On August 27, 2001, almost exactly 7 years ago, Microsoft unleashed Internet Explore 6 upon the world. Despite version 7 having been out now for almost two years, and version 8 already in public beta, usage of the 2001 release remains strong. W3Counter reports that it is still the most popular browser in the world at 34.6% of all visits, while TheCounter.com has it second to IE7, but only barely and still commanding a whopping 36% market share.
Because so many people still use the older version of Internet Explorer, many web sites have made the choice to continue supporting it (including SitePoint — where about 12% of our visitors still come to us using IE6). But is it perhaps time to ditch IE6 support and start forcing people to upgrade?
Web application developer 37signals made the decision to drop IE6 support in July (actual support for Microsoft’s last generation browser ceased on August 15). “IE 6 can’t provide the same web experience that modern browsers can,” wrote 37signals of the decision. “Continued support of IE 6 means that we can’t optimize our interfaces or provide an enhanced customer experience in our apps. Supporting IE 6 means slower progress, less progress, and, in some places, no progress.”
According to 37signals, supporting IE6 was holding them back. And 37signals isn’t alone in their dislike of IE6. In 2006, a few months before Microsoft released their last major browser, PC World magazine ranked Internet Explorer 6 as the 8th worst tech product of all time, citing its terrible track record when it comes to security.
Security is such a big issue for IE6, that one blogger recently reported that 95% of all bots accessing his site use Internet Explorer 6 as their user-agent. “Most blog spam comes from bots that either fake or, as a trojan, use Internet Explorer 6 of infected systems,” he wrote, ultimately deciding to block IE6 completely to alleviate the blog spam problem.
Of course, security isn’t the only reason web developers are sour on IE6. Internet Explorer 6 is also dismal when it comes to standards compliance. So why do people continue to use it? As Nick La wrote a year ago, the reason people still use IE6 is that developers go out of their way to make web sites work in it. So most people don’t realize that IE6 isn’t a good browser.
“We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine. However, most average Internet users haven’t realized that yet. Why? Because we put our hard work on it and patch the bugs by various IE hacks,” La wrote, urging people to drop support for IE6.
A third of the Internet is a lot of people to just leave behind, though. So support for IE6 continues at most web sites, especially large ones. What we need to move us forward, however, is a bold move, not too much unlike the one Apple made in 2001 when it decided to forgo backwards compatibility when it released OS X. In order to save the Internet from IE6, perhaps we need to stop supporting it.
What do you think? Should web developers stop supporting Internet Explorer 6? Vote in our poll and then leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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August 25th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I have made some Web Sites and Web application where I just don’t support IE6 at all. Some of my site have bugs I just leave the bugs, because its just to much time to clear those bugs. And yes we should force people to use Firefox, opera or Safari because IE has proven to be a browsers that is way behind the rest of browsers its like Firefox 3 is 15 years a head from IE. Even IE 8 is fare behind Firefox, just look at the acid 3 test. Look at the HTML5 support and css 3 support. Firefox community are already working on version 3.1 that will support ogg , and some css 3 properties.
Sorry but IE your just to far behind the game and you not has stable and fast has Firefox and the other browsers.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
well … thats pretty unanimous.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
100% so far - looking good :)
I’ve submitted the post to Digg - give it some Digg loving to bring in some more voters :)
http://digg.com/software/Is_It_Time_to_Ditch_IE6_Vote_at_SitePoint
August 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
A major question here is - are those that fall under the “third of Internet users” category the same users that convert? If they convert, then isn’t it of even greater importance that we force them to upgrade, lest they are traumatized by a security issue caused by their use of IE6, such as a hacked credit card?
In my oh-so-humble opinion, we aren’t exactly doing our jobs as best we can by patronizing IE6. The thought of “what’s wrong? every thing {looks} fine on my IE6″ can bring great trouble to said user.
Forcing users to upgrade is the only way to “kill” IE6, and save everyone from web developers, to those users who are unwittingly becoming victims and hosts of security attacks.
Hence, this poll receives a “Yes” vote from me.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
IE6 is the bane of my existence - and I’m sure many other front-end web developers. I vote Yes! Die IE6! DIE!
August 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Whilst there is still a large percentage of users browsing using ie6, you can’t just decide to just “drop IE6 support”. What are you going to say to your clients when they find out you are turning away 35% of their visitors? I hate ie6 as much as the next person, but dropping complete support for ie6 at this point in time is not realistic whatsoever.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’d like to know how many of those who voted ‘yes’ are actually going to drop support for IE 6.
One option would be to provide IE 6 support as a paid option for new clients. This way, it’s up to the client to decide whether they deem it necessary.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Haven’t found it hard to support at all, so I do test sites in IE6 still.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Did anyone else bother to read the blog wherein the author found out that only 2% of his IE6 traffic must be coming from actual people, and the rest are actually bots?
Am I the only one that sees the significance of that? Imagine if 90% of that 36% market share are actually just bots and infected PC’s?
P.S. I agree with Ian - a paid option sounds good.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Although I think that IE6 should go away and make place for better browsers, we will not drop support for IE6 until IE6 usage drops bellow 5%.
People use our software to interact with their clients. Our software being broken in borwsers their clients use simply makes our customers look bad. Do you really want that for your customers? A couple of hours of extra work to make everything work is not that difficult.
If you want to create a successful business you should be prepared to go an extra mile for your clients / customers. Bill them for the extra work done, but don’t make them look bad. IE6 will eventually go away by itself.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I still make sure my websites work in IE6, but I the experience its users get is less than what they would had their browser been something more acceptable.
I can’t imagine how much money has been spent to make websites work in IE6.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
A helluva lot of people don’t even know what a web browser is, and you reckon the reason they use IE6 is because sites are rendering correctly in them?
The only way people are going to stop using IE6 is when no operating system has it as their default browser, and if a site does not work using IE6, they’ll stop visiting the site much sooner than they will upgrade their browser. And let’s not forget that many people are not using legit versions of Windows anyway, which makes upgrading to IE7 impossible for inexpert users (sure, they can upgrade to any of the other browsers on the market, but the chances that people still using IE6 know that Firefox, Opera, Safari and the like exist are very slim.)
And I can confirm that IE6 is the default browser on the standard operating environments at GE Money and Telstra.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
if a user wants to play a new game he needs to install new version of directx
if a user wants to open new type of file /i.e. .dox/ he needs a new version of m$ office
but when it comes to website - it has to be compatible with old buggy versions of browsers…
WTF?!
