Can't someone please release a virus that will destroy IE6?
Ceolwulf
· 5 months ago
Oh well shoot! Now that you mention it I'll run into the back and grab my awesome, never-before-released-because-of-no-good-reason ultimate trojan.
I was just waiting for someone to ask, really.
Justin McLachlan
· 5 months ago
I'm under the impression that IE itself must die for the Web to Move On...
Amit
· 5 months ago
To clarify, some IT departments can't upgrade because their vendors haven't verified applications for any other browser other than IE6. Imagine the core application for your business requires IE6 and hasn't verified any other browser. Sure it's time to evaluate that vendor since they obviously lack the ability to keep up with new technology. But at the end of the day it comes down to costs.
Take a look at some of the most popular core apps used in healthcare, legal, and education. They are nightmare systems that definitely need some new competitors to push their technology forward.
Sarah Bourne
· 5 months ago
Exactly. It's not that corporate IT doesn't want to move on (I know mine does) but that it can't.
There are large, expensive, mission-critical systems only work with IE6. Their interfaces were built in those heady days of 95% penetration, when the fact that they wouldn't work with any other browser was just not a concern. Because of the way they were architected, it will take huge piles of money to fix them; support for fancy new web tricks is unlikely to make a compelling business case.
And it's not likely that Microsoft will drop IE6 anytime soon because of their legal and business relationships to the companies that produced these systems. This is why they have had to put so much emphasis (with varying success) on backwards compatibility, even if it interfered with standards support.
rdcezar
· 5 months ago
Amit you drive a good point here. There are also a large amount solutions that were created by now defunct companies that are mission critical. I doubt we will be seeing many large scale upgrades, with the current economic conditions.
I hope that corporate IT will start looking towards open source and hope that open source starts making itself much more attractive to corporations.
leliathomas
· 5 months ago
This is definitely an issue. Unfortunately, the only way to get these companies and departments to upgrade anything will be to slowly but surely eliminate the sites they can interact with when using IE6.
These same companies unfortunately don't realize that they would very quickly make back any money spent on upgrades. The hours upon hours of extra work web developers and designers must spend on their IE6-dependent intranets, etc. costs them boatloads. Due to IE6's poor usability and other issues, the sites created for it no doubt harm productivity, too. If nothing else, it's safe to say there would be a boost in productivity and efficiency with better systems.
sujit
· 5 months ago
Amit but this problem is for service based projects mainly.Most of the older systems were developed considering IE6 only as there were no other browses at that time. I see that this problem does not persists with product like web apps .... which are mostly innovative ;) Yes today it's time consuming process to cope up the web app with all these browser versions. But scrap things should be left at some stage ! as it makes sense ;) MOVE ON...
Aeron
· 5 months ago
I don't know if I see much of an overlap with the browsers used in healthcare, legal, etc - and applications such as facebook, digg and youtube. I don't think doctors and lawyers at work are the 20% of IE6 users shopping on my e-commerce website. I think we're talking about the IE6 users who participate in the social web using the browser that came with their operating system and have not had the motivation - yet - to download and install a newer, free, alternative: what is 2 or 3 minutes for them is countless hours of debugging for most web devs, which is why there is so much hate.
PetrifiedJello
· 5 months ago
You're a coder and you claim to continue support of IE6? Shame on you!
Tell your users to upgrade or go elsewhere. It's as simple as that. I posted this on my website: "We're terribly sorry, but Internet Explorer 6 (which you are using) is not supported on this website. While we'd like you to enjoy the site, we simply can no longer spend the resources to incorporate this browser due to incompatibility. Please visit the [link to MS website] to upgrade and be aware there is no cost to do so. Thank you for your understanding."
To date, over 126 people have clicked the upgrade link. It's a small website, but that's 126 more people who finally took the plunge to stay current.
Coders must take the responsibility to force the upgrades. Otherwise, people simply won't do it.
*Note: We also prevent IE6 users from reporting web errors and simply tell them an upgrade will fix them all.
Help the rest of us coders out, please. I beg of you.
Ben Bibik
· 5 months ago
Kill Xp = Kill IE6. Face it folks it is Windows XP that's keeping IE6 on life support. Hopefully this time the internet community wouldn't be screaming against Windows 7 like they did against Vista. The damage has been done. Give windows 7 a free ride lets get rid of xp with those IE6 installs.
dreamjke
· 5 months ago
+1. IE6 MUST DIE!!!!
Sumeet
· 5 months ago
If it doesn't die on its own, what can kill IE6?...Killing IE 6 will be a noble and green cause MS or Google, anyone can take the lead by stopping support
Greg McBride
· 5 months ago
I completely agree! We just wrote a blog post about this. http://bit.ly/sRGwv @envisiongroup
Thomas
· 5 months ago
Full ack! Totally! 150%! (-:
But: "with a computer from 2001 (20 GB of space, 256 GB of RAM, anyone?)." I´m sure, that you mean "256 MB of RAM". ;)
Regards, Tom
Ben Parr
· 5 months ago
Thanks!
Thomas
· 5 months ago
You´re welcome. ;)
Miguel
· 5 months ago
256 GB of RAM would be AWESOME!!
DocHobbes
· 5 months ago
As nice as it would be to see IE6 go away, Diggs article was about most IE6 users not having a choice. (Users at work) But, by hacking up your sites for IE6 users you perpetuate the issue. As more and more businesses STOP pandering to the browser companies using it will eventually be forced to upgrade. Because it's companies controlling the majority of the users behind that browser I doubt we'll be rid of it anytime soon.
Brian
· 5 months ago
My company installs IE6 by default, but will install the latest version of Firefox on request (and force-feed you the latest version when comes out). I don't get why they're two versions behind on IE and content to leave it as-is.
alan
· 5 months ago
If it's actually idiotic companies that perpetuate this issue, you've hit the nail on the head. If developers simply stop supporting archaic browsers, IT departments will have no choice but to upgrade their companies' browsers to "new millenium" levels.
The power to change the landscape of the web really is in the developers' hands. If a corporation was no longer able to properly access resources and clients via the web, they will have to change or die. This might result in some miffed individuals, but according to Ben Parr's article, we're only talking about 15 - 25% of surfers. This is a sizable number of eyeballs, but it's a sizable number that should be made to upgrade or sit out the future.
DocHobbes
· 5 months ago
I really think it is, but I also think companies would prefer most websites didn't work for their employees as a tool to force them to focus on work. IF the world were to band together to kill IE6 (yes that does sound cheesy) I think the only way to do it would be refuse service through search. If every major search engine killed IE6 users they would be forced to upgrade. Now who ever can convince any search engine to cut that kind of market share...
Mike Rudy
· 5 months ago
What really needs to happen is for Microsoft to drop corporate support for Windows 2000, which is incapable of supporting IE7 or IE8.
If/Once they do that, those companies will be forced to upgrade to Windows 7 and IE8.
Demis
· 5 months ago
Wouldn't it just be easier if those said companies just roll out Firefox or chrome.
If a company has software that is happily running solid on win2k boxes why should they be forced to upgrade? If it ain't broke, it don't need to be fixed.
Locking their users down to a buggy/non standard-compliant browser (for which the standards are still evolving) is the biggest problem, but in these cases they should roll out a browser that is not tied to the operating system ala firefox, chrome or safari.
ME Living
· 5 months ago
Writing IE6 specific code all over my front end is incredibly frustrating.
rb3m
· 5 months ago
Ideally IE6 would have died a swift and relatively painless death when IE7 came out, instead of hanging around with pieces falling off like a leper. Sadly I don't see IE6 dipping below the 15-10% mark for some years. However, I don't think its death is necessary for the web to move on.
As you point out, most IE6 users nowadays are in corporations that don't see a reason to upgrade or depend on applications built on IE6. For these kind of users it's perfectly possible to provide basic functionality (necessary anyway if we want to respect the principle of accessibility on the web) while the main core of users get the whole kaboodle. Providing that basic functionality shouldn't cost a lot and should be relatively straightforward.
So, we can start using all the cool stuff now. Some users won't be able to use our sites fully, but that has always been the case. If we build with accessibility and graded enhancement in mind, IE6 need not be a concern. Unless the client specifically asks for it, of course, and then we can explain why they'll need to pay more, why some things simply won't work and whether it's worth it.
Janeile
· 5 months ago
Totally agree. Those who want to remain in the stone ages can. If they're o.k. with not being able to browse really good, let them be. But go ahead and develop the new stuff so that the up-to-date people can have some fun. There will always be people who don't upgrade because they don't want the hassle or don't upgrade from some decision or the other. My 1st computer was on Windows 95. When I bought my 2nd it ran on Windows XP. Eventually the software I needed and the capabilities I wanted only worked with one system and I upgraded. Same for the web. It's as simple as that.
Asa Dotzler
· 5 months ago
IE 6 is actually falling a lot faster than you suggest.
That's what it's like now. Even the ones supposedly dropping support for the old IE6 are actually suppose to be just lowering support/functionality.
The reason nothing actually wants to fully block it, is because people will stop using it. If Google, for example, stopped supporting IE6, employers would just tell their employees to use Yahoo!. And an smaller websites (Google is the largest after all) would have an even less support.
IE6 dieing out is in the hands of users.
ranti
· 5 months ago
While I agree IE6 makes web development really cumbersome, I'm afraid places like public libraries or school libraries that can't afford to upgrade their machines would get hit hard.
Adam
· 5 months ago
There are plenty of ways around this problem. Libraries and schools, as institutions established for the distribution of information and literature to the public, should be among the most eager to offer the best portal into that information possible. Educating patrons on emerging technology and safer browsing should also be high on the priority list. The cost of deploying Firefox across a media center is not very high. I'm sure many LUGs and student organizations at local schools would be happy to volunteer to help out with such a project. The problem is lack of initiative and understanding, not money.
While between laptops last year, I found myself using public libraries for Internet access rather frequently. I used Portable Firefox 3 on a variety of old, crusty machines and never had a problem of any kind.
The option is there, even in these corporate environments - it is completely possible to have both IE6 and Firefox installed at the same time. IE6 for whatever random web application your company needs, and Firefox for the rest.
Justin McLachlan
· 5 months ago
Really? Like it's *that* hard to upgrade? That costly? We are talking about free software and pushing a few buttons.
Nick
· 5 months ago
yeh first post
Andrew
· 5 months ago
I saw you try to get first yesterday too (and failed). What's the point you fucking idiot?
wow
· 5 months ago
So, perhaps his behavior is anti-social and obnoxious. What would you classify yours as?
