When working on the development of a web site I find that there is always an aspect to the project that is related to IE6 testing and bug fixing, either the site in development is regularly checked as the build progresses or there is a big effort at the end to fully test the completed web site for IE6 oddities.
So is this additional effort warranted for one browser or is the IE6 issue hyped and not really that much of a problem at all, just something that we are all capable of dealing with just like any other browser?
Well, there are a lot of people who think that we should stop supporting IE6 altogether. This has caused a lot of debate amongst web developers for the best part of 18 months or longer. Whilst the numbers of IE6 users do appear to be finally coming down — July shows IE6 accounts for It is in fact still the third most popular browser after Firefox 3 and IE7.
Internet Explorer 6 was released in August and so has been around for exactly 8 years. Is the continued use of IE6 because that is the browser that was pre-installed when the computer was originally purchased and the user has never upgraded?
Is it that simple? It seems completely reasonable that there are thousands, if not millions of Internet users that purchased a computer for home use back when IE6 was practically the only web browser around or more to the point was already installed on the computer they bought and have continued to use it to surf the web completely oblivious to the need to upgrade.
They simply have no motivation or desire or perhaps even the understanding required to upgrade their web browser. Unless you are creating some manner of internal tool for a group where you know IE6 penetration no pun intended is high; ignore IE6. With vigor. As for IE7, it's a bit of a toss-up. Generally speaking, if you are aiming for the private sector, you can get away with ignoring it for the most part and assuming that your IE8 support will take care of the most heinous problems; but if it's a site for selling stuff specifically a web-shop; sales pitch site, etc.
Edit: Think of it as charging extra to make a camper wagon designed for a WV to work with, respectively, a pinto, a yugo and a horse-drawn carriage. Under IE6, make it at least show something.
A page for FF3 that just dies on IE6 just looks bad, like you didn't plan well. If you don't support IE6 at all, make sure the user knows it is deliberate by showing a special page advising them where to go. If you are expecting corporate visitors, it has to work under IE6 even if only a simplified version.
If not, you can drop IE6 entirely if you handle it well as described above. The time is nowhere near ready to consider dropping IE7 though. I'd expect this is the default browser on XP, which is the most prevalent OS. If you don't want to spend effort in supporting your site for IE6 you could possibly use any one approach in the below URL. I have read you're using a CMS to create these sites, most CMS work "fine" on most browsers out of the box still as you pointed some CSS and JavaScript elements doesn't work as you go using more "edgy" techniques.
I am sure you may have hear or know these sites they are just tools I use from time to time looking for reference, new knowledge or alternatives I can also recommend several FF extensions like Web Developer Toolbar and FireBug.
You might want to take a look at IE7. As long as there is money involved, support for these browsers will phase out very slowly. I'm all for pushing users to upgrade to the newest available version of IE since problems improve with every release , however I'm also against telling people to upgrade or change their browsers.
Generally it is a good practice to never force your users to upgrade their system just to view your website. Unless, of course, you're developing an internal application, then I'd say everyone should upgrade to the newest available version.
Dean Edwards' ie7. It requires the client to have Javascript turned on, but that's a reasonable concession to make. I use that script and the script from Save the Developers on sites I create, and it makes supporting IE6 a breeze. It would be nice if we could deny support for terribly non-compliant browsers. The problem is, denying IE support hurts your site, hurts your prospective users, but doesn't hurt IE. That's note exactly what we're going for. I propose a different technique.
What if all anti-IE developers put a "Please stop using your crappy browser" splash screen for all IE 6 users accessing their web site. They could provide a few good, simple reasons to switch, that the user can't ignore, but then allow the user to access the IE compliant site.
That way they could get the point across, without hurting themselves much , or the user except a little. It depends on your target audience and if you think you can afford to alienate users.
If you are making a geeky web app and you think most users will use firefox, then don't worry about IE6. I would launch with it working in Firefox, IE7, and Safari and look at who goes to your site. If you see the need to make it work in IE6 then start working on it then. Notice that some users in the Enterprise have no choice.
So if you target Enterprise customers, notice they are still on IE6. In general, Enterprise moves slower than consumer. I mean, some universities have firefox on them, right?
I know, I see them I don't know about other countries, though. But I'm pretty sure still a large chunk of the population still use IE6 by default.
If you think it's really necessary I think so , go ahead. I don't see any problem in it. Support IE6 by not blocking it and letting it fend for itself for the most part. Only work around IE6 bugs that break major functionality. In that case, you might as well use a JS toolkit and get IE6 support for almost free.
Bugs are bugs and they should be fixed in any browser instead of being worked around. But, you gotta do what you gotta do to please visitors. I am certainly opposed to excluding browsers from a public facing site. There is nothing more irritating than going to a website and discovering they ONLY support IE because some dev somewhere couldn't make things "work". As many of the other authors above have noted there is a considerable number of users out there who use a company imposed desktop build or install of IE6.
Your best bet is always to identify and communicate with your users, not impose your draconian concepts upon them. Ryan Farley had an entry about this recently which describes what I think is the best first step to transitioning over users to a different browser.
It encourages people to upgrade and explains why things may not render correctly in one graphic. Many years ago, BinaryBonsai. Vista's failure to gain mass acceptance is largely responsible for the reason we still have to support IE6. Most of the people still using IE6 are the ones who never upgrade their browser or update their OS.
If you're writing an application that's free or open to the public, maybe give reduced support to IE6 in order to have time to build more things for the majority of your users. If you're writing an application that's not free, base it on your users.
Odds are you'll want to give IE6 full support for another year or two. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more.
Should we support IE6 anymore? Asked 13 years, 2 months ago. Active 7 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 6k times. Improve this question. Tell your boss to tell them.
Are you actually doing your visitors any good by supporting IE6? Or should you take all the time and effort you put into backwards compatibility and put it someplace more valuable? So from now on, no more. My personal projects will no longer support IE6. Sign up for more like this.
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