Can I ask users to upgrade from ie6?

**AutisticCuckoo** · Sep 17, 2008 02:51

My two previous posts were tongue-in-cheek, of course. But forcing updates on reluctant users can have catastrophic consequences. Especially when the updates themselves are buggy, as the recent one from Microsoft (for Exchange Server, I think).

Sure, we can say that users who want control over their updates should disable the automatic update feature, but that's probably a small comfort to someone who didn't do that, and is now unable to send or receive emails for his or her business.

As long as we who create websites and web applications continue to jump through all sorts of hoops to make them work in irreparably broken dinosaurs like IE6, there will be people running IE6. But who dares to be the one to break that trend?

**felgall** · Sep 17, 2008 13:06

Originally Posted by AutisticCuckoo

As long as we who create websites and web applications continue to jump through all sorts of hoops to make them work in irreparably broken dinosaurs like IE6, there will be people running IE6. But who dares to be the one to break that trend?

I think the web is about to break into two pieces. The release of IE8 should see a rapid decline in IE7 use since those who upgrades to IE7 who haven't already upgraded again to a more modern browser will probably upgrade to IE8. Those still running IE6 will stick with IE6. With IE6 being two versions behind a large number of web authors will drop support for it and more and more sites will provide full features for everyone except IE6 users and will either provide minimal functionality or be broken for IE6 users - probably minimal functionality for business sites and broken for other sites. Those still using IE6 at home will then gradually upgrade as they find out what they are missing out on leaving corporate use of IE6 on intranets which will probably continue on for many years.

The one thing most likely to impact on how quickly or slowly IE6 finally disappears from the home is how quickly all the computers currently running it end up being replaced.

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 17, 2008 21:10

http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/20..._neverfail.png

People will never get the hint if you cater to them. If 'everyone' would just automatically stop making websites for ie6 and redirect users to updgrade to ie7+ then everyone would. If somethings not broken then why fix it is the attitude the majority of users have. They do not know any better, but they will know what upgrade means if there access has been denied

We should all redirect users to 'upgrade' to ie7. If 500 people did this then maybe an impact could occur.

**felgall** · Sep 17, 2008 21:22

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

We should all redirect users to 'upgrade' to ie7. If 500 people did this then maybe an impact could occur.

There are probably at least 500,000 people who have done that already without having any impact (apart from their reducing visitors to their own site).

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 17, 2008 21:59

@felgall - I see where you are coming from but, if everyone did this then there would be no more ie6. I think every developer has a strong 'dislike' for ie6, but if you think about it we control the web

500 - 500,000 is not enough to totally stop this as we both know.

If every person that develops html/css in the 'world' stopped then this would be the end of ie6, and even the stop of IE in glory!

As we both know 'elephants' can't fly and pigs do not bark so I am dreaming

**Karpie** · Sep 17, 2008 22:07

Developers don't control the web. Users do.

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 17, 2008 22:34

Originally Posted by Karpie

Developers don't control the web. Users do.

True, but if there is no developer there is no user

**AutisticCuckoo** · Sep 17, 2008 22:39

Originally Posted by felgall

The release of IE8 should see a rapid decline in IE7 use since those who upgrades to IE7 who haven't already upgraded again to a more modern browser will probably upgrade to IE8. Those still running IE6 will stick with IE6. With IE6 being two versions behind a large number of web authors will drop support for it and more and more sites will provide full features for everyone except IE6 users and will either provide minimal functionality or be broken for IE6 users - probably minimal functionality for business sites and broken for other sites.

Let's hope you're right.

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

If 'everyone' would just automatically stop making websites for ie6 and redirect users to updgrade to ie7+ then everyone would.

That's what I said, but who's going to be the first? It would have to be someone really, really big, who could do this without losing a majority of their visitors to competitors' sites. I'm not sure even Google could do it. Maybe only Microsoft can.

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

We should all redirect users to 'upgrade' to ie7.

If you read the posts in this thread you'll see that this has already been discussed. Not everyone can upgrade, even if they'd want to.

Originally Posted by Karpie

Developers don't control the web. Users do.

And that's the truth!

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 17, 2008 22:51

That's what I said, but who's going to be the first? It would have to be someone really, really big, who could do this without losing a majority of their visitors to competitors' sites. I'm not sure even Google could do it. Maybe only Microsoft can.

1. Tommy Olssen
2. Eric Meyer
3. Andy Clarke
4. Dan Cederholm

**Dan Schulz** · Sep 17, 2008 23:05

They don't have the resources of eBay, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Ma Bell (aka AT&T), etc... so no, they don't count.

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 17, 2008 23:25

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

They don't have the resources of eBay, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Ma Bell (aka AT&T), etc... so no, they don't count.

So in layman's terms 'ie6' is here until the market share drops below 10%. That is still a debatable percentage. Some coders will continually code until it 5% and under.

**Dan Schulz** · Sep 17, 2008 23:31

I'd go below that to be honest given the number of mobile users who are stuck using Windows CE (IIRC) and other mobile Windows OS versions which have IE 6 pre-installed.

**AutisticCuckoo** · Sep 18, 2008 00:16

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

1. Tommy Olssen

Don't know him, although the name is amusingly similar to mine. Is he Danish? Norwegian?