Andrew
· 5 months ago
Awesome and awesome.
DocHobbes
· 5 months ago
cause he's an idiot?
Jacob Pritchett
· 5 months ago
*Cough* Flamer! *cough*
Go back to your hole, idiots will be idiots, and all you're doing is joining them. Tragic.
IE6 will never die!!! 20 years more of this crappy browser will be still around!!!!
Jennifer Hoy
· 5 months ago
Except, as it was pointed out in Digg's article here: http://blog.digg.com/?p=878 it's not the visitors that are making the decision to hold on to IE6. An update warning just paralyzes them.
iTbay
· 5 months ago
The IE broswer is dead - it's a monopolistic broswer. Well done Ben.
Praval Singh
· 5 months ago
I am amazed you have the guts to relate that to at a point of remorse. Shame indeed.
iTbay
· 5 months ago
let me make this easy - http://www.google.com/chrome ... my productivity has sky rocketed vs IE. If ur into Google, use & download chrome 4 the future of Chrome OS.
Rick Jones
· 5 months ago
You have the audactity to accuse IE of being monopolistic (with no facts btw), then recommend Chrome OS. Gee, will I be able to use another browser besides Chrome on that??
Some people's kids.
iTbay
· 5 months ago
Rick, ***"it WAS a monopolistic browser, but it has cancer*** ::new children a being born, being raised by MANY fathers - the beauty of open source.
Denis Gobo
· 5 months ago
If you closed your browser and did some work instead of browsing the internet the whole day, then productivity would go up and you would not have "unemployed" on your twitter page
iTbay
· 5 months ago
A Ghost follower?
im looking for a job with a tech/research company through Twitter - its a decoy. Ur attention 2 detail is amazing. I work with hammer & nails & use iTwitter with iPhone 3GS. The town I leave in, it takes me 5 mins to get to work - about the same time it takes to load a page with IE. I love MS Office though - especially Excel ...my bread; I dont like butter.
All the best Denis! :)
Come on!!!
· 5 months ago
Do you have to pay a fee for each single word you write?Is there a valid reason for saying "ur" instead of "you're"?
I looked at your other posts, too. How are you trying to make a statement when your spelling is idiotic? Shame. And you want to be taken seriously. "im", "its", "leave" instead of "live"...COME ON. If you're in the early states of internet marketing, you should be aborted by whomever convinced you that you can actually be one.
Come on!!!
· 5 months ago
You want to be taken seriously, yet you spell like a total idiot. How about a spellchecker?
"early states of internet marketing" or "early stages". Considering on the key board that the "G" is below the "T", u probably were referring to stages - LOL. UR probably in the state of Nevada now. Make sure that when UR quizzing me on spelling, u actually spell right. UR lack of attention to detail is imputed with the IE thinking.
I think the word marketing is 2000 & late - its more like innovation. With the IE, u have marketing; with Chrome, u have innovation.
I agree totally, so much excites me about html 5 - but its going to be a long time before we can build with it if people are lugging around outdated browsers.
Nick
· 5 months ago
Calm down kairaos - its only a bit of fun - btw your twitter account seems to have gone awol.
Andrew
· 5 months ago
Lol, nah. I changed my name to soarisawesome and it still links to kairaos. Don't know how to change it. I'm even logging in using twitter using my new name. Meh.
Stop spamming the comments with your stupid and unfunny blog.
IconicImagery (NativeMoon)
· 5 months ago
Yes indeed. Anyone told Microsatan that?
Twirrim
· 5 months ago
Much as I'm far from a Microsoft fan, there really is nothing they can do. Windows Update tells you to upgrade your browser too. If people won't do it what can they do?
Matt Soreco
· 5 months ago
Shouldn't the web move on, which will force IE6 users to change?
Kind of like digital tv.
Just do it.
Nate
· 5 months ago
256 GB of RAM? Sign me up!
soreco
· 5 months ago
Shouldn't the web move on, which will force IE6 users to change?
Kind of like digital tv.
Just do it.
Timothy
· 5 months ago
IE6 won't die off until large corporations and other groups (universities, etc) migrate to new versions. A number have stated they will be moving to 7 or 8 soon, but there are still a decent amount of corporations not willing to migrate just yet.
HereAndNow
· 5 months ago
Perhaps, global governments should launch an awareness campaign (via major newspaper/TV/radio/magazine/internet/etc. ads) that encourages consumers & businesses to upgrade their browsers. After all, global internet commerce depends heavily on the internet & its related technologies & standards.
Short of that, websites may want to follow Facebook's example by recommending a browser update/switch, when people attempt to connect with IE6.
Leo Liberman
· 5 months ago
256 GB of RAM would be awesome, try switching it to 256 MB for historical accuracy!
Bob
· 5 months ago
If only IE6 could stay installed (for legacy apps) and we could install IE7 or 8 ...
Chirag
· 5 months ago
Thank god IE6 isn't a person, else you all would've really killed it by now :P
David Joly
· 5 months ago
I have started charging 50% more to my clients who want to support IE6 when we do a website and I still don't think I'm charging enough with the grief it gives us.
Greg
· 5 months ago
I agree with the article... but I think the target audience (Mashable readers) already agrees... not sure if anybody will read this that needs to be convinced. Trouble is, the people who actually need convincing are clients or managers who insist on IE6 support... and they're not likely reading this blog.
Kima
· 5 months ago
So true indeed! Its pretty much preaching to the choir here. But then, as a viral, this article is bound to get forwarded and reposted and retweeted and digg'd and more. Hence that increase the chance of those IE 6 lovers reading this article. :-)
Christy
· 5 months ago
My three year old is in that 15-25% ;) and that's b/c we drug out our archaic computer to set up his computer games on. The games work fine, but it is getting more and more difficult to access web content with IE6 on Windows ME. I'm torn between trying to find him a newer computer and letting him just use the current one only for his games. I guess I need to find a starting point & try to find an older computer running XP, so it is both affordable for the little use it'll get and browser upgradeable. Suggestions?
nomoreIE
· 5 months ago
put FF or Chrome, and you don't even need to upgrade the machine. if you feel adventurous , put Linux and get a few more yrs of life out of that machine...
It's free, open source, will probably run like a champ on your machine and it has tons of fun kids games included!
ericabiz
· 5 months ago
Firefox 2 works fine on Windows ME. Just use that. Or upgrade to XP -- it shouldn't run that much worse than ME.
Jennifer Hoy
· 5 months ago
As you said yourself, the main driving force is simply the large companies with corporate intranets and IT departments clinging to the luxury of not updating.
This is not something that will be fixed, even by the all the tempting features anticipated by HTML 5, because of the desire to upgrade online technology. Short of the entire web moving on without IE6, visitors lost during business hours be damned, there will always be companies and their IT departments fighting tooth and nail to not have to pay for a major overhaul to their Intranets, and the browser they support.
MXWest
· 5 months ago
It is time. Couldn't agree more.
Jennifer Hoy
· 5 months ago
The question is not simply whether IE6 should or should not die, but how we can make it happen. Even something as major as Google dropping support won't do it - Microsoft will only reap the benefits of added usage of Bing.
In the end, it won't be technology upgrades that does the browser in. It's getting the companies with corporate intranets to bite the bullet and force IT to upgrade.
*Apologize for double-comment. Browser timed out when writing the first response. And no, I wasn't using IE6 =D
Christy
· 5 months ago
Hated to see Google is already doing that. Message on YouTube says "we will be phasing out support for your browser" , though ironically it seems they've already done that. I was checking out the PreSchool channels for the little guy then the other day - no more video access on YouTube on his pc.
adriana
· 5 months ago
man, are you preaching to the wrong crowd :S
Jennifer Hoy
· 5 months ago
Haha
Luis Neng
· 5 months ago
The main reason why people still use IE6 in Portugal is because of our lazy IT administrators. They refuse to upgrade the browsers by claiming the tab browsing have security issues because it shares the session. Almost all of the banks and big companies are still using IE6 because of those lazy, incompetent and selfish IT administrators.
Believe me, I'd love to see IE6 die... one [large] problem though, to upgrade to IE7/IE8 you need to be on XP SP2 or later. Many companies still have users running W2K, or XP pre-SP2, so they can't upgrade. Yes, they could go to alternate browsers, but if MS would remove the XP SP2 requirement I think many more users would move to IE7/IE8.
Gordon P. Hemsley
· 5 months ago
I'm sure they have a perfectly good reason for having the minimum requirements of XP SP2. I highly doubt that chose that version arbitrarily.
matt
· 5 months ago
It takes months to certify an application in a secure environment like a bank, and everyone is short on resources now. So it's not that all these administrators are lazy, it's that they just don't have the people or the time to certify an new app that does almost nothing the old one can't, when the old app works just fine on all authorized or business related sites.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the people coming to your sites using IE6 aren't supposed to be doing that during work hours in the first place. It's going to be a very rare environment where IT cares that you can't go to Facebook or Digg anymore.
This is an issue for us, but not for them. Don't blame them for not wanting to deal with our problem.
Jennifer Hoy
· 5 months ago
A general statement that all of our websites are not appropriate during business hours is false. What about B2B websites that would like to take advantage of richer online experiences, but are held back because 20% of their audience still uses IE6 to visit the web?
Even for some industries (obviously not the ones still stuck with IE6 in the office) use of Digg and Facebook is part of their business. Social Media is no longer just a waste of time.
Fact is, the web is moving on. It's the websites with the B2B market that are suffering by not being allowed to join the momentum.
Tim McClain
· 5 months ago
Many Web pages with old versions of IE already are terrible. Worked at a place where we used Macs running 9.2 because we owned multiple copies of Quark 4, Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Internet pages were an adventure. I'm gone now and the office just upgraded to new Macs and software, which had to be pretty expensive. But the Web browsing experience must be much improved.
Chad Shryock
· 5 months ago
361 days until MS won't support IE6. So in less than a year, corporations will have to upgrade Windows (and IE) or live on the edge patchless.
I guess maybe IE6 was the browser in place when many companies started to move their internal systems to browser based rather than desktop apps. That's going to make it hard for them to move on. And many companies don't care if Facebook works well for their employees, as long as the HR and Finance systems work...
ericdpalmer
· 5 months ago
even with 15-25% of people using shouldn't the Web still be able to move forward? I'm assuming most of these users are only utilizing ie6 because: a) they don't know any better of b) they haven't been forced too... If the sites they want to access require an upgrade or using a different browser people will make the switch.