August 25th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Drop and use IE 7 or IE 8 Beta 1
August 25th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Why use a piece of software that is 7 years old? That is really pre historic (and IE6 acts like a prehistoric thing). Is anyone using Netscape 6 (the horror!), mozilla 1.0, opera7.0?, firefox 0.5 or safari 1.0. Probably not, because all these browsers released already new versions (or died -> Netscape).
Due the fact microsoft did not release upgrades often (after five years) people keep using IE6. Also the fact that the upgrade to IE7 required at first a WGA check was not really promoting upgrading. And as a last issue due to the horrific html and css rendering of IE6 some pages does not look pretty in IE7. Therefore some companies won’t upgrade since they would break their intranet of other webapplications with an upgrade.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
“including SitePoint — where about 12% of our visitors still come to us using IE6″
Guess that explains the 12% who responded ‘no’ to the poll. Seriously, switch browsers, folks. It’s not hard. Using IE6 is the equivalent of wearing a 70s leisure suite in public: it’s old and it was never a good idea.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I’m all in favour of dropping support, but as said above, it’s not yet a realistic decision.
Clients will never allow us.
Maybe we should go back to the 90’s where sites were littered with “optimised for ” taglines. :-)
Maybe going out of our way to provide extra features on browsers that support modern methods helps persuading people to upgrade/switch browsers.
But dropping support is alas not yet a viable option.
August 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
As everything in the WWW, this really depends on many factors. A client of mine runs a website with 50.000 uniques a month and 65% visit through IE6. They are people between 45 - 55 in age and most of them have old computers with CRT screens. Should he tell his visitors to throw away their crappy computers and buy new ones with modern browsers? I don’t think so.
August 25th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
When it comes to CSS issues, I usually just give IE6 users some simple fall-back layout, whereas users of real browsers get the ‘nice’ layout.
August 25th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Who are those IE6 users anyway? - Individuals who know nothing about computers?
Modernised youngsters and developers all have at least IE7. Why? One youngster upgrades sees benefits and then gets his friend to upgrade in front of him.
IE 6 is old and so are the users browsing with it.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I make a note to test in IE6 post-development. Only because so many still use it. I’m highly considering dropping that step all together because the support for that browser has been bothersome for too dang long.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
if we do drop support, which i think will happen soon enough, then we will get rid of IE6, imagine that!!
for now we should write tons of functions to our website and put tags for IE6 users, “to upgrade”, with reasons, links and instructions on how to.
but until we explain our users that they are using “the worst” Internet browser there is, they are not going to do anything.
and most people, even with good PC’s still use IE6, because they don’t know anything about them.
P.S. firefox works ‘fine’ on super old machines, with huge screens, and PCI graphics cards
August 25th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
One has to wonder why IT departments are not upgrading browsers? Teck sites are the exception, I have one UK NHS site that has 42% IE6.
IT departments are the ones to blame, they make the decisions for most people, and they seem to have a poor opinion of IE7. There seems to be some prevailing notion that IE7 is not an improvement on IE6. One opinion I heard recently; was that IE7 was very slow. But I think the real issue is that a lot of people simply don’t like the UI.
I believe Internet Explorer 7 made a major mistake when it changed the UI - If IE7 still looked the same as IE6, I think the upgrade process would have proceeded at a much faster pace.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
It’s nice in theory…. but until Google & Yahoo drop support for IE6, we’re going to see continued use of IE6.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I would love to stop supporting IE6, I think ask anyone and they would agree. I’d like to know wouldn’t? Oh wait I do, my company and quite a number of others…
I have worked for or know people who have worked for many Fortune 500 companies. The bane of our existence is the constant argument by IT management that we only need to SUPPORT IE6. Because in theory that is the official company browser for internal applications and sites, or it is the only official one support the said company for outside clients.
Fortunately there has never been anyone who said you can support other browsers on your own. So that is what I and other have been doing. And more recently some clients are starting to use other OS’s like Mac or Linux.
I think corporate IT had such headaches with IE6, and now that they have it “stable” they don’t want to push for change. Especially with all the issues of Vista these days. It becomes why change? There is now good return on investment for it in their eyes…
I wonder how much corporations market share count?
August 25th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
My perspective is simple — perhaps too simple — but it’s how I make the decision.
I remember that not only am I working for my client, but I’m working for their clients or prospective clients (visitors). I need to adjust to their needs, not the other way ’round. I’m the one getting paid for it.
Yes, it does take longer to support IE6 — adds about 10-15% to total front-end time — so I just include it in the price.
If competitors skip the IE6 step and bid lower, it’s up to me to explain, and my client to understand that you pay for what you get. If the client doesn’t see it that way — that’s fine — I don’t get offended. Nor do I back off from what is the quality standard I offer for my clients — a site that functions on a wide variety of currently used software (and hardware; including hand-held devices). There are plenty of clients out there, and I’d be foolish to think I’m a match for all of them.
BTW — I only stopped supporting IE5.5 (PC) a year ago. It’s been a relief to leave that mess behind.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I don’t think this is about giving IE6 users the finger and an error message instead of a half-working website. It’s about not going the extra hundred miles it takes to provide IE6 users with a stellar experience. The site will still mostly work, but alpha-transparent PNG’s won’t look good and lots of CSS will be ignored or wrongly interpreted. All of the content and most of the functionality is still there, though. And in that case I think it’s completely okay to not stretch for full IE6 compatibility.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
should we: yes of course
will I: no of course not, let other people loose this market share before people start updating faster.
This is probably the thought of most website developers.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I think you should support IE6 depending on the project. If your site is (like Sitepoint) used by mostly tech-savvy people, then dropping support for IE6 is a safe option. If you are doing a family site for users who are still running Windows 98, then dropping support for IE6 would be suicidal.
Sitepoint should drop IE6- especially if it allows you to spend more time on more interesting features for the site. (How long do front end developers spend trying to make sites ‘work’ in IE6!?!)
August 25th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
There’s different levels of “support”.
With a site I’m working on now, it works in IE6 (the forms behave as expected, the menus function), but there are a couple of layout issues on some of the pages where things don’t line up perfectly.
