IE 6

That some customers are very difficult to make them happy is nothing new for us… My question guys is that if ANYBODY still using Internet Explorer 6 in this world? And if you are forced to design for such a tool… do you have any hacks? or any good way that you do not need to re-program the whole lot?

I do not even want to name what I truly think about this horrible browser.

TO MICROSOFT IE PROGRAMMER GUYS:

Yo guys! Why don’t you just stop trying doing something cool and nice and focus in ‘what already works’, get your hands on some open source engine out there that renders the pages as they suppossed to be rendered, or just use webkit people or mozilla and stop making our lives harder and harder with your beautiful functions that only work in your browsers and the amazing rendering bugs.


Customer even complained about its screen resolution problems… gosh… 1024 x 768 is the most used one…

I am thinking to go back to tables… :angry:

Just set up Google analytics and check for yourself. It have a pretty good per browser stats.

Yeah… but any good trick to avoid that? I see that not even this website bothers to take IE6 into account:

What’s the problem?

Even Microsoft put that browser to rest.

Official suport for IE6 is dead, gone, buried.

Recent IEs are pretty decent, actually.

Well, this is a site for professionals…

Joking aside, unfortunately you still should take IE6 into consideration. It may depend on where you target your site at: in some countries IE6 seems to be more popular than others. Also some companies use IE6 as default browser for all their employees. Some of my site stats show >10% IE6 users. It’s a pitty.

This is what I am going to do… hope everyone gets the message:

http://code.google.com/p/ie6-upgrade-warning/

Mike:

Yes it is my friend, it is a true pity…

The problem is my actual customer: -hey toni, it doesnt work in my beautiful IE6 800x600 huge case monitor! Even on notebooks works great.

I’ve just looked at the stats and now I think we should bother and fix it. Last month there were 3 317 visits with IE6. Yes, it’s only 1% of all visitors but I still think it worth fixing because we care about people, not about how old IE6 is.

Seriously!

I mean, come on: Yii is requiring people to use php 5, for Heavens sake.

If people are using IE6, they should be stopped.

There’s no reason to use it.

It’s unsupported by its makers.

It’s like using a condom which has expired years ago… Just not safe, is it?

When I’ve checked that my sites are running in all the major browsers, latest version, I’ve done what I can do.

People should update their tools.

Just like they keep their virus definitions up to date, their OS patched up to the latest releases, etc.

Nah… ;)

In my humble opinion, of course…

In a perfect world, they should. But that’s not where we live in.

@jacmoe

It’s probable that those that are still using IE6 are on windows 98… as that is the lates version for that OS…

But I agree… IE is too old and there are many… many sites not working on it…

You have a point there.

However, I think instead of pursuing IE6 compatibility, one should focus on mobile devices instead.

Like phones, pods, pads, whatever.

Then those IE6 using souls can view the site on their device instead… :)

Maybe this is like putting a stick into ant farm, but I believe I have to say it…

My personal opinion is that I can’t agree neither with you, nor with others. IE is very old and since it’s support from Microsoft is gone, we can treat it as not existing. Simple like that. For me, forcing some one to provide support on any website for browsers as old as IE 6 (cause there are probably the same number users out there that are using very old pre-Gecko Netscape Navigator / Communicator - anyone still remembers those?) is exactly the same like people buying DVD+VHS combo (for a crazy price) cause they can’t believe VHS era is gone. It is called progress. You can disagree with it, but you can’t stop it or turn it back.

I know that there are many people who simply can’t understand it (I call them not-reformable) but I have always a good argument that beats all their talking about IE 6: When I’m doing a website project, it is always not only the design but also a support and security. And I simple can’t provide any security for browsers as old and buggy as IE 6 / NN / NC. If it’s very own creator can’t do it, why I should bother? And to be honest with you, argumentation with security has never failed me so far.

On the other hand of security is CSS, JS and standards support, just perfect and brilliant in IE 6. Even if someone would want to pay me much money for spending more hours on providing acceptable look to their page in IE 6 I would not agree. IE 6 is so buggy and so standards-not-oriented that writing tweaked CSS or JS for it would be in my opinion, writing whole new site. No, thank you.