Look at the evolution of the home entertainment industry: Betamax (dead), Laserdisc (long gone) & HD DVD (decomposing) - time to trade up folks
mike
· 5 months ago
IE6 is really antiquated and the problem as mentioned is that so many companies built apps based on the browser and don't want to catch up with the rest of the world. To top it off the browser is 6 years old. Its time to let go and catch up.
Jeff
· 5 months ago
I can damn near guarantee you that the 15-25% of people using IE6 still are 99.9% office workstation users.
One of the biggest reasons why corporate IT has been so lazy upgrading to IE6 is that upgrading will break damn near every single intranet HTML page and internal app created in the last 10 years or so. In a lot of cases, pages have been suited so much for IE6 and MS-centric crap that the functionality will be broken along with the visuals.
I've been doing my intranet-related development with standards compliance in mind for years now, but some of the people who came before me were coding in garbage like the marquee tag and other things that are IE-centric.
Gonna have to be a breaking point eventually...
hsushoe
· 5 months ago
Down with IE and bring in something else because it is total crap. Here is what IE needs to get rid of, EVERYTHING!! They need to completely re-think this browser from the bottom up because it is not really working for us.
Matt
· 5 months ago
Ah, IE6. It's having to replace png images with gifs that really gets me.
Tim Wright
· 5 months ago
Just some food for thought: HTML5 doesn't work in any version of IE currently (6, 7 or 8), so it's not just IE6 holding up the show.
Any unfortunately the people using IE6 right now probably aren't reading this article or can't upgrade for business reasons.
Tim Wright
· 5 months ago
Just some food for thought: HTML5 doesn't work in any version of IE currently (6, 7 or 8), so it's not just IE6 holding up the show.
Any unfortunately the people using IE6 right now probably aren't reading this article or can't upgrade for business reasons.
Claudio (aglioelio)
· 5 months ago
I really think it´s time to Move On, so let´s just quit IE6 Support all of us too
Kevin Althaus
· 5 months ago
Let's think about the people who are using IE6 anyway. If they are too scared to upgrade to anything else, they probably aren't the type of person that would benefit from most of what the web has to offer. Do you think if someone thinks tabbed browsing has security holes they are going to put their credit card number into a web form to buy what you're selling?
Ben Bibikov
· 5 months ago
Kill Xp = Kill IE6. Face it folks it is Windows XP thats keeping IE6 on life support. Hopefully this time the internet community wouldn't be screaming against Windows 7 like they did against Vista. The damage has been done. Give windows 7 a free ride lets get rid of xp with those IE6 installs.
Aleksandre Asatiani
· 5 months ago
Frankly, I won't be very sad if all the IE would die at once :D
Aleksandre Asatiani
· 5 months ago
Frankly, I won't be very sad if all the IE would die at once :D
UPrinting
· 5 months ago
Thanks for the low-down. I knew IE6 is outdated, but I wasn't aware that it is soooo outdated. Just wondering though, why does Windows insist on bundling XP with IE6? If it is so outdated, why not upgrade the bundled browser to at least IE7, since Windows can't really recommend the users to go Vista instead. I mean, honestly, between XP and Vista, there's no contest.
Alex Zulch
· 5 months ago
Agreed with Ben Bibik. Websites need to cut off IE6 support and show their users that IE6 is outdated, no matter what OS they use. Cut off the IE6 support intermittently then get rid of it altogether... then IE6 might just go away.
People Search
· 5 months ago
Yes, IE 6, Die, Die! =)
Brandon
· 5 months ago
Facebook has the right idea but really, at this point in the internet's age, it's a matter of enabling as the article somewhat alludes too. If you allow users of IE6 to be able to use it, they'll use it. So, thereby the simplest path is to not allow them to use it comfortably. Stop supporting it and they'll upgrade.
It's not IE6's fault designers/developers spend countless hours creating work-arounds. It's not IE6's fault that management dictates that a software has to be innovative AND compatible with outdated technology.
Cut the cord and IE6 goes away. The major players are on that track finally and so should everyone else. The people using IE6 are usually not the demo-graphic for innovative apps and sites in the first place and if they want to be, they should make a simple upgrade and turn out auto-updating.
Kevin Pasco
· 5 months ago
Firefox FTW!
Asa Dotzler
· 5 months ago
The good news is that IE is falling and it's falling at a reasonable clip. My projections put IE 6 (and IE 7) under 10% of usage share by the end of this year.
There's every good reason to believe that by this time next year, we'll have IE 8, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 3 making up a very large majority of browser usage -- maybe as much as 80%.
That's pretty awesome.
likexx
· 5 months ago
That's funny and stupid. IE6 is already dead. The problem is not IE6, but the website itself. Or it's just traditional legacy problem. Before you yell anything towards IE, ask yourself: why people are still driving gas-powered vechicle when there are more green energy available?
ceolwulf
· 5 months ago
Your analogy is sub-par. Try something like: "why do people still paint with lead-based products when safer ones are available?".
Scott Herbert
· 5 months ago
"So why is 15 to 25 percent of the world’s browsing still done in a browser created in the digital Stone Age" Because it's done at work places where people have no choose in what they use. [1] As designers/developers what should you do with throes who can't change? a) Pester them b) give them a less than brilliant, but still good experience? I'd go for B and I'd call that progressive enhancement.
IE 6 has been the bane of my limited web design for three years now. And now that I am becoming a full time web designer/web developer I hate it even more. IE 6 must go away, I think someone like Google does need to just stop supporting it. If that happens we won't have to worry about it every again.
Scott Herbert
· 5 months ago
And if Google stops supporting it throes poor office workers currently stuck on IE6 because there IT departments won't let them upgrade will be stuck with Bing..
Astrid
· 5 months ago
Hear, hear! Firefox all the way.
PAUL P PAULSON
· 5 months ago
STOP WHINING.
SERIOUSLY YOU ARE A FUCKING WHINING CUNT.
INTERNET EXPLORER IS NOT 'EVIL'. YOU ARE A STUPID HIPPY.
P.S. WE ARE ALL USING IE8 NOW. GET WITH THE TIMES LOSER.
ALL YOU CHOWDER-HEADS ONLY COMPLAIN ABOUT MICROSOFT COS U DON'T LIKE PAYING FOR SOFTWARE. MAYBE IF YOU HAD A REAL COPY OF WINDOWS NOT A CRACK THEN YOU'D BE ABLE TO GET UPDATES YOU TOOLS.
P.S. THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE HAS A VERY SMALL FACE ON A VERY LARGE HEAD. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT SHIT?!?
Astrid
· 5 months ago
Hear, hear! Firefox all the way.
Mark
· 5 months ago
Great article. I think this movement is starting to gain traction based on what other sites are starting to mandate.
When we relaunched our site, we created a browser sniff to display an interstitial when IE6 users come to our site. you have IE6, you can check it out here: http://www.sonomacreative.com
Chuck Reynolds
· 5 months ago
yay IE 6 -> deadpool
Luck
· 5 months ago
mashable should die and reincarnate as google ad$
Σχολή Χορού
· 5 months ago
That all sounds very nice. Why don't all developers quit on ie6 compatibility, so all win98 and most winXP users will be forced to use Firefox or something. An eye for an eye. The revenge of the Netscape Navigator.
Luke
· 5 months ago
Down with IE 6! I've been saying the same thing for years, if people can't themselves a better browser, then they can suffer with dodgy looking web design! I'm so sick of having to code for extra hours and compromise in areas where I shouldn't. I say all social networking sites and search engines should faze out IE6 support, including Google. Also, IE7 should be easier to install, most XP users have to install Service Pack 2 to install it. Thank God for Firefox and Chrome, to save the day!
Luke
· 5 months ago
How about someone invent a patch for IE 6 to make it have tabs and give it HTML 5, PNG-24 and CSS v2 support?
Dena
· 5 months ago
I guess they didn't see a reason for a patch and thought it was enough to just come out with a new version, hence IE7 and later on IE8.
marschick
· 5 months ago
Our issue at work, is that there are still a bunch of third party aps that don't work in anything but IE6. LAME. Hopefully we're going to migrate anyway - Fingers crossed!
ron
· 5 months ago
IE6 hasnt stifled innovation at all. you just basically have to make 2 sites - one for good browsers, one for the worst browser ever.
and the reason it wont go away isn't ony of the reasons you listed. tons of corps have inhouse webapps that were written so they work in IE6 (idiotic decision i know) and they wont spend the money to upgrade if they work fine with the browser on everyones computer.
Pacha
· 5 months ago
——————/´ ¯/) COPY AND PASTE —————--/—-/ IF YOU THINK —————-/—-/ NICK IS A FUCKING IDIOT ———--/´¯/'--'/´¯`•_ ———-/'/--/—-/—--/¨¯\ ——--('(———- ¯~/'--') ———\————-'—--/ ———-'\'————_-•´ ————\———--( ————-\———--\ ————--\———--\
——————/´ ¯/) COPY AND PASTE —————--/—-/ IF YOU WANT IE6 TO DIE —————-/—-/ ———--/´¯/'--'/´¯`•_ ———-/'/--/—-/—--/¨¯\ ——--('(———- ¯~/'--') ———\————-'—--/ ———-'\'————_-•´ ————\———--( ————-\———--\ ————-\———--\
Dena
· 5 months ago
I still have IE6 on my laptop and have yet to upgrade. Now, keep in mind I use Firefox 99.9% of the time so it doesn't bother me. But until they fix up the disgrace of IE7 and IE8, I will not upgrade. Honestly, if you ask me IE should just be scrapped all together.
Joey Bing
· 5 months ago
People still using IE??? Wake up!
chirvo
· 5 months ago
*singing that song of the Buggles*
(8) Firefox killed the Microsoft's star (8)
No seriously, we already have all those Gecko-powered web browsers that kick butts. The only thing we need are more sites doing what developers and designers at Facebook did. If a user logs on with that cancer (IE6 I mean) the site should recommend him/her to update to a recent version or to download any other browser they want.
Matthew Fabb
· 5 months ago
There's always been old browsers that have slowed down innovation and likely always will be. Right now it's IE6, but go back a number of years it was Netscape 4 that was causing all the problems. IE5 on the Mac used to be problematic years ago as well (it was buggy as hell with certain CSS elements).
Once IE6 has finally dropped to a low enough level, people will start wishing for IE7 to die, as it doesn't exactly support HTML5. Which I'm surprised you brought up in your argument Ben, since we still have a long way to go after IE6 dies to support HTML5. I don't think IE7 has any support for any of the new tags and IE8 is not that much better. Example IE8 doesn't support the video tag and not all the functionality for the canvas tag.
