Created on Aug 10, 2010 9:08:18 AM by  Daniel Zobel [Product Manager]



Best Answer

Accepted Answer

Votes:

1

This article applies to PRTG Network Monitor 8

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and PRTG 8—The Short Story

When we developed the AJAX user interface of PRTG 8 we had to make a decision: Shall we support IE7 or shall we create twice as much features for all modern browsers instead?

Developing AJAX functions with support for IE6/7 takes about twice the time it takes to create the same functions for modern browsers. We decided to drop IE6/IE7 support in favor of creating much more functionality for modern browsers like Firefox 3.5/3.6, Chrome 4/5 and Safari 4. The result is that PRTG 8 supports IE6/IE7 only with the HTML-based, read-only, limited-functionality “HTML interface”.

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and PRTG 8—The Long Story

You can use PRTG 8 if you are using IE7 (or even older versions of IE), but you are limited to the HTML-based, read-only, limited-functionality “HTML interface” of PRTG 8.

The full-featured AJAX-Interface does not work on IE5/6/7, many web pages are not even shown correctly on the older IE browsers.

The reasons are that

  • IE6 was simply unable to perform various AJAX functions we have implemented in PRTG
  • Even IE7 still has a horrible javascript, CSS and AJAX implementation; it was not possible for us to always write a second version of all AJAX functionality just for IE7.
  • Another reason is the crawling slow Javascript engine of Internet Explorer 7: On IE7 some browser based features of PRTG take so long to complete that they render the user interface effectively useless. IE7 can be 100 times slower than FF/Chrome for some functions.

When we created the first concept draft of PRTG in 2006 we decided that we wanted to create an amazing browser-based user interface. At that time only few applications were already on that level (Googlemail, one of the first massive-ajax applications, was officially launched in February 2007). We anticipated the rising trend for applications to go into the web-based direction and wanted to use this concept in PRTG.

We at Paessler firmly believe in modern technologies for web browsing. Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006, that was 4 years ago, and has not been updated since (except for the ie8 update). Nowadays IE7’s market share is around 10%. Quote from Wikipedia: Although Internet Explorer 7 is more compliant than previous versions, according to all figures it remains the least standards-compliant compared to other major browsers of the period.

Modern browsers (Firefox 3.5/3.6, Chrome 4/5, Safari 4) provide such a superior user experience. Older IE versions are like huge rocks that block the road to better Ajax implementations. Googlemail had dropped support for IE6 in 2007, I think we will see their next step (drop of IE7) in less than 2 years.

What about Internet Explorer 8?

Although we officially support Internet Explorer 8, we do not do this with a full heart. There are some AJAX functions in PRTG that do not work well on Internet Explorer 8 (e.g. the Map Editor). We simply do not recommend to use IE8 for PRTG. It is by far still the slowest and most problematic contestant of current browsers.

The Bottom Line

If you have to use Internet Explorer with PRTG, please use version 8.

If you have any chance to switch to Firefox or Chrome: Please do so now!

Created on Aug 10, 2010 12:37:34 PM by  Dirk Paessler [Founder Paessler AG] (11,025) 3 6

Last change on Mar 1, 2012 3:51:35 PM by  Daniel Zobel [Product Manager]



4 Replies


Accepted Answer

Votes:

1

This article applies to PRTG Network Monitor 8

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and PRTG 8—The Short Story

When we developed the AJAX user interface of PRTG 8 we had to make a decision: Shall we support IE7 or shall we create twice as much features for all modern browsers instead?

Developing AJAX functions with support for IE6/7 takes about twice the time it takes to create the same functions for modern browsers. We decided to drop IE6/IE7 support in favor of creating much more functionality for modern browsers like Firefox 3.5/3.6, Chrome 4/5 and Safari 4. The result is that PRTG 8 supports IE6/IE7 only with the HTML-based, read-only, limited-functionality “HTML interface”.

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and PRTG 8—The Long Story

You can use PRTG 8 if you are using IE7 (or even older versions of IE), but you are limited to the HTML-based, read-only, limited-functionality “HTML interface” of PRTG 8.

The full-featured AJAX-Interface does not work on IE5/6/7, many web pages are not even shown correctly on the older IE browsers.

The reasons are that

  • IE6 was simply unable to perform various AJAX functions we have implemented in PRTG
  • Even IE7 still has a horrible javascript, CSS and AJAX implementation; it was not possible for us to always write a second version of all AJAX functionality just for IE7.
  • Another reason is the crawling slow Javascript engine of Internet Explorer 7: On IE7 some browser based features of PRTG take so long to complete that they render the user interface effectively useless. IE7 can be 100 times slower than FF/Chrome for some functions.

When we created the first concept draft of PRTG in 2006 we decided that we wanted to create an amazing browser-based user interface. At that time only few applications were already on that level (Googlemail, one of the first massive-ajax applications, was officially launched in February 2007). We anticipated the rising trend for applications to go into the web-based direction and wanted to use this concept in PRTG.

We at Paessler firmly believe in modern technologies for web browsing. Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18, 2006, that was 4 years ago, and has not been updated since (except for the ie8 update). Nowadays IE7’s market share is around 10%. Quote from Wikipedia: Although Internet Explorer 7 is more compliant than previous versions, according to all figures it remains the least standards-compliant compared to other major browsers of the period.

Modern browsers (Firefox 3.5/3.6, Chrome 4/5, Safari 4) provide such a superior user experience. Older IE versions are like huge rocks that block the road to better Ajax implementations. Googlemail had dropped support for IE6 in 2007, I think we will see their next step (drop of IE7) in less than 2 years.

What about Internet Explorer 8?

Although we officially support Internet Explorer 8, we do not do this with a full heart. There are some AJAX functions in PRTG that do not work well on Internet Explorer 8 (e.g. the Map Editor). We simply do not recommend to use IE8 for PRTG. It is by far still the slowest and most problematic contestant of current browsers.

The Bottom Line

If you have to use Internet Explorer with PRTG, please use version 8.

If you have any chance to switch to Firefox or Chrome: Please do so now!

Created on Aug 10, 2010 12:37:34 PM by  Dirk Paessler [Founder Paessler AG] (11,025) 3 6

Last change on Mar 1, 2012 3:51:35 PM by  Daniel Zobel [Product Manager]



Votes:

0

I am using IE 11. I am not able to load prtg monitor AJAX GUI interface I get below errors.

Sorry. IE compatibility mode is not supported by the AJAX interface! Please turn it off! (find out how).

Please go to the Mobile Web GUI or consider switching to Internet Explorer (V9 or later), Google Chrome (V14 or later) or Mozilla Firefox (V10 or later).

I tried to do some compatibility things as stated in this post. but still the same.

thanks.

Created on Sep 30, 2014 12:43:13 PM



Votes:

0

Would it be an option for you to use Chrome or Firefox? Otherwise, please try if the tips from IE9/10 help.

Created on Oct 1, 2014 2:52:17 PM by  Torsten Lindner [Paessler Support]




Disclaimer: The information in the Paessler Knowledge Base comes without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. Before applying any instructions please exercise proper system administrator housekeeping. You must make sure that a proper backup of all your data is available.