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

2. Eric Meyer
3. Andy Clarke
4. Dan Cederholm

Even if all three of those guys were to drop all support for IE6, it wouldn't make one iota of difference in the IE6 market share. Although they are outstanding professionals in our business, their sites are not likely to be visited by Joe and Jane Average.

I think the most efficacious strategy to encourage IE6 users to upgrade or switch browsers would be if all porn sites stopped supporting IE6.

**Iimitk** · Sep 18, 2008 00:45

Originally Posted by Karpie

Developers don't control the web. Users do.

'Nuff said.

It is like asking guests coming to your home that the clothes they're wearing aren't up-to-date and that they should go back & change them in order to enjoy staying at your luxurious house!

Seriously, you shouldn't bother educating your site visitors about something completely irrelevant to them during their visit.

**felgall** · Sep 18, 2008 02:54

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

I'd go below that to be honest given the number of mobile users who are stuck using Windows CE (IIRC) and other mobile Windows OS versions which have IE 6 pre-installed.

Even 1% is a significant number of visitors for a moderately successful site and 0.00001% is a number of visitors worth considering for sites like Yahoo and Google etc. I don't think the really big sites are considering dropping support for Mosaic or Netscape 1 any time soon.

That doesn't mean that we need to have our pages look and act the same for all visitors. A simplified but still usable version of the page for browsers that don't support the standards properly is always an option and often a necessity.

**Stomme poes** · Sep 18, 2008 04:54

Originally Posted by tommy

I think the most efficacious strategy to encourage IE6 users to upgrade or switch browsers would be if all porn sites stopped supporting IE6.

Now, funny thing, at the Copenhagen Perl Conference, someone who was advocating IPv6 had a site that did something similar-- if you upgraded you could see free pr0n at his company's site or something. Apparently there are some changes that need a certain number of people to just jump in to get it started.

My country being behind the times, and well behind the rest of Europe, I'll be supporting IE6 for at least the next 5 years. Yeah, I don't worry about the 2 Mosiac users (!) who appear to be visiting our sites, nor the Nutscrape Navigator 4's and 7's we see, but IE6 will likely be supported here until the userbase is well below 10%.

Looking at all the crappy Dutch sites written only FOR IE6, heh, there'll be a lot of work to do when the scales finally tip.

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 18, 2008 06:58

If I may ask, which of you girls/guys cross browse down to IE5/IE5.5?

**AutisticCuckoo** · Sep 18, 2008 07:11

I try to make sure it's at least usable in IE5.5, but I'm not striving for pixel perfection in it.

**Dan Schulz** · Sep 18, 2008 07:32

Originally Posted by cooper.semantics

If I may ask, which of you girls/guys cross browse down to IE5/IE5.5?

I do.

**SpacePhoenix** · Sep 18, 2008 10:37

This is from the w3schools browser stats:

2008 IE7 IE6 IE5 Fx Moz S O
August 26.0% 24.5% 0.1% 43.7% 0.5% 2.6% 2.1%

imo 24.5% is too high a % to abandon ie6 at the moment and when looking at July's stats, ie 7 has lost some to the none MS browsers. We also now have chrome in the mix as well. Some people won't be able to upgrade as they might be using old pcs running win95 (there must be a few out there). As has been said elsewhere in this thread, most who can upgrade will have upgraded, the rest will probably only upgrade when they buy a new computer.

**Dan Schulz** · Sep 18, 2008 11:14

Just remember though that the w3schools site (which has about as much to do with the W3C as apple pie does to herding cattle) stats only reflect visitors to THAT site, not the Web in general.

**cooper.semantics** · Sep 18, 2008 11:21

w3schools lucked out with that domain name. I think someone mentioned this in a previous thread.

w3schools needs to be updated or taken off the web completely!

That is my opinion at least.

**felgall** · Sep 18, 2008 12:22

Originally Posted by SpacePhoenix

This is from the w3schools browser stats:

2008 IE7 IE6 IE5 Fx Moz S O
August 26.0% 24.5% 0.1% 43.7% 0.5% 2.6% 2.1%

imo 24.5% is too high a % to abandon ie6 at the moment and when looking at July's stats, ie 7 has lost some to the none MS browsers. We also now have chrome in the mix as well. Some people won't be able to upgrade as they might be using old pcs running win95 (there must be a few out there). As has been said elsewhere in this thread, most who can upgrade will have upgraded, the rest will probably only upgrade when they buy a new computer.

My site stats show similar percentages. I imagine that IE6 use in the general community would still be a lot higher than that of people visiting computer related sites so if your site isn't about computers you probably have a much higher percentage of visitors still using IE6..

**Stomme poes** · Sep 19, 2008 02:01

Netherlands, visitors to our sites, June 2008:
http://stommepoes.nl/screenshots/junibrowsers.gif

Netherlands, visitors to our sites, August 2008:
http://stommepoes.nl/screenshots/augustusbrowsers.gif

So, IE6 took a nosedive this summer, but still large. Heck, I still check out IE5.5 to make sure the site it usable and not too ugly, and they're pretty low.

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