Will I take the time to fix those issues? It’s not high on my list of priorities. Everything is still readable, and the content is accessible.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
There should be a maybe option in the poll. The reality is that if your users are using IE 6 then you need to support it. I would drop it in a heartbeat if my users were less then 5%. I will also drop it when microsoft stop’s supporting it which could be soon since microsoft has had a practice of only supporting the lastest two versions of IE.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
“Dropping” IE6 support is not really that detrimental. Refusing to support IE6 does not mean that IE6 users can no longer go to the website; it only means that the site might not look as it should to those users. The page is still there, with all of its content. If the discrepancies in the visual layout are terribly annoying, then they can upgrade, or even simply turn off styles and just browse the web as straight text and images.
This is not about denying access; it’s about refusing to take extra measures to ensure a seamless user experience for IE6 users. Nick La is right. As long as we continue to ensure that everything looks perfect in IE6, then people will continue to use IE6. It is only when things start to “break” that they will finally seek a remedy in an upgrade or a new browser.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Should we drop support for IE6? Yes.
Can we drop support for IE6? No.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Dropping support for IE6 is one of the most liberating decisions I made in recent months. By consciously deciding to focus on standards, I am able to create solid XHTML 1.0 Strict pages that load quickly and work beautifully. Part of the reason that people still use IE6 is that we, the web development community, accommodate them far too much! In my newer sites, I add a script that runs in IE6; it alerts the user that the site simply DOES NOT FUNCTION under IE6 and that the user should either upgrade to IE7 or switch Firefox, Opera, or Safari. This way, users receive the message very clearly! MY sites still let them in, but all my menus and whatnot are broken and ugly.
Older popular sites obviously have some commitment to maintaining IE6 visitors, but newer ones should feel no guilt in telling people to get with the program! It’s 2008! If we’re going to support IE6 in every new web project, why aren’t we still supporting DOS applications?
August 26th, 2008 at 12:49 am
YOUR BROWSER IS 7 YEARS OLD, AND POSES A SECURITY RISK TO YOU AND YOUR MACHINE! This website does not display properly because you are TOO LAZY TO UPDATE! Please download IE7 immediately. It’s free. Gees…
Notice the same percentage of people that voted NOT to drop IE6 support is almost exactly the same percentage of people who still visit Sitepoint with IE6? Upgrade already people!
August 26th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Darn, it didn’t display my conditional comment.. That first paragraph above was supposed to be in an IE6 conditional comment.
From what I can remember, iGoogle uses this by the way.. It isn’t as harsh as mine though.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Imagine turning away IE6 users from your site, or forcing them to upgrade to a new browser. This reminds about 5 years ago where many websites had splash pages that announced the site requirements.
Stopie6.org have a campaign that supports the elimination of IE6 .
August 26th, 2008 at 2:41 am
New projects can’t afford lacking IE6 support for obvious reasons. Old websites, however, should definitely drop IE6 support as in some point users will have to switch to a modern browser.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:04 am
Our corporation forces IE6.
I’d really like to kick it to the curb, but Mr. Corporation always wins…
Signed..
Unhappy Corporate IE6 user
August 26th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Just a quick note, I’ve stopped IE6 support already myself. It’s something I tell any client I have. Usually I’ll say, “Anyone with IE6 who browses your website can get around, but the site won’t look as good and they won’t have all the functionality of people with a current browser.” I now only support it when I’m working in areas that IE6 has a majority.
In my case what triggered this was Apple saying they were dropping it for MobileMe. That, when combined with companies like 37signals, I saw no real reason to hold onto outdated tech.
But what I want to know is am I the only one who thinks that IE6 isn’t the only problem? IE7 is still a pathetic browser by any measure and specifically when you look at Acid2 and 3 tests. IE8 may barely pass A2T but it barely registers on A3T!
Microsoft needs to get it’s act together on the web. I can’t think of a single thing they’ve released for the web that has actually had the web community going, “Good job Microsoft!”
August 26th, 2008 at 3:08 am
No, it’s too early yet.
I’ve watched the trend of IE6 usage dropping on my sites, and with the rate it’s going I won’t be able to drop support for it completely until the end of 2009.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:21 am
I hate IE6. You hate IE6. That’s a given. But the flip side of this is, millions–yes, millions–of users are using IE with no other options. At work, at church, at Internet cafes, in libraries, thousands of places where people have to work with the computers they have. And plenty of other people could use FF, Opera, whatever, but they don’t. IE6 came with their XP machine out of the box and that’s what they’re using, period the end. They don’t know how to install a different browser, they are scared to try, or they use their computers for specific functions and they don’t give a hoot what browser they use, as long as the site comes up when they click into it.
This is a reiteration of every argument about browsers since, what, Mosaic and Netscape? (Remember coding for NS4?) In every case, we’ve had to be patient until the ugly old browser’s user pool shrunk due to attrition and time. We’re not going to force users to stop using IE by refusing to support their browsers, though we will force users to stop using our sites. The only reasonable alternative we have is to grit our teeth and wait it out, just like we’ve done so many times before.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:23 am
That site’s script didn’t work for me. Anyone with any good alert IE6 users to upgrade scripts?
August 26th, 2008 at 4:05 am
can’t microsoft just do a force update to make ie6 users upgrade to 7? kinda like they did for the “click to active”
August 26th, 2008 at 4:47 am
“Whilst there is still a large percentage of users browsing using ie6, you can’t just decide to just “drop IE6 support”. What are you going to say to your clients when they find out you are turning away 35% of their visitors? I hate ie6 as much as the next person, but dropping complete support for ie6 at this point in time is not realistic whatsoever.”
Educate your clients on why continuing IE6 support is a bad idea. Then educate them on how educating the visitors will create a broader market share and a more quality user experience. You have to be able to convince your clients that something is a good idea; then have logistics to back it up. They’re not always going to want to change things, e.g., if it ain’t broke…You have to be able to convince them that “it” is broke and dropping support and forcing an upgrade will be beneficial for both client/user. I mean, really, it’s almost 2010 and IE6 is still alive. Developers should be setting the pace for clients/users, not vice versa.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:49 am
The problem is there are companies that require IE6 to work. Their web-based applications or intranets and such were built for IE6 and will break if upgraded. So instead of upgrading they make everyone continue to use IE6 since it’s cheaper in the short term.
You’ll find that the majority of IE6 users are actually in academic, medical, and business demographics. And when it’s business related it’s usually because of some sort of compatibility issue.
