Is it time to drop support for IE 6?
What are your thoughts? Is it time to stop bothering with IE 6? Can you think of other things that are younger than IE 6 ?
What are your thoughts? Is it time to stop bothering with IE 6? Can you think of other things that are younger than IE 6 ?
Greg K posted this at 17:48 — 28th August 2008.
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How can you ask such a thing the day after it's birthday....
I only know this as this was one of the topics of the office e-mails yesterday, not due to the link you gave. Here is the one we were commenting on:
http://wisdump.com/web-programming/campaigns-to-kill-the-web-browser-tha...
All of people here who markup pages agree... DEATH TO IE 6!
We still try to make things work with it, but don't go too far out of our way for it.
-Greg
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 18:24 — 28th August 2008.
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That's about where I stand with it as well. I will use certain common workarounds such as making alpha transparency work on PNGs, but that's about it. If something is a few pixels off, I don't bother with it.
decibel.places posted this at 18:46 — 28th August 2008.
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consider that IE7 is integrated into the Vista OS
in order to run IE6 I had to install a virtual PC with an image of XP running IE6...
So people buying PCs now will be unlikely to be using IE6 unless they got a hold of an XP PC with it...
(however, I was able to install IE3 on Vista - how nostalgic, no support for css!)
decibel.places posted this at 02:27 — 7th September 2008.
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seems that Microsoft is running its own campaign to replace IE6 - but it will take a long time, until the machines running IE6 themselves are obsolete
Megan posted this at 12:25 — 7th September 2008.
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Their campaign is so bad though! Have you seen the page that occasionally pops up when you launch IE 6? It doesn't even explicitly say that you are using an older browser and should upgrade now.
I wrote about this but my screenshots didn't get transfered over from the old server. (will have to do something about that!)
Megan
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webwiz posted this at 20:26 — 28th August 2008.
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Most people I know do most of their surfing from work, school, or the library. I also know many, if not most of these institutions are running old software.
Also true of where I work - Win XP and IE 6 is on all workstations. They do have Firefox 2 installed, but I find most of the students "click the blue 'e'."
This reminds me of the situation six years ago, when I took my first class in things web. My CSS design had to work in Netscape 4 for me to get a certificate.
(P.S. I did not *have* to use a CSS design, but tables seemed such a horrible kludge. Besides, I never really mastered tables.
)
Cordially, David
--
delete from internet where user_agent="MSIE" and version < 8;
decibel.places posted this at 20:59 — 28th August 2008.
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Yeah, NS4 was a good one... a big leap over IE3 (didja see my screenshot above?)
tables were a solution for layout when there was no other available option - these days, a table should be a table, as intended
I still serve *antique* pages that sniff for NS2 on my old GeoCities site (pre-Yahoo owned) - because NS2 had no support for js Math.random() ... (so we used to write code that mixed things up - the time/date, the url, whatever - as a pseudo-pseudo-random emulator) Be glad you didn't have to design for NS2!
webwiz makes a good point, we need to keep the "common" use in mind.
Megan posted this at 13:13 — 29th August 2008.
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And that's okay? Not in my opinion. There's no reason why they shouldn't be able to upgrade. Maybe if more people saw these messages they would pressure their computer support staff to do something about it.
Megan
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decibel.places posted this at 15:03 — 29th August 2008.
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Institutions are by nature inflexible and have certain policies that are unbendable.
A few years ago I approached my daughter's school district about donating a used/warehoused computer to her.
Their response was that they are not allowed to donate to an individual, if they cannot find a bulk purchaser, they are obliged by their policy to destroy the equipment (I guess that does not preclude "dumpster diving")
The point is, institutional users do not have much control or influence over the software and hardware they use.
Perhaps it would be more productive to lobby the suppliers.
Michael James Swan posted this at 21:39 — 28th August 2008.
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It does my head in, i cannot stand the IE 6. IE 7 is a bit of a pain but good for develpers..
teammatt3 posted this at 02:59 — 29th August 2008.
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The college, university and public library where I live still run IE 6. I'm not ready to stop supporting it (I never upgraded to IE7 myself). I never found it hard to make my CSS compatible with multiple browsers/versions. I have actually never even used a CSS hack (I think that's what people call those conditionals in CSS).
My new sites are going to work fine in IE6.
teammatt3 posted this at 03:03 — 29th August 2008.
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I just looked at the stats for one of my "general audience" sites, and 43% of the visitors are using IE 6 (out of approx. 4000 visits).
I think you're jumping the gun...
demonhale posted this at 04:21 — 29th August 2008.