And I saw a large number of pages displaying messages similar to those, like Antonio showed. Even big, commercial portals. IE 6 is dead. Believe it or not.

Beside, why IE 6? Why not 5, 4.0 or 3.0? Just write internet explorer museum to Google and you will find some pages, from where you can download even version 1.0 of Internet Explorer. If it exists and is ready for download, there probably are people out there, still using it. Why don’t we provide support for our websites also for these versions? And why don’t for Lynx text browser? Please, stop! Let me say this again… It is called progress! You can disagree with it, but you can’t stop it or turn it back…

jacmoe, you’re killing me! :] :] :] ROTFL! :} There can be a better conclusion! :> Got to write it down and put it on my Jabber client immediately! :]

What’s wrong with Lynx? :lol:

Links is better, of course.

But it’s a useful tool none the less as you’re practically viewing the site as a text reading bot.

Let’s assume we have a web-shop application and we are relatively successful. As for every non-tech website there are 5—10% IE6 visits and, probably, it’s 5—10% of our revenue. Do you really want to drop a slight part of your revenue by not supporting IE6? Definitely not. That’s how your employer/customer thinks… and he’s totally right.

And does he also thinks about possible expenses from using IE 6? For example from errors in orders (due to badly working JavaScript) and even more - from possible security breach? In my opinion, looking for all those hacks and trick how to make this website looks at least similar in IE 6 is opening your code for a serious risk. It is like asking some one to steal your wallet.

BTW: I’m going to sleep now, hoping that tomorrow I’ll wake up in the world free of Internet Explorer 6! :P

By supporting IE6 I mean there should not be any errors. Yes, it’s a bit harder to do so, but nothing is impossible.

As for security breach, it’s a problem of a user, not a problem of a shop. IE6 will not allow someone to hack your application, right?

If we really care about people, and please do not take it the wrong way, we should tell them that there is a better browser and navigation experience, and best of all, is free. And if they are programmers, or wish to be programmers, then they better download a PDF and read it offline. IMHO of course.

Of course! That is not what I meant. I was trying to tell that developers, who are being forced to write website compatible with IE 6 or similar dinosaur, are receiving money much, much less for this task than work they need to undertake to achieved. Or even worse - they are not being paid for this extra job at all, as customer thinks (or want to think - as this is easier and better for him) that support for IE 6 is something natural. So… I they are paid less then they think they should get or if they are not paid at all - they are taking this task as - forgive me for the words, but I don’t know how to express it better in English - as a real pain in the ass. Therefore they will do everything to skip it as fast as possible and to work over it as much as possible. This way, in opposition to what you wrote, pages designed with IE 6 support are buggy and have errors (sometimes more than we all would expect). From this point there is only a very small, tiny step to security breach.

So the overall picture is that IE 6 support can be nearly strictly connected to security problems of a websites and servers. For example I personally believe that for writing a page that will look in IE 6 nearly the same as in modern browsers I should receive around 70-80% of additional money I normally receive for whole page development. Why? I’ve already told it. Because I think that designing website compatible with IE 6 is a real pain in the ass and I really need to be good paid to take such task. But on the other hand, I know that I will never receive that kind of money, therefore I will do that IE 6 support as dirty as it is possible and the whole circle closes.

Plus psychology. It is not 100% user problem that IE 6 is so buggy. If it would happen (although chances are small, risk still exists) that a security breach, data lost etc. would be in anyway connected to your website, he or she will write about it in a blog, tell friends, scream at the street, etc. In other words - it will make you additional troubles.

The even bigger picture therefore is (at least as I do see it) that in overall counting not only not supporting IE 6 but even banning users who still uses it from accessing your page can only go to good for you, your customer and your website. And I truly doesn’t see any advantage of supporting such old browser, except customer satisfaction, which in most cases comes from not understanding, what real threats are coming along with use of such old, buggy web browser.