Remember, children: IE7 sucks, just not as bad as IE6.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:53 am
I’d like to drop support for IE6. I’d really like to.
But I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. My application caters to the ease-of-use crowd and, frankly, though any other browser offers an easier and better experience, *forcing* my users to download and install a new browser, no matter how much of an improvement it offers, is simply contrary to that ease-of-use requirement. I can encourage them, I can sell, I can plead. But force? I’ll lose users. Not willing to do that.
And I harbor a white-hot hatred of IE6. I despise the browser. I’ve cursed its makers and I’ve cursed their children. But I have a number of users who are (typically, but not always) in the forties or fifties, or older, and who can find fairly easy Internet tasks to be a hassle. They usually sound something like this: “I have to download a new Internet software? Now which is my browser? Is the window my browser or is it the place where I type the address?” Understand, too, that these people are *not* stupid. Assigning that category is a quick way to dismiss their concerns, but these are people who are, some of them, intelligent professionals, executives, analytical thinkers. But they’re not very Internet savvy, nor are they hugely receptive to any education which makes them feel less-than or takes up too much of their expensive time.
So therein lies a huge problem. IE6 _will_ go away, there’s no doubt. Systems get replaced, people get forced in to new software through circumstances of hardware failure and replacement or new, shiny purchases. But no one likes to be forced into anything, and when you’re asking for subscription dollars it’s a dicey proposition to tell your customers that, oh, by the way, in addition to money they also need to do some uncomfortable (for some of them) software installations.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:53 am
As a developer, I hate IE6.
But from the view point of non-techie users (which I know quite a few), why should I upgrade?
Microsoft could solve the problem completely by allowing multiple versions of IE on the same computer. Then, they could still have the warm fuzzy felling of having their old browser and still play with the new version and warm up to it.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Sorry for the double-post.
@Automatic_AB:
I agree totally. The best way, I find, to convince clients that IE6 isn’t something they should concern themselves with is to say something along the lines of the following:
“Firstly, while if you look at pure numbers IE6 might look like a big contender, in your demographic it’s not. Beyond that, by dropping direct support for IE6 it doesn’t mean that someone browsing with IE6 won’t be able to see the site or move around it. It just means that the site might not look perfect or that they might not get that added bit of functionality that I’ll be adding. In the end by dropping direct support for IE6 I can create, for you, a better website that’s more user-friendly in less time and for less money. The only downside is that some of the sexier parts of the site might not be fully accessible to someone with that outdated of a browser.”
August 26th, 2008 at 5:20 am
For my personal projects, I don’t cater for IE 6 any more for all the reasons stated.
But for my professional work, it’s a different story. The company I work for do a lot of work for the local councils here in the UK. Our councils seem to be famous for having IT departments that are very unwilling to change. We have to support IE6 as it’s all our customers are able to use - even if they don’t want to. So unless those local councils are given the time and possibly finances to update their IT systems, I know I’ll be stuck developing for that lame excuse of a browser :)
August 26th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Kieth5885:
Simple html conditional comment. I hope it displays properly:
You are using IE 6.August 26th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Sorry for so many posts! I don’t know how to get this code to display! One last try…
You are using IE 6.or go here.. http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html
August 26th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Having just recently been involved in a site to support IE5, 5.5, 6 and 7 (as well as the compliant browsers of course) I can see the eagerness to drop a browser version… and of course so much of this comes down to your target market, I normally don’t go less than IE6.
————-
In my case, in serving lower income families, there are a lot of people who are just impressed that they themselves got *on* a computer *and* the internet (who’s computer is outdated, and who has IE6 or less), GO THEM! WOO! I’m already happy as the next techie.
Being near poverty means there is no geek to educate you, and even if there is, well, I’m not sure my focus would be on the discrepancies of browsers, and I’m not sure I would just install Firefox and say “It’s an upgrade to your internet” (though I have done that in a few cases)… this is so even as much as I rant positively about standards in everyday life and how it can enhance our interaction of it. Of course, again, all this is dependent on the person. But I’m usually too busy explaining how things in general work, what email is, searching, and sites that might pertain to their interest, etc. Maybe in another session.
Other people, as mentioned by Black Max simply have no other option. The surrey public library system and our bank kiosks all use IE6, much to my dismay as I start in a panic. It’s now weird of me to not use Firefox, Safari or Opera. It’s a Different environment. But I adapt quickly. For others it’s a bit more traumatizing.
———————
So all we can do to induce browser adoption without hindering those in the position of only being able to use IE X < what they should be using, short of forming a coalition where 95% of developers join in and follow (which as a community as a whole are not ready for)… are these things:
1. Use standards and degrade peacefully like how a person tries to develop normally.
2. Go out of our way to find nice new standards and use those to enhance the experience.
3. Wait.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Yes, please put it in a box, burn it, and bury the ashes.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:26 am
“PC World magazine ranked Internet Explorer 6 as the 8th worst tech product of all time, citing its terrible track record when it comes to security.”
i love pc world…
My opinion on the matter is, that everyone is capable of upgrading whether they know it or not. Even my grandmother runs the automatic updates on her pc and therefore no longer has IE6. I use it briefly when installing XP and thats about it.
Having done plenty of CSS things… transparent images, theres an extensive list of problems with IE6, its CTD’s with a lot of codes, just really a mess to deal with and if it wasn’t for it i would probably have made a lot more money in my time.
So im going to have to go ahead and say that IE6 users should be left behind, its not like the sites don’t function in IE6, they just dont function or look perfect. Sure some tech support places with get questions but the answers simple, Microsoft has put it all over the automatic updates, you have to get ie7 with anything now, especially SP2 things that seem to be all over the place as well…
Its time to move on.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:51 am
OFF TOPIC
“PC World magazine ranked Internet Explorer 6 as the 8th worst tech product of all time, citing its terrible track record when it comes to security.”
Where can I view this at? …im interested in what the other 7 were.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:52 am
I do not think we should completely ditch support for IE6. Personally, I cannot stand IE6 and will be happy when I no longer have to worry about the monstrosity; however, I am looking at this from a tech-savvy web programmer’s perspective. A lot of people outside of my programming circle do not know that IE7 (or even better browsers like Firefox, Opera, etc.) exist. What is more, they really do not care. As long as they can get on the Internet, check their email, do a few extra things they are just fine. I cannot see them switching to IE7 because of the lack of support, they probably will just not come back to that specific website.