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Remember I mentioned here in TWF before of my conversion project... Almost 80% of the schools and establishments in my area including cafes have converted to FF, maybe "it is time" to bury IE6...
Megan posted this at 13:20 — 29th August 2008.
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Right, people are still using it. Does that mean we should sit back and wait around until they finally figure out that they need to upgrade? I don't think so. As I said above, if people saw these messages they might finally realize they have a problem.
I am starting to phase out support for IE 6. It depends on the situation. This site and my personal blog aren't tested in IE 6 at all. My work site I do check but I'm not fussy about it looking perfect. I am also starting to do more progressive enhancement. If IE can't see those rounded corners then that's fine with me.
I do often find that it isn't hard to make things work in IE 6. If that's the case then I'll do whatever small fixes are needed. However, I'm not about to hold back on using newer CSS properties because they don't work in IE 6.
Megan
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greg posted this at 15:31 — 29th August 2008.
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While I agree entirely with you regarding people should be upgrading as soon as new software has a stable release, I disagree with no longer making sites 100% compatible simply because people haven't upgraded yet.
It's the value and usability of YOUR website that suffers, and also the users with older browsers. Just because they should have made the change doesn't mean we should ignore their requirements.
Sure, if a rough estimate of the IE6 users was about 5% of total net users, I would agree, but there are still a great deal of people using IE6
On the issue of OS's, a lot of orgs and businesses use older versions as they are cheaper. But I think the main reason, certainly in large companies and governments, is because previous versions are more stable, bugs have been fixed and patched etc.
When you have a large network of hundreds, or thousands, of pc's, why take the risk of installing vista that is still a little buggy?
XP and 2000 are stable and run all software that companies and councils need without their IT department having to fix OS and driver issues from new releases.
So while that remains a reality, it will continue to affect the number of users with IE7 as the default win browser on a large scale.
People will see their college, workplace, council etc still use IE6 and wont see the need to upgrade themselves.
The local government I worked in had about 3,000 PC's, I don't think they will be rushing out to upgrade to IE7/vista anytime soon as it's a mammoth task with potential headaches from errors.
As far as they're concerned IE6(xp/2000) works fine so why bother?
Of course I'm not saying I agree 100% with that, but there are pros and cons.
Even for small establishments with one or two PC's, and home users, the fear of upgrading and having to spend hours of their precious time resolving issues they don't know how to fix themselves outweighs the want/need for the newer version.
Megan posted this at 16:42 — 29th August 2008.
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I'm not really saying that you should just ignore IE 6. It's not an all or nothing proposition. However, the main point of my argument is that we need to at least try to do something about it rather then just continuing to live with this high percentage of IE 6 users indefinitely. They won't have any incentive to switch if websites continue to work perfectly and no notifications are given.
There are browsers that can easily be installed on older computers so it's not necessary to do major upgrades. Some users may see it that way but that's just a matter of education.
As far as they're concerned IE6(xp/2000) works fine so why bother?
This is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that it works fine leaves them no incentve to upgrade. And that's entirely in our hands. We'll be stuck with IE 6 levels of support forever if we continue to be complacent about it.
The point also raised by the IE Death March site is that IE 6 is 7 years old. 7 years.
Megan
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pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 17:51 — 29th August 2008.
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The fact that it's old isn't a very good reason. It's because it's been replaced with a better product.
Agree with that point. Web developers have to stop supporting the browser before people will update. It doesn't work the other way around. Why do you upgrade your OS? It's because newer software requires it. Nobody expects desktop software developers to bend over backwards to make their products work with Windows 98/ME.
Megan posted this at 18:19 — 29th August 2008.
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Yes, and from what I remember that's what really caused people to finally stop using Netscape 4. The Web Standards group ran a successful browser upgrade campaign that included messages from developers asking users to upgrade.
I seem to recall that we have discussed this before but I can't find the thread...
Megan
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pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 18:43 — 29th August 2008.
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Here is one I started a few weeks ago.
decibel.places posted this at 00:02 — 30th August 2008.
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are we to write code that won't work - to force the users to upgrade "for their own good"?
smacks of elitist fascism to me...
according to w3schools IE6 is still over 1/4 of the audience:
IMO, perhaps when it drops below 5% we can safely ignore it.
Notice the WHOPPING 1.9% using Opera
Megan posted this at 13:43 — 30th August 2008.
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smacks of elitist fascism to me...
Trying to get people to upgrade their technology so we can develop better websites is elitist facism? Ooookaaaay. I'm not saying anyone should stop trying to make things work in IE at all, just that we shouldn't bend over backwards or avoid using new technologies because they're not available in IE. I'm also not saying that we should deliberately break things that wouldn't be too difficult to implement for IE.