Since we will have to wait for IE9 for better HTML5 support, which is at least a year like 2 or 3 away and then we have to wait for the majority of users to upgrade, this means it might be around a decade before developers can program in HTML5 without concern of supporting older browsers.
atomi
· 5 months ago
Thanks!
DJNightLife
· 5 months ago
It would be SO easy for Microsoft to force the update. Any reason why they don't do it ?
Andi Popescu
· 5 months ago
+1 for the death of IE6!
website design in adelaide
· 5 months ago
Man, its not just IE6 - all the IE's need to go. They are all so terrible for usability. From a web designers POV the IE legacy needs to come to an end. FF forever.
aawindoze2
· 5 months ago
What?? You mean there are people out there that actually use IE? No way!
Even though my bosses practically made me, I stopped supporting IE6 probably 2 solid years ago. I told all my clients to suck it up and accept. I lost most of those clients...
Oh well.
Sam Law
· 5 months ago
I'll be a very happy man when IE6 is dead, unfortunately the vast majority of people that are using it do so because their IT department mandates it or because their not allowed to update their computer past Windows NT or 98.
If enough business based websites stop supporting IE6 then companies will have to update.
remino
· 5 months ago
Dear IE6,
Get a hint. Piss off.
Mixed feelings, A Web Developer
erik
· 5 months ago
IE6 is worse than my ex girlfriend.
Cameron
· 5 months ago
I Think that all web designers (myself included) should NOT make their websites compatible with IE6, that way you would have to switch eventually. I personally only like Firefox, i optimized my website for it. (cjf.exofire.net)
Angry Web Designer
· 5 months ago
I would like to bill Microsoft for the hours I have wasted to fix websites for IE6 since its their fault that there is no forcible updates to IE, like Firefox and Safari. I can't wait for the day when IE6 is long gone.
It will need more then Youtube, Digg and Facebook to get the Mum and Dads to upgrade their browsers, or even know how to upgrade.
Yzerman
· 5 months ago
I think you miss a big point about why most people still use IE, in the corporate environment its not so much about not wanting to move to IE7 or 8 but its a limitation both of cost and time to rewrite to purchase replacement internal web applications that were poorly written to only run under IE 6, thus forcing companies into keeping IE 6.
It will be really interesting when Win 7 rolls around and if it will force companies to finally have to deal with this issue than ignoring it.
CodLib
· 5 months ago
Agreeing totally. We need to do so much useless work for IE6 and it will almost ruin your Javascript and CSS.......... Better KILL IE6 Altogether
Sach
· 5 months ago
So that would mean a significant percentage of IE's market share can be attributed to the browser being embedded inside XP which is still the most widely used OS ... Talk about a level playing field!
Sach
· 5 months ago
So that would mean a significant percentage of IE's market share can be attributed to the browser being embedded inside XP which is still the most widely used OS ... Talk about a level playing field!
Sayyed
· 5 months ago
Good things about IE6: I like to browse full screen (i.e. no menu bars, toolbars, status bars etc.) I know Firefox and Chrome have full screen by pressing F11 (IE7 does not). But in IE6 full screen, if you move the cursor to the top of the screen, the menu bar drops down so you can use all the menu functions and Google Search Bar (without pressing F11) and if you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, the task bar shows up, showing all the programs running, the status of the computer, and to launch other applications from the Start Menu (without pressing F11). This is very convenient. In Firefox and Chrome, this does not work. You have to press F11 to get out of full screen mode and then you can use the menu functions at the top or use the task bar at the bottom. Most ordinary people (including myself) don't have a religious affiliation with any browser or operating system or technology. They just want to get their work done in the easiest way possible way and don't want the technology to get in the way. Why these functions are not incorporated into Firefox and Chrome? Why take away functions that are already there and people are used to? I can understand Microsoft taking away the full screen mode in IE7 in the name of security (to protect from phishing scams) but let the users decide. Don't take away their choice. You should have learned a lesson from Vista (forcing security down people's throats). People will always vote with their feet if they have a choice. Same with web designers trying to force people to use browsers of their choice, to make life easy for themselves. You know people don't care about that. Give people what they want and you will have no problems.
ceolwulf
· 5 months ago
If the only people who use IE6 are the intranets, why are we supporting it? All they use it for is their bank website or their corporate junk so why would the average Joe need to support IE6 on his blog?
JB
· 5 months ago
Couldn't agree more....IE6 is definitely a thorn in the side of developers, designers and marketers everywhere.
Push to boycott and stop supporting???!?!?!?
Anyone? Bueller?
DevinDurbin
· 5 months ago
That's right! Down with IE6 let the internet thrive!
Marco
· 5 months ago
I live in Peru, and many people works with IE6 (Many people doesn't know that exists other browsers). I use Google Chrome. It's unfair don't let use IE 6 to the people who don't want to update to IE8 or any other browser.
About geolocation, I hate it. I can't browse in Hulu, Pandora, Last.fm or Spotify without a VPN (with US or UK Ip address).
SocialBlogr
· 5 months ago
Yaa.. 100% agree with you!! Kill Bill too.. :D
SocialBlogr
· 5 months ago
Yup, 100% agree with you! Kill Bill too :D
Dwayne
· 5 months ago
Amen! I've blogged about this in the past too. IE 6 must die. It makes our work as designers/coders increase, headaches abound, and just too much. It should not be an optional upgrade, IMO, for WindowsXP. It should be a mandatory system update. IT depts get a one month advance warning that it's going to happen. Then whamo.
The Gentleman
· 5 months ago
I really didn't get the love about IE6 until I realised it wasn't love just ignorance.
Your Name*dbmuse
· 5 months ago
I continue to use IE6 to punish Microsoft for creating it.
Daniel Kelly
· 5 months ago
IE 7, and IE 8 actually aren't bad browsers by any measure. Firefox is great, and while I'm a big fan of Firefox I'll be the first to admit it needs to slim down. That's what the "Mozilla" browser is supposed to be all about, at least in part.
Genius.com Inc
· 5 months ago
Agreed, here's our discussion of this on the Genius.com engineering blog a couple of months ago - "Why Stumbleupon's Use of IE6 is Hurting America" http://tr.im/sJAk
It's time to stop coding the workarounds. If they can't see the web then they will upgrade. Hell we abandoned 640x480 at about 15% adoption rate.
Guy Park
· 5 months ago
One other reason, I have also found, that companies still use IE 6 is due to pre-existing web based business applications will not work on later browsers. As such, updating the company network would render these used applications unusable.
I have personally dealt with companies that are stuck with this limitation. And know that the application vendors (we're talking big names here), have no desire to correct this.
Daina Thomas
· 5 months ago
I definitely agree with you .. for companies yes .. it is difficult for them to change .. as you have mentioned ...
jp
· 5 months ago
Wow, really? Anybody still uses IE6? IE8 (yes, EIGHT!) is out and is far superior to Firefox, IMO. How is anyone still using 6?? I am just -- at a loss for words. Do these people still have Geocities webpages too?
aldrin
· 5 months ago
Great article, I really wish one day all IE6 will just crashed up. heheheh
Andrew Puckett
· 5 months ago
I've had my share of problems developing webapps and "catering" to IE6...I'm to the point where I'm about to phase out IE6 support on all my websites here soon.
Bladesonic
· 5 months ago
Why should we cater to 15 to 25% of the web market. That's below the majority, isn't it? I say we just move on without warning. They'll get the hint eventually. (Plus, it's probably just old people or the technologically-inclined who use IE6. I don't think Grandma cares about Facebook.)
ray
· 5 months ago
IE6 has to die... okay, I get it. Boy, that article could have used some editing.
Rupert
· 5 months ago
Yes. My God, the time I've lost catering for IE6. And just IE in general.
You can't just abandon it, because clients get freaked out when you tell them that 20% of web users won't be able to see their site. That's a lot.
I'm not convinced that 15%-20% use IE6, though. Isn't this worldwide, including all developing countries where there are a huge number of old PCs running pirated WIndows which can't be updated - often Windows 2000 or 98? Is this relevant to companies targeting people in western countries? I haven't seen anybody running IE6 in the UK for a very long time. They've all done Microsoft's automatic update to IE7.
Frenkie
· 5 months ago
The windows update tells you allways that you should update. but have you ever asked why peoples dont do? Or why most of companies like banks and other corporation use strictly IE6?
It easy to write a blog against Microsoft related product, but you should really ask, why after 8 years there are still 20% of users that still use it?
T wittervlog
· 5 months ago
Yes. My God, the time I've lost catering for IE6. And just IE in general.
You can't just abandon it, because clients get freaked out when you tell them that 20% of web users won't be able to see their site. That's a lot.
I'm not convinced that 15%-20% use IE6, though. Isn't this worldwide, including all developing countries where there are a huge number of old PCs running pirated WIndows which can't be updated - often Windows 2000 or 98? Is this relevant to companies targeting people in western countries?
I haven't seen anybody running IE6 in the UK for a very long time. They've all done Microsoft's automatic update to IE7.
Designs by Casey
· 5 months ago
I agree on this. It's sooo complicated now adays to be completely cross-browser compatible when developing websites, IE6 holds us back and it should RIP indefinitely.
publicgodzilla
· 5 months ago
IE6 Sucks
kolya
· 5 months ago
20 GB of space, 256 MB of RAM, anyone?
Sounds like iPhone.
Ben Parr
· 5 months ago
From HUGE desktops (those stats are for the high-end in 2001) to a device that fits in your hand? Impressive to me.
claudio
· 5 months ago
Here in Italy a lot of IT companies and banks still use IE6 and unfortunally they are not going to switch. I am afraid that IE6 will be among us for years :(
Daina Thomas
· 5 months ago
I know .. its strange that ppl are still using IE6 even after the much improved IE8 with new features (for IE8) , they are still stuck to the old browser .. and missing a lot good stuff .. but most of them are the comapnies who are using it .. as they cannot change the settings ..as that would be a mess for them ...I personally use Mozilla Firefox which is a cool browser ... with so many extensions and addons according to the news ... Firefox Rocks !!
Someone write a worm that updates internet explorer!!!!!!!!!!!
howtokill-IE6
· 5 months ago
Someone write a worm that updates internet explorer!!!!!!!!!!!
Can Berkol
· 5 months ago
I support the move... ie 6 is a pain...
Hilary
· 5 months ago
I live in South Africa where the IE6 levels are really exceptionally high. Education standards are low and the cost of the web to download and upgrade IE8 is enormous . I have added the IE6 killer on my wordpress web site and I have seen the changes happening as more and more people are switching because they now know. Google just has to add the same kind of notification and people all over will start to switch faster than ever before.