Another reason I will not forgo IE6 support is because some people do not have a choice. People who work for companies with IT oftentimes cannot get IE7 or another browser because IT is slow to respond with those types of updates. It is not the end-user’s fault that they cannot get IE7+, it is their employers. I do not want to punish the end-user for something that is out of their control.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:53 am
halfasleeps - I think the link was in the article above, but here it is:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772-3/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html
August 26th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I think yes… but not yet. Maybe in a year or so, after IE8s release, would be the time.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:45 am
How many think IE8 will s*ck as well? Raise your hands….
August 26th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Has anybody mentioned that the reason that people still use IE6 may be because they don’t know any better? That these people <em>barely</em> know how to use their computer, and upgrading IE6, not to mention ANYTHING on their computer, might be out of their league? Maybe it is a teaching problem; these people have not been taught how to, so they don’t know any better.
Which is why I vote to lose support for it. Obviously the majority of people left that use IE6 are hackers and the computer illiterate.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Black Max says it all, rather well.
Most of my sites are low graphic and use very basic HTML (with a minimum of CSS styling) so I don’t have problems supporting browsers, from ancient to new. This I should say is very deliberate on my part.
A lot of the debate here is about “forcing” people to change. The last thing I would do with a customer/visitor is “force” them to do anything.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:01 am
@MikesBarto2002: I’m not so sure that’s as common as you think. Microsoft has pushed pretty hard to get people to upgrade to IE7. As previously stated it’s default for SP2 and SP3 So anyone with an even remotely up-to-date OS is going to have it. Now someone who uses Windows regularly can correct me but isn’t it getting to be mandatory in some ways, having IE7?
To the best of my knowledge the people who still use IE6 tend to be those individuals who have been either been told not to upgrade or have otherwise chosen not to.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am
The question is ’should we …?’ not ‘will you …?’. The difference is significant. Currently, a website that drops IE6 support will just appear broken to users of IE6. But if there’s a critical-mass movement to drop IE6 support across a significant percentage of the web, the impact will shift to those left using IE6.
There’s organizations and non-tech-savvy users that’ll use IE6 until it either stops working or starts costing them money. And it’ll only stop working when we collectively drop support.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I think IE8 is looking very promising, especially compared to IE6 and IE7. IE-hating for the sake of it isn’t going to get us anywhere.
That said… die IE :)
August 26th, 2008 at 11:47 am
usually i am ok with it… but since making pages work on IE 6 means I have less time for dinner and not much time for doing laundry any more, i’d say we’d better stop supporting it.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I didn’t even read the post. Absolutely yes. No questions, no explanations, nothing else needed. It’s not about backward compatibility or anything. It’s about building applications that WORK. Period. IE6 can’t do it. Not without that extra 20% of effort costing the same as the entire project.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Nothing personal, but the contempt for the non-technical user just steams off this statement.
You have to remember, many people look at a computer in the same way they look at a hammer or a television remote. They don’t care how it works as long as they can use it to get what they logged on for–be it balancing their checkbook, IM’ing their mom, writing a novel, or looking at porn. We don’t look at computers, and certainly not browsers, in that fashion, but we are in the minority. A very small minority. This is the same kind of designer-centric approach that leads to Web sites with intensely confusing navigation schemes and lots of documentation that basically says, “This is how you will use this site. If it doesn’t make any sense to you, then it’s your fault because you are an idiot and the angels sing when I code.”
As designers, we are here to serve users. We can educate them, prod and chivvy them into switching to more standards-compliant browsers, or anything along those lines, but we are primarily here to create sites that present content in a usable, appealing fashion. It’s their choice whether to use Firefox or Opera or IE or Lynx or their vintage copy of Mosaic. Once we lose site of it, we begin to see the user as “beneath” us, taking what we deign to give them while we expect them to be grateful.
This mindset cannot stand.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
When I produce a website for a client, they expect it to work satisfactorily in the browsers used by their potential customers. They absolutely do not want people phoning up or emailing and complaining that the website doesn’t work. When people complain the site is not working the client thinks ‘The web designer has messed up, the website is broken and we’re losing business’, not ‘Oh, that potential customer is probably using an old browser, so we don’t want to do business with them.’
For that reason it’s essential that their website works properly in IE6, as it’s still used by many people. Why people still use this terrible browser is a mystery but they do, and that’s something commercial website developers have to live with.
It’s not my job, or my client’s, to chivvy people into upgrading their browsers. There’s nothing worse than a busy-body website that starts telling you what browser to use, or what plugins, when all you’ve come there to look at is a company’s products and services.
All my websites are built for commercial clients, and all the clients want to do is sell their products and services. No distractions. No side issues. No errors. Sell, sell, sell. I cannot think of a single one who would even consider voluntarily turning away a significant percentage of their visitors for no discernible advantage.
If you run your own website, or if the website is ‘non-commerical’, then I guess it’s fine to try and encourage users to use a modern browser and dump useless IE6. But it’s not a sensible option if you produce commercial websites for paying clients.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
there is way to easily add support for IE 6, and that is
August 26th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
the php code is stripped out in my last comment…
just test in PHP or using Javascript, if browser is IE 6 or earlier, display the message “this browser is too weak to display the page. please upgrade.” and exit().
August 26th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
@Black Max:
In principal I agree with what you’re saying that we should design sites for the benefit of users and allow for easy usage of the website - this of course is talking about the design and functionality of the website - not the level of support that we provide.
Supporting IE6 would be like allowing horse drawn carts or vintage steam cars on the freeway. Sure, they will work just fine, but they are slow, featureless and insecure compared to modern cars (i.e. modern browsers).
I work for a digital agency and for new websites we tell our clients that we will only have acceptable functionality/design for Internet Explorer 6. Once the percentages of usage drop low enough - we will only provide basic support for IE6 (where the only basic requirement will be that the users can access the site and all the content).
August 26th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I’ve yet to this date ever built a hack for IE6 and every site I’ve ever built works in IE6. Yes, I have to make adjustments, but they’re not hacks. It’s simple, I use floats, and I avoid the following:
Double margin float bug
Expanding box issues
Using pseudo classes on arbitrary elements
and everything works fine.
checkout:
http://bikini-wholesale.com
http://airsocom.com/z/procerin/
just to name a couple, and try to find a hack, or an incompatibility.
You also might note that every page is XHTML 1.0 Strict.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Black Max
Exactly.