It also depends on the project and the target audience and the stats you get for your site. As I've said before, my stats vary significantly from what sites like W3schools and the counter show (I get around 16% IE6 on my work site, under 8% on my personal site).
That said, having 25% of your traffic from people using a 7 year old browser that was replaced by a viable alternative almost 2 years ago is unacceptable. Something needs to be done about that.
Megan
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decibel.places posted this at 14:35 — 30th August 2008.
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Megan,
I was responding to the suggestion that we somehow "force" users to upgrade. The "force" is what I found objectionable, I am a proponent of free will.
Sorry if I used sensationalist buzzwords - just trying to make a point.
You are correct that it also depends on the site's audience.
However, the discussion is about support for IE6 in general, and I think the consensus here is, we would prefer otherwise, but for now we need to continue support for IE6
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 00:48 — 30th August 2008.
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Wow, go Firefox!
I think IE6 will stay high until web developers stop supporting it. In other words, it not users will upgrade on their own, and then we stop supporting it. The correct order may have to be we stop supporting it, so the users upgrade.
decibel.places posted this at 03:03 — 30th August 2008.
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We developers think we have so much influence - but it is illusory. We are the tail that the hardware and software industry wags.
[ok - so I just watched "Wag the Dog"
]
Here is what needs to happen: Redwood needs to release a new version of IE that is so superior (and incompatible) that developers AND users shall have to upgrade... (like NS2 -> NS3)
Unlikely? Then IE is here for a while longer...
go Ffox!
John_audson posted this at 10:34 — 30th August 2008.
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Mostly people use IE6 it's best i do not think developer are facing problem with IE6
demonhale posted this at 11:34 — 30th August 2008.
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The point is, if people notice that things they love will not work for IE anymore, they have no choice but to install another browser that does support the site they love. Like how Yahoo was aggressive with the Download FF3 campaign, stamped all over their site and a pool of bloggers standing together to reach the highest FF3 Download in a day. That kind of thing makes the system improve and transfer the power to those that fully support them...
greg posted this at 14:48 — 30th August 2008.
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It's a good idea, in theory, but of course the handful of webmasters on this site isn't going to impact MS or end users.
More to the point, it will only make us suffer when people leave our websites because it looks messy in their IE6.
W3C is doing a good job, and the main browsers are starting to conform to a decent set of standards, but it will never be plain sailing for web developers because the competition with companies having their browser used the most wont ever be left to end user choice.
Companies will always want their technology/feature/options etc in their browser that makes people want theirs more.
Although this issue is moving further away from coding, for example IE's blinking text, I think it will still remain an issue.
It is getting better - IE7 VS FF - but I don't think it will ever be a case of writing some code and then only having to test it in one browser with the confidence that it will also look the same in others.
cmoyer posted this at 17:08 — 30th August 2008.
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Our school just recently bought new computers with and they "upgraded" them to XP. So they all run IE 6 unless an administer logs in to them, then they upgrade themselves to IE 7. Some have firefox but it is version 1.x and students can't upgrade that either. There is no netscape or opera. So IE6 is all we have for an "up to date" browser on windows 98 we have IE5 even. I have even had to test our class website in IE5 for compatibility.
We even get a classrooms of the future grant!
My solution instal ff3 or opera on my flash drive and use that!
Megan posted this at 17:33 — 30th August 2008.
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Gosh, that sucks! And if they don't have the IE7 upgrade then they don't have all the security upgrades either. Dangerous.
Megan
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pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 20:55 — 30th August 2008.
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Here is what you need for that.
demonhale posted this at 04:42 — 31st August 2008.
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Now all we need in TWF is an Affiliate banner for Download FF3 Lol!
Busy posted this at 09:51 — 1st September 2008.
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Heaps of people are buying "bargin" PC's, so bargin that they don't have the 2.5 grunt to run vista so also receive the downgrade XP install. Service pack 3 is out (with the bugs) 66.9-316.4mb, IE7 is a 14.7mb download
there is firefox 3? I'm still running 2.0.0.15
there is nearly a gig of windows updates (security patches ...) and now another version of FF, no wonder laptops are struggling.
James posted this at 10:14 — 4th September 2008.
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No.. Not until IE6 becomes completely obsolete and unusable on every single internet connected computer in the world.
greg posted this at 13:37 — 4th September 2008.
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A bit extreme? Does that mean you support Lynx to 100%?
James posted this at 01:30 — 7th September 2008.
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I support natural
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