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
Hilary
· 5 months ago
I live in South Africa where the IE6 levels are really exceptionally high. Education standards are low and the cost of the web to download and upgrade IE8 is enormous . I have added the IE6 killer on my wordpress web site and I have seen the changes happening as more and more people are switching because they now know. Google just has to add the same kind of notification and people all over will start to switch faster than ever before.
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
Hilary
· 5 months ago
I live in South Africa where the IE6 levels are really exceptionally high. Education standards are low and the cost of the web to download and upgrade IE8 is enormous . I have added the IE6 killer on my wordpress web site and I have seen the changes happening as more and more people are switching because they now know. Google just has to add the same kind of notification and people all over will start to switch faster than ever before.
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
Guest
· 5 months ago
The number might be actually 15-25% that you've mentioned. IE 6 still holds over 60% market share in countries in China and India, both of which have a commendable number of net users (thanks to the population, of course). I've seen lots of people who'll simply gape at you if you mention stuff like "tabs", "bookmarks", "browser" (YES!), "Mac", etc. All they need is the damn blue "e" icon on a pirated Windows XP to use Orkut and Google and Y! Messenger. Sad, but true.
Hilary
· 5 months ago
I live in South Africa where the the web is very slow, sorry about the multiple postings. Unintentional as Telkom the local telecoms operator runs a firewall like the one they have in china. It can have silly consequences as you have just seen.
Again apologies for the triplication
Guest
· 5 months ago
The number might be actually 15-25% that you've mentioned. IE 6 still holds over 60% market share in countries in China and India, both of which have a commendable number of net users (thanks to the population, of course). I've seen lots of people who'll simply gape at you if you mention stuff like "tabs", "bookmarks", "browser" (YES!), "Mac", etc. All they need is the damn blue "e" icon on a pirated Windows XP to use Orkut and Google and Y! Messenger. Sad, but true.
shahin
· 5 months ago
if i could digg this 1000000 times i would.. so many times IE6 has given me headaches during deployments
There's probably nothing left to say on the IE6 debate, but I do think there are a couple of positives - IE6 has highlighted the shifting trends in technology on the web (by not supporting any of them); if everything was keeping up this would be a less vocal area and things might pass un-noticed. And also, it's brought designers and developers together to bitch non-stop about a common enemy!
atomi
· 5 months ago
>Today though, we have far superior browsers like Firefox (Firefox), Safari (Safari), Opera >(Opera), and Chrome (Chrome), as well as Internet Explorer 8.
Which of these doesn't belong? Hint: It doesn't support HTML5.
Bashar
· 5 months ago
Amen!
Ian Hutchinson
· 5 months ago
I think its time for web developers and Microsoft to get hardcore with this. If everyone stop developing for it and drops support, and MS kills the ability to use IE6 forces users to update, it'll sure-fire get rid of IE6 quickly and effectively.
Seems a bit drastic, and to be honest, I wouldn't of suggested this a couple of years ago, but it's been hanging about for way too long.
Markavian
· 5 months ago
That'd be an event to see - google officially rejecting IE6 visitors.
"THE INTERNET HAS BROKE" ... time to upgrade.
Alfredo
· 5 months ago
Internet Explorer will never die. It's already part of Windows, and many people prefer to use what is already available for them. Only those who knew better, install a second browser.
Valeri
· 5 months ago
Did I hear "IE" must die for the web to move on? yeah, that's probably right :-)
aljuk
· 5 months ago
I thought it was already dead. Personally I stopped caring about it a couple of years ago.
darren paul azzopardi
· 5 months ago
When will people understand!
It's not IE6 thats the problem, its the fact that web designers/developers still continue to make sites it.
We have the power to stop this, by giving a scaled down version of the site, so people/users actually see the difference when using firefox and IE7/8. Anyway, sites are about content, if the content is good, then who cares about the bells and whistles.
Designers have been bending over backwards to please the client (just like me!), .."..yes we will make this compatible for IE6" for what, people seeing a site that has less css capabilities then my nan.
I had a client that insisted their site look the same in IE6 . Even though this was possible, i purely said no.
This is how i put it across to him....You can still use your analogue TV to view your favourite shows, but wouldn't it be best to see them in HD for free. Your company should be pushing boundaries, using the latest technology, giving the user a better experience of your product...So you choose....would you present your site in all its glory or use an outdated piece of rubbish.
So stop moaning about IE6, if we keep supporting it by giving in to the clients, then long live IE6 and down with designers that choose to build for it.
Web design is our future, we dictate where it goes dont let a piece of shit browser ruin it and your day.
Thanks Darren
darren paul azzopardi
· 5 months ago
When will people understand!
It's not IE6 thats the problem, its the fact that web designers/developers still continue to make sites it.
We have the power to stop this, by giving a scaled down version of the site, so people/users actually see the difference when using firefox and IE7/8. Anyway, sites are about content, if the content is good, then who cares about the bells and whistles.
Designers have been bending over backwards to please the client (just like me!), .."..yes we will make this compatible for IE6" for what, people seeing a site that has less css capabilities then my nan.
I had a client that insisted their site look the same in IE6 . Even though this was possible, i purely said no.
This is how i put it across to him....You can still use your analogue TV to view your favourite shows, but wouldn't it be best to see them in HD for free. Your company should be pushing boundaries, using the latest technology, giving the user a better experience of your product...So you choose....would you present your site in all its glory or use an outdated piece of rubbish.
So stop moaning about IE6, if we keep supporting it by giving in to the clients, then long live IE6 and down with designers that choose to build for it.
Web design is our future, we dictate where it goes dont let a piece of shit browser ruin it and your day.
Thanks Darren
Rory
· 5 months ago
I still have to support IE5, so I am wondering why we are not talking about how awful that browser is too...
Kate
· 5 months ago
"Imagine trying to use the social web, Microsoft Office, iTunes, IM, your video games, and all of your desktop apps…with a computer from 2001 (20 GB of space, 256 MB of RAM, anyone?)."
Some of us do. Not everyone can afford to spend hundreds on a new computer, thanks very much. And newer browsers don't tend to play ball with older equipment.
Stop being such a snob.
roniel
· 5 months ago
"IE6 Must Die" I say "IE Must Die" XD
Tnx bro! Nice one! Woooot!
Vin Vullo
· 5 months ago
But coding with IE6 in mind forces developers and designers to keep web pages clean and simple.
Michael
· 5 months ago
I have been designing for years, and IE6 has personally been a nightmare for me as a coder. I have had to spend sleepless nights making my sites work with the hellspawned browser.
I am so EXCITED to hear about all of this!
Philip
· 5 months ago
I've been very surprised by the stickiness of IE 6.0. I'm currently working on the design team for a large electronic publisher, we work in the B2B space, in reviewing our logs it seems that 90% of our users are IE 6.0 (our users are anyone from small to very large businesses). What is keeping business from moving to even IE 7.0, will businesses jump to newer browsers and bypass IE 7/8 or whatever?
We're in a catch 22 situation, we need to upgrade our environment, but can't until our customers upgrade their browsing platforms. If we upgrade our systems now we could see our clients going to our competitors in a very competitive market.
Philip
· 5 months ago
I've been very surprised by the stickiness of IE 6.0. I'm currently working on the design team for a large electronic publisher, we work in the B2B space, in reviewing our logs it seems that 90% of our users are IE 6.0 (our users are anyone from small to very large businesses). What is keeping business from moving to even IE 7.0, will businesses jump to newer browsers and bypass IE 7/8 or whatever?
We're in a catch 22 situation, we need to upgrade our environment, but can't until our customers upgrade their browsing platforms. If we upgrade our systems now we could see our clients going to our competitors in a very competitive market.
Technogati.com
· 5 months ago
It is true that IE 6 having lots of bugs because it's a older browser having old coding.World's 20 % users are still stuck with IE6 .Hope HTML 5 can become best basic language & tags creation will be like XML simple tags....
Technogati.com
· 5 months ago
It is true that IE 6 having lots of bugs because it's a older browser having old coding.World's 20 % users are still stuck with IE6 .Hope HTML 5 can become best basic language & tags creation will be like XML simple tags....
Rick Jones
· 5 months ago
If we can convince users to change their thinking, to realize they are holding themselves back, we can all advance.
The email system has to change also. The same stone-age thinking is holding back repairs to this spam-ridden mess (99.9% of my email is spam).
Technogati.com
· 5 months ago
It is true that IE 6 having lots of bugs because it's a older browser having old coding.World's 20 % users are still stuck with IE6 .Hope HTML 5 can become best basic language & tags creation will be like XML simple tags....
Andy
· 5 months ago
While you're at it, could you take IE7 and IE8 also?
And I would say you're wrong about why corporations stick with IE 6. We're stuck on it, because we have internal apps that will only work on IE6 and the vendors of these apps won't update them.
Problem is new apps coming in the door are now requiring IE 7 or better, which is something we can't deplpy.
Sad part is, if companies forced vendors to write to web standards, most of them would not be in this mess now.
cref
· 5 months ago
I pose that the world's biggest and most important websites form a committee. At least all the big news networks, all google websites (like search, maps, gmail, youtube), and all Microsoft and Yahoo websites. This committee comes together, say, 4 times a year and decides on which browsers are to be considered as outdated. Then, they issue a warning like: "your browser is outdated. from May 1st, this website will no longer work with this browser, please upgrade" and offer some download locations for all the latest browsers. Once the agreed period has past, all members block their website for the outdated browsers and only offer the download links. No matter if the website would still work with the old browser (so even Google search). No one does this now because of fear of losing visitors, that's why it should be an official committee. And by the way, Microsoft won't stall this because they too want their IE6 users to upgrade to IE8.
cref
· 5 months ago
I pose that the world's biggest and most important websites form a committee. At least all the big news networks, all google websites (like search, maps, gmail, youtube), and all Microsoft and Yahoo websites. This committee comes together, say, 4 times a year and decides on which browsers are to be considered as outdated. Then, they issue a warning like: "your browser is outdated. from May 1st, this website will no longer work with this browser, please upgrade" and offer some download locations for all the latest browsers. Once the agreed period has past, all members block their website for the outdated browsers and only offer the download links. No matter if the website would still work with the old browser (so even Google search). No one does this now because of fear of losing visitors, that's why it should be an official committee. And by the way, Microsoft won't stall this because they too want their IE6 users to upgrade to IE8.