It’s not just that, but we’re developing the highway to allow for horse drawn carriages AS WELL as modern cars, which complicates things and has the side effect of removed features or larger expenses.. or both.
A while back there used to be sites that would essentially say “This site is best viewed with”, and this my way or the highway seems to be the same mantra we’re getting into again today, particularly in the web application arena. Only instead of Internet Explorer or Netscape we have Standards and Internet Explorer. Reading the posts here I can’t help but to feel we’re wanting to be really harsh on the users in this aspect. How is intentionally making someone suffer going to make anyone feel good? And it’s certainly not professional. It disgusts me.
There has to be a better way of going about this.
In every industry there are standards and reasons for following them (correctly), and it seems very clear that (at least the people responding to this blog) want to move forward, yet there are a lot of us that seem to have to bend backward into some overstretched limbo at the same time for various reasons. But from what I’ve seen, people, just, don’t, get, (not just web) standards. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Punishing users isn’t a professional option.
I don’t think I would mind a more or less discreet education campaign on (not just web) standards and how they pertain to every walk of life. Maybe I’m taking this a little bit too much down a tangent and missing the point beyond the ditch IE6 part of everything.
There are campaigns, one that I can think of the address:
http://www.webstandards.org/action/previous-campaigns/buc/upgrade/
and a nice detailed wikibook:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Open_Standards/Importance_and_Benefits_of_Open_Standards#Particular_Benefits_of_Open_Standards
August 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Yep. I would indeed exit that site and never, ever visit it again. If I had hired you to design a site for my firm, I’d fire you and ensure you never worked for my firm again. This approach is the worst kind of elitism.
Absolutely. We talk a lot about Web standards, but some of the comments on this thread prove to me that there are plenty of Web designers out there who have little use for professional standards.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
The passage should read “that site.” Grrr.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Microsoft should stop making browsers, they just can’t handle it. Same could be said for Outlook. Why MS continues to give us sh**y products is their secret, why we should put up with it is a mystery to me.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
my comment was supposed to be just joking. your comment about firing someone is quite humiliating though.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
“Is It Time to Ditch IE6?” … is the pope catholic?
IE6 is an archaic browser which should have been dropped years ago. We don’t bring out 99% of films on VHS anymore do we?! So why should we spend 80% of our time bodging together disgusting hacks and horrid code for a browser that is fundementally flawed and from a time where people did not have as many browsing options as we do today!
Outside of work I have pretty much dropped support IE6 and below simply because I am so sick and tired of working with it. At work I make everything work in IE6 because all systems in the company use that as their default browser (I do a lot of internal reporting applications.)
I think its time for a change and I would like to be able to spend my time developing and actually producing great products without having to spend 80% of my time debugging everything in IE6.0 or dropping features completely because they simply don’t work!
August 26th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Because I have no choice. My work computer has Windows 2000, Office 2000 and IE6 on it. That’s about it. I can’t upgrade, and I can’t install an alternative browser. Millions of people are in the same position, using corporate networks where they have no option but to use IE6.
Millions more people are using pre-XP versions of Windows and are unable to upgrade to IE7. Yes, they could switch to Firefox or Opera, but a lot of people won’t be bothered or interested in doing that.
It depends what you mean by “support” IE6. I’ve had features on my website that only work for v7+ browsers for years - since Opera 7 at least - but they are non-essential features so I don’t worry about them not working in IE6. I could recreate some of those features with Javascript, but they aren’t essential so I can’t be bothered.
If non-essential features or prettiness are sacrificed for older browsers, I think that’s acceptable, because the site still works. I don’t think it’s acceptable to effectively block IE6 users from a site, whether by actively preventing them from accessing it or by using design features that render it invisible or inoperable.
My site stats have about 25% of “real” visitors using IE6, which is about the same number as all the non-IE users put together. Much as I would love to educate those people and get them using a proper browser, but I am not going to exclude them if they don’t.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“Microsoft should stop making browsers, they just can’t handle it. Same could be said for Outlook. Why MS continues to give us sh**y products is their secret, why we should put up with it is a mystery to me.”
This just shows a complete lack of understanding as to why IE is in the state it is today. The fact is, IE is in this state through a combination of the early browser market, commercial pressures and users’ changing expectations, and MS are working hard to fix it with first IE7, and now IE8 with its standards mode.
They might seem bad now, but at the time they were just what the market wanted. Now they have this legacy, they need to move away from it without breaking everything in the process - not exactly an easy job.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Stormrider:
No, IE is in the state it is in today because MS has moved at a snail’s pace to improve things. Where Mozilla and Opera were churning out new versions every few months, MS didn’t release a new version for 5 years, and when they eventually did, they failed to support the latest standards, and they made it impossible for people using older versions of the OS to upgrade.
Yes, when IE6 was launched, it a huge improvement … but the world moved on, and MS didn’t bother, they just sat back and enjoyed their unprecedented market share and ignored the fact that their browser, while a huge improvement, also had a great many shortcomings. By the time they did anything about it, they were too late.
I’m pleased that MS are, finally, moving in the right direction with IE but let us not forget that they are only doing now what they ought to have done several years ago, and nothing more than that.
And you’ve conveniently ignored the other issue - Outlook. While IE has been creeping forwards, Outlook has taken a huge leap backwards and is moving in completely the wrong direction. There is no excuse for this, other than pure arrogance from MS. If MS aren’t going to accept the need for interoperability in internet-based products, they have no business producing and selling them.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I voted for yes, although I do not totally agree with overall dropping support for IE6. At least not yet.
I think that adding support for newer features implemented by modern browsers, while keeping an older version for IE6 for some time(e.g. 6-12 months) is a good solution. The IE6 user will automatically fall back to the older version, while the rest will use the current version.
In the meantime an unobtrusive message could inform the user that he/she uses an older version of the web app, due to lack of support for some features by IE6, along with options for upgrading or downloading a different browser. This puts the blame on the browser and not on the user neither on the web developer.
You cannot force the user to upgrade or to use a different browser(or application). And it is certainly not our job, as developers, to do so. You have to, somehow, convince him :)
PS. Excuse my english.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Very interesting discussion.
There appears to be a few different schools of thought:
1) IE6 should be dumped because it’s old, buggy, and doesn’t work properly
2) IE6 should be supported because some users are stuck with it due to corporate upgrade policies and/or permissions limitations and can’t install upgrades or alternative browsers
3) IE6 should be supported because some users aren’t tech savvy and think the Internet is IE6.