Kevin Althaus
· 5 months ago
Yeah, MS is slapping the web developer in the face by not upgrading/updating the IE6 renering engine to comply to web standards. They don't care. All they care about is how MS stuff works with MS stuff. They are so closed to the outside world, it's out of hand. Do they not have qualified people working for them? Is it safe to assume that those who make compliant browsers (safari, firefox) are 'smarter'' than those at MS? It's a stretch, but c'mon! MS doesn't care about you and me, they care about themselves.
Gary
· 5 months ago
Why doesn't the government give everyone $50 vouchers to buy a "converter box" to make the exiting ie6 compatible with the new technology?
Ryan
· 5 months ago
I wholeheartedly agree. However, being an Analytics guy and havign had to figure this out, it is clear that anyone still using IE6 is going to use it until they purchase a new computer. There is no other reasoning behind not upgrading to 7 other than that, it "works" and I don't know how to upgrade anything on my computer and blah blah blah.
I think we are out of luck until more computers become obsolete.
Ryan
· 5 months ago
I wholeheartedly agree. However, being an Analytics guy and havign had to figure this out, it is clear that anyone still using IE6 is going to use it until they purchase a new computer. There is no other reasoning behind not upgrading to 7 other than that, it "works" and I don't know how to upgrade anything on my computer and blah blah blah.
I think we are out of luck until more computers become obsolete.
shoopak
· 5 months ago
The IE broswer is dead - it's a monopolistic broswer.
IE7 is not much better and should die with IE6. They're both a pain for designers.
John Smith
· 5 months ago
I am currently using IE6, IE7, IE8, and Firefox at home and work. The reason I nevr upgraded to IE7 and IE8 is because MS took away the feature in IE6 that allows me to configure my toolbar any way I want. In IE7/8 I am saddled with a search bar I don't want and I can not stack toolbars (buttons and menu for example) on the same row. So I end up having to use 2 inches of screen just for my IE toolbars. I will probably standardize on Firefox at some point but since I am a developer I will continue to use IE.
If you want to get rid of IE6, stop developing for it. I have seen many sites that break when browsed with IE6. Also, it would help if MS would engineer new IE versions so that the new features can be turned off if they are not wanted.
me
· 5 months ago
where is the opera logo?! arghrrr xD
Taylor Sloan
· 5 months ago
Invariably, there will be a large number of people who will complain that facebook, youtube, and digg won't support 'their browser' anymore, and make a big deal of having to upgrade.
I have to say I'm pretty excited about the video and audio tags. Hopefully wordpress.com will support them.
Sumit Khanna
· 5 months ago
I am dropping IE6 support on all future websites I build. I hate it and if you look at the old Netscape, NSCA Mosaic wars back in the 90's, you would never see a browser back then be kept around 2 years after it is obsolete (much less the 7+ years of IE6).
Just as a side note, I could easily browse the web and do video on the PC I had in 2001, a 667Mhz Pentium 3 with an nVidia GeForce2 graphics card. If I used Linux, I could even get cool 3D effects with compiz-fusion. Sure I wouldn't be able to do some of the more advanced coding/video editing/etc. but a good Linux base would still allow a system like that to be very usable.
It's interesting how OSX 10.5 and many Linux distributions are faster and more memory efficient than their predecessors. Vista is an albatross hanging around Microsoft's neck. With all the new Cell phone OSes (Palm's web OS, Google Android, Apple's iPhoneOS, etc.), the distribution of Linux based OLPCs (One laptop per child), and with Google finally releasing their own Linux distribution, I think we'll finally see the decline of Microsoft in the OS market just like we've seen in their web browser market.
jeff
· 5 months ago
If google really wants this to happen, why dont they start serving up a message to IE6 users to switch. Something like: "We notice you are using IE6, please consider upgrading to etc, etc.
With the massive usage of google.com, they can have the most influence on making this become a reality. Just 1 day of posting that message would prob convert about a million users.
Rich Wiggins
· 5 months ago
Your arguments for killing IE6 are compelling. Microsoft's browser war with Netscape was ruino us. But I find your conclusion fine and facile, ignoring millions of senior citizens, poor people, small businesses with no IT staff, the computer illiterate who nonetheless use computers, etc. What you propose will be just like the DTV transition in the US -- causing great confusion and loss of signal for those who can't afford cable or satellite.
Go ahead and push your proposal in the name of the future -- but you succeed, you'll disenfranchises millions of users -- only in a scattershot manner, as one site at a time drops IE6 support. Think of it as a DTV transition, only instead of on 1 day, over a period of years.
Like deciding that we're going to start driving on the left side of the road, like the Brits -- only we will phase in the transition over 2 years.
i_despise_IE
· 5 months ago
AMEN.
If you think IE6 is hard to work around for you fancy programmers, think how hard it is for idiots like me who are just barely scraping by with web design! i CAN'T hack a web page to work in IE6, so i stopped trying a year ago. DOWN WITH IE6!
Alexander Tsui (徐嘉豪)
· 5 months ago
Yeah, IE6 is the obstacle/road block to innovations in the web. Webmasters should do what game publisher webmasters do: Disable access to any page if accessed using IE6, tell them to switch or don't even let them TOUCH any other part of the site.
Dave
· 5 months ago
Here's a novel thought, stop coding for IE6! If people truly want to access your precious site, or application, they will upgrade. If not, you probably don't want them there anyways. Instead of wasting energy complaining about it and coding for it. Put that energy somewhere else. It's like the conversion from analog broadcast to digital broadcast. They are not broadcasting in analog anymore for the few who 'didn't get it'. If they really want their TV's to work, they will seek out a way. The same goes for the web, people will seek out a way. Jesus, you all sound like a whiny little bitch.
pandadesigns
· 5 months ago
The problem for most has been the pressure from clients and employers to support IE6 to maximize revenue, as most businesses are too afraid to push requirements on users when money is on the line. With big guns like youtube coming forward and dropping support, it's going to be a lot easier for designers and developers to convince clients that NOT supporting IE6 is actually going to save them money in the long run.
Sci-Fi Si
· 5 months ago
IE is the fastest browser for Flash BY FAR! The next best is Firefox (which is half the speed). If you were a programmer like I am you would have more respect for IE. I like Firefox to because of all those nice plugins.
It does sound as though your arguements are based entirely on emotion, with little of no knowledge of the mechanics of what goes on behind the scenes.
Dan Entin
· 5 months ago
Anyone have some good design examples - beyond the Facebook one in this post - for friendly, in-line prompts to IE6 users to upgrade or switch their browser?
haroldt
· 5 months ago
This is about control..and heavy content..while I can appreciate your wish to enhance programming and content I also realize this gives you more control. Something I don't want...nor do I want to look at a bunch of garbage before I hit what I really came for. That is one reason I detest Adobe Flash and like minded apps....If I loose control of my computer I may just as well trash it!! P.S. You really don't NEED the web...you're just hooked
Darryl
· 5 months ago
Start petitioning corporations who still use IE6. They're the biggest problem.
Ron Boyd
· 5 months ago
I know the answer to your question!... Well at least a partial answer: A massive number of people still using IE 6 are doing it because they are forced to!.
Why are they forced? Simple they are using pirated copies of Windows XP.. and are therefore stuck with SP1 or SP2. In order to upgrade beyond IE6 they must be able to grab SP3 and complete the Windows Validation!
That's the reason that I personally do not like to support IE6 in my work. As you mentioned if we as designers and developers stop supporting IE6 they will be forced to upgrade!
This is an excellent post. Personally I don't run a huge website - I'm not lucky enough. I do get more visitors than I could deal with than if they just came knocking on my door though. Personally I would have no hesitation in just dropping IE 6 completely.
I test my code in all the major browsers, but I must say this in defence of IE - It does run Flash content the fastest - way faster than all the rest.
Have a look at this in different browsers and you can see what I mean: (requires Flash 10)
I am in complete agreement. I work at a University and there are issues that come up all the time because of IE6, I hate having to fix code specifically for this browser -.-
Marshmelly
· 5 months ago
I'll chant in agreement with everyone else...down with IE6!! Its bad enough that I have to code my websites for IE7/8 (for some reason theres things that are always a bit screwy in IE as opposed to FF or Chrome, regardless of the version). I'm not even going to bother with 6.
Besides corporations, who obviously carry the bulk of IE6 users, there are definitely older people who may not even know to upgrade or know what a browser is that are still clinging on to IE6. My mom for instance...to get on the internet she clicks an icon that says "Comcast" (which basically is just a shortcut to IE6) so she has no idea what Internet Explorer even is (or probably a web browser for that matter). She also refers to the entirety of the internet as "the email". Don't worry, I've upgraded IE for her. =P
clarke thomas
· 5 months ago
Well....most large companies still use IE6, because their core softwares don't support IE7 or IE8, let alone FF, Opera, Safari. In my company, all of IT uses Firefox, for browsing, but has to use IE for the core ERP, JDEdwards. We recently upgraded to a newer version of JDEdwards, but even still we had to apply registry hacks to get IE7 to work.
JDE's support for IE8, FF, et al is nonexistent.
abdusfauzi
· 5 months ago
yeah! die you ie6!
Ollie Jones
· 5 months ago
You're right that IE6 is sucking huge design resources and stifling innovation.
But, the little software-as-a-service company I work for offers a product to hospital workers, and a whopping 75% of those users are on IE6. Fully 4.5% of them are still on Windows 2000 as well. Our users have precisely zero choice about the browsers or other software they use; their institutional IT departments make all those decisions. These folks are nurses and social workers, not doctors. One of the mistakes we can make in IT is to convince ourselves that our users have the power to make good decisions. They don't in our case.
I'd love to dump IE6 -- it's costly to support, and constrains us to inferior user interfaces -- but it's just not feasible.
Matt
· 5 months ago
God yes. I'm a web designer and most of the work I do is corporate. It's extremely frustrating having to cater towards dumb-ass businesses who are too lazy/ignorant to update their browsers.
jpatiaga
· 5 months ago
IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On
Dakota
· 5 months ago
I couldn't agree more. IE6 is nothing but a pain. I have the experience to design around it's problems, but it ads un-needed time and cost to building of websites and web apps. We need to kill it.
The recent trend that many designers have been following is reduced support for ie6. Basically not caring anymore to have a pixel perfect ie6 version and instead just doing enough to make the site usable in ie6, but perhaps missing polish or enhancements that other browsers see. This approach has merits but I think ie6 users don't realize that there is anything better, or that the page is actually a lot nicer looking than they see.
Dakota
· 5 months ago
I couldn't agree more. IE6 is nothing but a pain. I have the experience to design around it's problems, but it ads un-needed time and cost to building of websites and web apps. We need to kill it.
The recent trend that many designers have been following is reduced support for ie6. Basically not caring anymore to have a pixel perfect ie6 version and instead just doing enough to make the site usable in ie6, but perhaps missing polish or enhancements that other browsers see. This approach has merits but I think ie6 users don't realize that there is anything better, or that the page is actually a lot nicer looking than they see.
Mauricio Hernández
· 5 months ago
You're right, i agree with the idea and i hate ie6, but in some countries the people still using ie6 because have illegal copies of windows and they are afraid to install other browser, i think some people don't know that other browsers exist, in developed countries the ie6 death would be easier but in the third world are more resistance because some users like moms, grandpas and people with a lower level tech are afraid to install software, they think that are viruses.
And 20% of the users are a big piece of the market, if you have a company who sells online, can you afford to lose the 20% of your income?
I think you are right and the change can be start now.
Mauricio Hernández
· 5 months ago
You're right, i agree with the idea and i hate ie6, but in some countries the people still using ie6 because have illegal copies of windows and they are afraid to install other browser, i think some people don't know that other browsers exist, in developed countries the ie6 death would be easier but in the third world are more resistance because some users like moms, grandpas and people with a lower level tech are afraid to install software, they think that are viruses.
And 20% of the users are a big piece of the market, if you have a company who sells online, can you afford to lose the 20% of your income?
I think you are right and the change can be start now.
Evil Mammoth
· 5 months ago
I am, admittedly, an amateur and mostly code little pet projects, but even I've run into inexcusable trouble with IE6. Great article, and I don't know anyone who would disagree with it.
I think it's important to tell people what a designer/coder must go through in order to cater to outdated and significantly inferior web browsers.
Your Name*Cheryl
· 5 months ago
My question is: Why does anyone still use IE? There are so many better browers, including Chrome, Firefox, Opera. Give it up.
Logo3
· 5 months ago
I'd just like to point out that most people still use IE 6 because they just don't know there's a newer version, don't care that there's a newer version and don't know how to update to the newer version. They are the kind of people that would reply with "what's that do" when asked about windows update and "Is that some kind of animal" when asked about Firefox.
Jean
· 5 months ago
Wow, Yeah, IE6 needs to die. Hey friend I want to translate this text to portuguese, can I do?
Shola
· 5 months ago
Yes, IE6 must die. But here's the bottom line: Only Microsoft can be the one to change this. They're too busy with bing though, even though it's a search engine for websites that might very well use PNGs, etc.
Microsoft has been exceptional at listening to the lamentations of programmers, as well as notorious for NOT listening to the lamentations of "other" programmers...and dare I say--designers. Notice that 2/3 of the blatant disregard of veritable standards mentioned are design oriented.
Please MS, I love you, but dagnabbit encourage IE7/8 MORE. PNGs should not be just be a javascript luxury.
jseleven
· 5 months ago
You took the words right out of my mouth Brotha!
Shola
· 5 months ago
Yes, IE6 must die. But here's the bottom line: Only Microsoft can be the one to change this. They're too busy with bing though, even though it's a search engine for websites that might very well use PNGs, etc.
Microsoft has been exceptional at listening to the lamentations of programmers, as well as notorious for NOT listening to the lamentations of "other" programmers...and dare I say--designers. Notice that 2/3 of the blatant disregard of veritable standards mentioned are design oriented.
Please MS, I love you, but dagnabbit encourage IE7/8 MORE. PNGs should not be just be a luxury.
Jim
· 5 months ago
As far as I'm concerned ie7 needs to die as well. Why don't they just have a forced upgrade. The only reason why people still have it is because they are too dumb to know how to upgrade. If Microsoft pushed an upgrade through the browser and forced the user to upgrade we wouldn't have problems. All browsers should just automatically upgrade anyways. People are fine with auto upgrading their OS, a browser is no big deal compared to that.
Kamarey
· 5 months ago
Everything right, but I think all these relates to IE7 and IE8 - they also don't support HTML5, as well as some other standards.
Kamarey
· 5 months ago
Everything right, but I think all these relates to IE7 and IE8 - they also don't support HTML5, as well as some other standards.
Misty Anderson
· 5 months ago
After playing around with Firefox and having fun customizing it, I can't imagine anyone stuck on IE. Actually, I can. Some people do well just to figure out how to turn a computer on and open up a browser. The idea of upgrading their software by themselves is horrific.
khack
· 5 months ago
IE6 is dead. But IE must die!
Acronyms
· 5 months ago
The number 1 reason why IE6 is still so popular is corporate networks that sit on XP.
Here is a little secret for you - Google Chrome OS is built on the Linux kernel. Not on Chrome browser.
Dirk Worring
· 5 months ago
In my recent years working as a freelancer, I stated in every offer I made to clients that I will NOTsupport IE6. And as an option to make a compatible version for IE6, I charged them an additional 50% of the original price. And it was easy to explain: I showed them a couple of sites, great looking and working in standart compliant browsers, and then in IE6. Some of them where not willing to pay the additional 50% - in the first place. Coming back when their clients where to 1.0 to get the message: Update your browser.
I wonder why facebook suggests IE7, it may be less crappy but it's still full of flaws that bug developers' heads and kill user experience. The best would be to kill IE all together, any versions.
Tetsui
· 5 months ago
I have a great idea. All those in the web design/dev arena decide on a date when we all stop using ie6. It will be a unified push to get rid of the enemy. I think we have pandered to its oppresive regine far too long, lets stand up for "ie must die day". Please post this everywhere so that we can spread the word.
Dirk Worring
· 5 months ago
Why do we not all just join http://iedeathmarch.org/ and stop supporting IE6 all together right now?
anonymous
· 5 months ago
Backwards compatibility is important, but it is sufficient to note previous versions of the current operating systems browsers. If you test your site with Firefox 2, IE8 and Safari 4, it will work everywhere now or when you click "update" in your OS.
Mike
· 5 months ago
The funny part of this is that the people using ie6 will never see it because they're not web savvy enough to be interested in a site like mashable. These are people who bought their first computer 10 years ago and can barely understand how a browser works, let alone that there are options out there for others. They see a sign like "please upgrade your browser" and they have no clue what the word "browser" means. They just know that the little "e" gets them to the web and they can get to what they want to get to, and if a site doesn't work with ie, they just call their friend and tell them that the link didn't work. My mom is 56 and she and all of her friends are like this. My cousin is 42 and she's like that too. Tech resistant people who are just now getting on facebook and have heard of twitter on the news, but are afraid to try it are the people that are running ie6 and they're not going to stop until the HARDWARE gives out. And then there's the people who are brave enough to hit "upgrade now" and get a new browser and are disoriented by not having the back or refresh buttons in the right place, they just go back out of fear.
A lot of people will say - well we don't care about the technophobes, but the fact is, MOST people aren't tech savvy. The IT industry seems huge, but it's really a tiny fraction of the population and most non IT people aren't interested in learning new software or the latest meme. They want to watch their funny videos or mail their children and then get off and watch TV.
If people want to make the greater public aware of this, then the mozilla foundation should start running TV spots on basic cable channels at 9:30 at night saying: Do you get to the internet with an icon that looks like this? (shows IE 6 icon) BOO! Find a faster internet with an icon that looks like this (shows Firefox, Opera, Chrome, IE8 icons.) Go to makeminefaster.com
Then the real question comes, will chrome or firefox 3.5 or IE8 work on 7 year old hardware and will it really be faster for them?
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"My cousin is 42 and she's like that too. Tech resistant people who are just now getting on facebook and have heard of twitter on the news, but are afraid to try it are the people that are running ie6 and they're not going to stop until the HARDWARE gives out."
Don't forget that software runs out too. It happens when software is no longer updated.
"Then the real question comes, will chrome or firefox 3.5 or IE8 work on 7 year old hardware and will it really be faster for them?"
I don't know about speed but usability is better and security too. It's easier to change browser later when the changes are small. Waiting ten years without updating and then you don't know how to use computers because everything is changed.
It is recommended to make major update in software every 1-3 years (big operating system updates like service pack, new browser and so on) and check security updates every month. Of course last one is mainly for Windows users because in Windows there is little integration in software.
Toth Balint
· 5 months ago
I don't agree with the CSS and PNG transparency being an issue. If you are a good web designer you should by now know how to slice _ANY_ design to make up for IE6 drawbacks. Yeah sure there are some fancy JavaScripts that can fall apart, but they can be hacked. I don't think IE6 is the problem here. The problem for designers is that there are numerous browsers out there that you have to test on... And min. 2 platforms Mac and Windows (If you don't count Linux). That's FF2, FF3, Opera, Chrome, IE6, IE7, IE8, Safari for Windows, and almost all of them for Mac. And it's not true that IE should take all the blame. All of these aforementioned browsers have there own stupid anomalies that you have to tend to not to mention the differences between the same browser on different platform. The easiest would be that there would only be ONE browser and then life would be easy.
Last but not least huge corporations will never switch from IE6, because they use customized, hacked versions of IE6 that don't suck as much as the one available to the general public.
anonymous
· 5 months ago
Slicing makes website operate poorly in modern equipment like mobile devices. BTW in my country there is maybe more users using Linux-based OSes than IE6..
Right way to do job is using standards and picking lowest common denominator. And I think that it's the Firefox 2. It is a most rudimentary browser what is the operating system default browser in current or previous operating systems after installing operating system updates. You can find it from example in Solaris 10 or Debian 4.
After site is "ready", test it on IE8 and Safari 4, it probably works everywhere. Also works on mobile devices because if you keep document structure correct (no table layout shit) it works directly, or when you turn off CSS. Sites that I have done, have worked well on Symbian and iPhone OS with CSS.
Davis Boudreau
· 5 months ago
It's a shame that there are so many people running IE6. The people that are in this category are users who refuse to upgrade their computers or simply do not have the skills to update. Unfortunately, I know of many MAC users who are running very old versions of Safari. Moving the world from HTML 4 to 5 is a great idea however; many websites are not even HTML 4 compliant. Not everyone is a techie and we have to consider this in our developement efforts.
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"Not everyone is a techie and we have to consider this in our developement efforts."
Well, my rule of thumb works brilliantly. I don't use Flash or other crap and I try to make site works directly in browser, and there is plenty of backward compatiblity. And there is not even a need for thinking what browser or operating system there is. I just pick the most rudimentary browser from previous operating system releases.