4) IE6 should be supported because clients and customers only care about conducting business, not what medium business is conducted on and if they adhere to certain programming/design standards.
5) IE6 should be dropped because it’s no longer being currently shipped.
Personally, I think if IE6 were dropped, it would make the lives of web developers a lot easier. But…then that would shift over to make the end-users’ lives a bit harder having to figure out the browser situation.
Just think about any non-developer…as long as a piece of software appears functional, do you think they really care? That’s like trying to convince a car owner about how buying cars manufactured with 8-sided nuts are more efficient and easier and faster to screw in than cars being manufactured with 6-sided nuts. The car owner probably won’t care as long as the car doesn’t fall apart. Each type of nut performs the same function, right?
This is how a good portion of end users see the world of browsers.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Black Max,
It isn’t elitism, it’s progress. If catering only to the users who don’t know any better, or can’t upgrade, we would never develop new and better ways of doing things on the web.. We would all be stuck in IE6 for eternity. Some things just have to be left behind in order to go forward.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Working for a bank company, all the development team work with Firefox and all the test team work with Firefox too.
But our client still use IE6 ! Not testing on that browser gave us several patches on production server to correct the display for that 35% of users… and of course that represent a loose of money for the company.
So, you can’t drop IE6 support even if you (and I) like to !
August 27th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I don’t even test in IE6, I don’t care at all. It’s annoying enough to see all the little bugs in IE7, I don’t even want to know what IE6 displays ;)
DOWN WITH INTERNET EXPLORER, if only there was someway to get M$ to ship with FF, yea right.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:23 am
It’s been a long time since the mid-90’s. I was a child at the time and MTV still played music videos regularly. A lot’s happened since then. I grew chest hair, for instance.
As for the job being easy or not, it actually is. It’s the decision that’s not easy. But before we throw a pity parade for Microsoft let us not forget that it was they who put themselves in their current predicament. If they had kept up with web standards and improved incrementally like other major browsers then users wouldn’t be forced to choose between upgrading and possibly becoming incompatible with some mission-critical service or sticking with older tech for another few years until they have a better option.
But beyond this I don’t understand why everyone is getting so excited about IE8. We did that for IE7, look how well that turned out. And this isn’t shaping up to be any better. For example, CSS2.1 is pretty much accepted by everyone in the web community. It’s not 100% official but it might as well be. IE8 is going to be the first Microsoft browser to “fully support” CSS2.1. As for CSS3? It’s already in Opera, Safari and Firefox (to varying degrees but mostly largely supported) but Microsoft is saying they are considering supported some of the most-requested CSS3 features. Not all, just some, and only those it deems developers want. This doesn’t lead me to be very hopeful as Microsoft has never been one to know what devs. want.
Also, for those of you who haven’t heard, HTML5 became official today (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/)! Great, right? The developer preview of Safari 4 (came out August 22nd) is already claiming HTML5 support, helps when one of your main guys is the editor for the standard. I would be extremely surprised to not find the same in the next release of Opera and though Firefox might take a bit longer to completely adopt this new standard I doubt it will take too long. Microsoft has stated that parts of HTML5 will make it into the final release but I’d be surprised if it was full support.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:56 am
And things will move forward. IE8 will be launched, people every so often will get new computers which have windows Vista or used ones with XP. Administrators everywhere will eventually upgrade the browsers on the employee’s workstation. About a year ago we left behind IE < 6 pretty much for good, hell yes. Do you remember hacking away at those browsers? *that* was hell. Maybe a year more to go to consider leaving behind IE==6, maybe 2-3 years because of it being the only option on preXP machines. But it’ll happen.
Unless you’re making web applications, supporting IE6 isn’t that huge of an issue. I don’t go out of my way to make things look pixel perfect on it and it seems already are doing so. In that sense, progression is already happening.
We can’t forget the premise of the web is about the accessibility of information to the people who use it, whether they are disabled, hard of seeing/hearing/sensing/etcing, have shortening attention spans or at a library terminal with IE6 only, it’s something that can’t be overlooked. But it is being overlooked here. Self degrade to access, fine. Telling people about things better and informing, fine. Forcing upgrades. Not fine.
I want to make the web accessible to as many as I feasibly can, in as a friendly manner as I can. I want to make the web accessible to at least my target audience.
As much as I have an inner me who wants to eradicate IE* all together I know it’d be the wrong thing to do, especially considering that right now they usually include too much of that audience I speak of.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:00 am
grrr.. I had meant to write “and it seems others are already doing so as well”
August 27th, 2008 at 3:05 am
Although I voted “yes” to drop support for IE6 the majority of our company’s clients use it still (such as local authorities/councils) so it’s not feasible for us to just tell our clients “you must upgrade or else the new website we are building for your customers wont work when you and at least an ample percentage of your customers view it”.
It’s not a black or white scenario there is a big grey area to consider.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:04 am
IE6 has been the thorn in the side of many a developer for many a year. Being forced to support a product that makes life nearly impossible at times, is nothing more than torture. How bad would it be for modern day mechanics to have to know how to fix and maintain cars from the early 1900’s?
I for one would be a very happy man should IE6 disappear in to oblivion. DOWN WITH IE… err… 6!
August 27th, 2008 at 6:19 am
As much as I’d love to drop support for IE6, when I code my HTML and make sure it validates completely, except for some annoying CSS issues, IE6 renders just fine, and I can fix that with conditional comments - which I don’t necessarily enjoy, but they’re there…
Suffice it to say, approximately 40% of our site visitors still use IE6. I have a small percentage (slightly less than 1%) that still use IE5 or 5.5. I simply cannot drop support for IE6 because “it’s time”, it’s feasibly unacceptable for our business model (Public Library).
With that being said, when I build websites for myself, I’m less careful over compatibility concerns. If I were to ever build sites for a client, I would probably charge a nominal fee to make it “perfectly” compatible with IE6. Once I see my IE6 usage drop below 5% I’ll stop supporting it. But, by that time, I don’t think we’ll yet need a CSS refresh anyhow. Fixing a couple IE8 quirks with my navigation list will be my main concern.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:16 am
This debate is so ridiculous and if any of you are stupid enough to stop supporting IE6 then good luck to you. My clients want 100% of users to be able to view their websites, and for it it to work. Making sites not work in IE6 isnt going to make people upgrade as so many users (e.g. my father) dont have any idea about browser versions (or how to upgrade), they just want to be able to view websites.
Its the same with the whole FF Vs IE debate, why are people still going on about this? IE will never die unless microsoft stop making so people should stip whinging and just get on with it. With out these issues most of us wouldnt be able to charge as much as we do for websites.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Winterheat, I had no intention of humiliating you. I also had no way to know that you were joking. Taken seriously, your statement was, to my mind, a firing offense. It works better as a joke :)
You’ve summed up the problem nicely. We all want to stop supporting IE6, but we don’t have that choice because a kazillion companies and a blue million users still use it.
There you go.
You’re right. Anyone remember coding for NS4? *collective shudder*
Me, too, me too. Please don’t take anything I’ve posted as a defense of IE6. It is catastrophically bad.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:50 am
@Black Max: Would agree that there are some situations where it’s OK not to provide direct support for IE? For instance on my smaller projects where the number of users with IE6 is below 30% I tend not to support it. These sorts of projects tend not to have the sort of code or features that would leave IE6 users completely out in the cold and more often than not the client is more than happy when I tell them it will significantly drop development time if I’m not supporting IE6 past basic functionality.
I think a big problem people are having with the “drop support for IE6″ comments is that they think we either mean make it so IE6 users can’t even access the site or that providing IE6 users with a website that doesn’t look correct but still allows them to access information is going to very negatively effect how people view their site.
I doubt anyone means the first because even though we dislike IE6 there aren’t many reasons to outright stop them from using the site. As to the second I don’t think that’s the case. Now my opinion doesn’t mean too much but it’s an opinion that is also held by Andy Clarke, author of “Transcending CSS” and one of the authors of the CSS3 spec. at the W3C. He believes that as long as you provide those individual with out of date browsers a way to access all the same information as more up to date users then those out of date users will understand.
He says, and I agree, most people know and understand that if they don’t have the latest programs they can’t expect to be able to do everything.
Let’s take the example of someone who works in an office and is forced to use IE6 because certain internal web-based applications or websites require it. If they browse the net with IE6 and the sites don’t come up right, there’s a good chance they understand this is because they are using an outdated browser.
Not everyone with IE6 doesn’t know there are alternatives. It may be true for a select few but I really doubt they are anywhere near a majority of those currently using IE6. And those individuals who do know about better browsers will be understanding that their old browser can’t view a page as well as a newer browser would. Because of this I still say that in a lot of situations it’s OK to stop direct support for IE6, just as long as you still make content accessible to older browsers. But that’s more an issue of degradability of code and less an issue with updating a browser.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Uh no, we should not drop support of IE6 - especially if you intend to make any money off your site or use it as a marketing tool. Doing so means to sacrifice a portion of your business for a weak ideal. I’d rather sacrifice one or two hours developing (hacking) a site — that meets up to 1/3 of those who come to my site — than kiss that business goodbye because the user didn’t fit into a snobby little box. So stupid… just keep meeting those clients until the demand takes the market somewhere else.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I would have to say that I agree with dougoftheabaci.
His thoughts are pretty close to what I had in mind.
After all, a small popup that says “Our website has detected that you are using an outdated browser. We would like to inform you that this website was designed with modern technology in mind, and thus, your browsing experience may be affected as a result. If you wish to discover all of the features we have prepared for you, we strongly suggest that you upgrade your browser to the latest releases”
…or something along those lines. We’re not shutting out users, in fact, we are informing them that “hey, you’re being left behind - time to catch up!”.
If you’re using an old car, you know it’s not going to have the features of a newer model. People know that, and therein lies the window for us developers to inform, push, and prod users into upgrading.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:18 am
You know we can all help ;)
I am helping, if you visit Ra-Ajax website using IE you will see a message giving you hints about that “you’re using a broken browser” with a link to getfirefox.com :)
August 27th, 2008 at 11:54 am
The problem is that there are a noticeable percentage of users that still use IE6 as their browser. However faulty the browser, the users may not know the difference. So, in my opinion, in most cases, I see no reason not to support it… for now. If the percentage goes down a little further, then perhaps I could justify it. But, I don’t see any reason to leave that many users thinking: “Hey, why doesn’t this site work?” It’s not a great browser as regards Web standards. In fact, it’s pretty awful. But, it’s still a rather widely used browser. And often, most workarounds don’t require that much more work. Annoying, maybe, but not worth doing? I don’t think so, at least for me.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
If I right a PHP script that calls for an integer value and it accepts a float or a letter, crashes the system and annoys the user, the client complains. So I make it work by issuing an error message. Or I don’t get paid.
If I rigt a non-normalised database that then causes lots of problems, the client complains about problems. So I nomralise it, even though the client doesn’t know what the word means. Or I don’t get paid.
If i use a combination of low contrast colours, making it very hard for some users to use a system, the client complains, so i don’t do that.
And if i make a website that crshes in 35% of th eusers’ browsers, the client complains. and i definately don’t get paid.
So face reality, we work for clients, we give them what they need. We are not here to preach to the masses and convert them to our favourite browser, we are here to do a job, and that includes making the website work in the vast majority of users’ browsers, FOR OUR CLIENTS.
Even if we do wish IE6 would go away for ever, we can’t drop support for it, and we certainly can’t force people to use our favourite browser. I remember the days of “best viewed in XYZ vp.q browser” and most people just moved on to a different site, they didn’t jump up and download the recommended browser.
So face up to it making a site work in IE6 isn’t difficult. so do it.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
It is so very much time to ditch Internet Explorer 6. Keeping support for it is counter productive, both to the web, to web developers and to end users.
Moving on ensures security and possibilities for advancing the web.
I’ve written a larger tirade on it (http://noscope.com/journal/2008/08/ditching-ie6) and even created a public domain / copyright free badge for the occasion. (http://noscope.com/photostream/various/no_ie6s.png/view)
August 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Yes, i agree with this view, web developer need to drop support IE6. IE6 is rendering not good and so many bugs.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
See IE8 and Firefox 3 in action - I’ve created a screencast comparing the two which aims to convince you to switch to Firefox:
http://showmedo.com/videos/video?name=3150000&fromSeriesID=315
I appeal to IE6 users to Please Upgrade To Something That Isn’t 7 Years Old! The screencast also shows the viewer how to get IE7, IE8 and FF3. Security