Yes, I dropped IE6 when Vista came out. Still I get five year backward compatiblity with CSS because there is update for Windows XP.
Keller Hawthorne
· 5 months ago
Really well written post Ben. I've had issues with IE6 for some time as I'm a web designer. I can't stand finding out that yet another cool design doesn't load right in IE6. The constant need to revise for use across multiple channels or the need to downgrade code due to out dated computer technology absolutely drives me nuts.
I had used IE until I turned 26. Now, I'm a full on, hard core FireFox fan. IE7 made some good adjustments, but it still doesn't compete with FF.
Keller Hawthorne
· 5 months ago
Really well written post Ben. I've had issues with IE6 for some time as I'm a web designer. I can't stand finding out that yet another cool design doesn't load right in IE6. The constant need to revise for use across multiple channels or the need to downgrade code due to out dated computer technology absolutely drives me nuts.
I had used IE until I turned 26. Now, I'm a full on, hard core FireFox fan. IE7 made some good adjustments, but it still doesn't compete with FF.
Toth Balint
· 5 months ago
First of all in Europe every software costs 2x-3x more than in the US (just because). And there are countries that 1 copy of Windows Vista is 1 monthly salary of an average person. Don't be so ignorant!
Also I think it's very arrogant to tell visitors to upgrade their browser. You are a web designer/developer your TASK is to create a website for the client that works on all major browsers, and 15-20% is still major.
If you educate yourself while evolving as a web designer/developer you probably will come face-to-face with the handful problems that IE6 causes after max. 4-5 sites.
Stop whining, if you don't know how to slice a design to make the site browser compatible, then outsource the project to an Eastern country. Win-win situation :)
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"Also I think it's very arrogant to tell visitors to upgrade their browser. You are a web designer/developer your TASK is to create a website for the client that works on all major browsers, and 15-20% is still major."
Updating software is norm. Think again. If you don't update, computer gets filled malware and slows down, programs stop working and web pages start looking wierd. It is enough to support previous version of operating system + updates. Currently FF2, IE8 and Safari 4. Kill IE6. Flash and Java too if possible.
Cost doesn't matter
· 5 months ago
There are many free operating systems.
Toth Balint
· 5 months ago
You can outsource slicing projects for low as $50/page nowadays. Stop whining.
Rich Wiggins
· 5 months ago
Anonymous wrote "Updating software is norm. Think again. If you don't update, computer gets filled malware and slows down, programs stop working and web pages start looking wierd. It is enough to support previous version of operating system + updates. Currently FF2, IE8 and Safari 4. Kill IE6. Flash and Java too if possible."
Reading Web sites with your eyes is the norm. Walking into the public restroom is the norm. Listening to major political speeches or lectures using your ears is the norm.
A good friend's parents live an hour away. The least little thing causes these folks, in their 80s, to become paralyzed on their computer. For technical reasons we can't set up remote desktop, so any change requires a truck roll on our part.
There are millions of people who simply can't cope with computer updates.
Updating is the norm? It is a crime! On my newish HP laptop, everybody wants my attention for "updating software" --
-- WIndows itself -- Office -- HP's maintenance tool -- Norton antivirus -- Java VM -- iTunes -- wants to update Safari, which I don't want to update -- Roxio -- Browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox battling for supremacy) -- The damn fingerprint scanner
Now you tell me how folks in their 80s who are barely able to cope with a new dialog box have an obligation to update their software. Are you telling me they also must update their 1991 Oldsmobile? Just because that's the norm?
Since it's the norm to use eyes and ears while navigating the Web, should section 508 be repealed? Since it's the norm to use a mouse to navigate, should keyboard shortcuts be eliminated?
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"Updating is the norm? It is a crime!"
Wrong. Even high quality software, there is 1-3 bugs in every 1000 line of code. In low quality software there is 20-30 bugs in every 1000 line of code. Some of them are security holes and full software systems have hundreds of millions lines of code. It is a crime if these are not fixed! People use computers for money transfer and shopping so software must be secure.
Of course new versions rewrite the code and there becomes new bugs so the only way is to upgrade the security holes when they are found.
"On my newish HP laptop, everybody wants my attention for "updating software" --"
Yes, I know that Windows maintenance is a hell. If Windows maintenance is too difficult, I recommend using Suse, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, Solaris or something else easier operating system where operating system updates about everything from one button.
I don't know reason why I should make website work for those people who don't know how to maintain their operating system. If the layout is broken they don't know reason because their computer is anyway full of malware and behaving odd.
It is good thing if they learn to use their operating system. I made my sites for those who use computers as usual. I don't rush for update but eventually it is necessary.
Rich Wiggins
· 5 months ago
Your answer is completely non-responsive to the point I made. Of course it's better to update your software. Sadly, this became most evident in the era of Blaster a few years ago. It was my job to enourage 45,000 students at a major university to start updating their software.
The point is simply that millions of people are not capable of coping with the complexity of understanding what's a needed, legitimate update and what's itself spyware or spam. You might as well insist that people who can't hear must get cochlear implants if they want to "hear" the major political address in real time.
Think of the inability to cope with software updates -- and their implications, which Anonymous admits are not always beneficial -- as a form of handicap. Millions of people have this handicap.
Moreover, everyone updates their software cavalierly, and without coordination. Just now Adobe Reader won't play nice with IE 8 on my computer. Who broke it? My guess is IE8 -- which I recently "upgraded" to.
A wise business consultant once told an audience that if you buy a piece of hardware, for instance a drill press, expect to spend 1/10th of its cost on training. If you buy a piece of software, expect to spend 10 times its cost on training. The reason? The malleability of software.
If we thought of software as firmware, and every vendor limited "upgrades" to once a year or when only essential, then manufacturers and OS vendors could certify bundles that were known to work. Then we'd make that 1 hour truck roll once every year or 2. _______________________________________________________________________ Wrong. Even high quality software, there is 1-3 bugs in every 1000 line of code. In low quality software there is 20-30 bugs in every 1000 line of code. Some of them are security holes and full software systems have hundreds of millions lines of code. It is a crime if these are not fixed! People use computers for money transfer and shopping so software must be secure.
Of course new versions rewrite the code and there becomes new bugs so the only way is to upgrade the security holes when they are found.
matt
· 5 months ago
If you are a corporate environment that has invested thousands of hours in creating a desktop image that does everything required of it for business purposes and meets the security standards required in your industry, upgrading software is incredibly expensive, makes your environment less secure as opposed to more, and is not to be done just for the hell of it.
Upgrading to a new browser because it works better on Facebook, Digg, Youtube, and 99.99999999% of the sites maintained by people commenting on this thread would amount to upgrading for the hell of it for the vast majority of companies out there because most website have no valid business purpose, and those that do aren't talking about killing IE6.
Figure Windows 7 SP1 before Microsoft makes a serious push to get rid of XP in the enterprise. 3 years after that before most have made the leap. That puts us at around 2014 before we can count on IE 8 being ubiquitous. Timeframe for Firefox and Safari is going to be approximately never.
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"The point is simply that millions of people are not capable of coping with the complexity of understanding what's a needed, legitimate update and what's itself spyware or spam."
I know. That's why I don't expect people to know how install browser which passes Acid3 100/100 and let them find out how to get site working, I will do the job and I only expect them to click operating system update button if web site looks wierd. And my rule of thumb, there is no rush to update. I make sites compatible with older browsers from several months to several years. Of course web sites are not updated when there is fancy new technology. They are updated when needed giving more time to update browser.
People who don't NEVER update find everything rotten in web gradually at some stage.
"Moreover, everyone updates their software cavalierly, and without coordination. Just now Adobe Reader won't play nice with IE 8 on my computer. Who broke it? My guess is IE8 -- which I recently "upgraded" to."
This is problem only in "Windows" brand operating systems where is little software integration. It is better to select operating system where is much as possible, what software you use in integrated package.
pandadesigns
· 5 months ago
"The point is simply that millions of people are not capable of coping with the complexity of understanding what's a needed, legitimate update and what's itself spyware or spam. You might as well insist that people who can't hear must get cochlear implants if they want to "hear" the major political address in real time."
Last I checked stupid isn't a disability, and that seems kind of insulting that you would take intellectually lazy people and compare them to people with real, genuine disabilities.
Making a site friendly for those who CANNOT change their situation is a given (visual/audio impairments). If anything, modern browsers are allowing for far more options for the disabled in order to access the web. So, in reality, it's your stupid, frightened web users who are holding the genuinely disabled back by forcing developers to spend more time making a site compatible and less time making a site completely accessible to those with a genuine need.
pandadesigns
· 5 months ago
"If you are a corporate environment that has invested thousands of hours in creating a desktop image that does everything required of it for business purposes and meets the security standards required in your industry, upgrading software is incredibly expensive, makes your environment less secure as opposed to more, and is not to be done just for the hell of it."
Solution: Hire someone familiar with the concept of scalability.
matt
· 5 months ago
It's not a question of scalability. Scalability has nothing to do with this at all. Not sure where that's coming from.
The issues are sometimes silly security requirements, the resource consuming nature of the testing and documentation process, and the fact that this simply isn't an issue for the IT departments involved. They don't care about the sites that consider this a problem (my site included) because they aren't on the list of sites they have to support.
If you want them to upgrade, convince salesforce.com or dnb.com to stop supporting IE6. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels.
Jeff
· 4 months ago
Well I write websites to handle thousands of global users a day. When we deal with sites that generate millions a day in sales or handle thousands of customer service requests a day the last thing I'm going to do is throw 10% of my users into the call queue. Its great to be arrogant and say that everyone should update there computer but that provides nothing to a very large segment of people other than more frustration. Providing the 'how to solve the problem' document to a user is just common sense.
But if your websites aren't commercial and don't have to deal with real people that is great. On the websites I work on we call these people customers and we want the business.
Panda Designs
· 5 months ago
Hey let's all just stop moving so fast because people can't keep up! The internet is scary, let's just shut it down so the elderly don't have to live in fear. That seems like the best solution.
pandadesigns
· 5 months ago
"Are you telling me they also must update their 1991 Oldsmobile?"
If they don't maintain it the car will eventually break down/become unsafe to the point where if a cop sees them, they'll probably be fined and the car will eventually be towed. Maintenance is a part of life, and if you can't handle it you probably need some assistance in your daily activities, in which case you have bigger things to worry about besides seeing websites the way they were meant to be seen.
anonymous
· 5 months ago
"If they don't maintain it the car will eventually break down/become unsafe to the point where if a cop sees them, they'll probably be fined and the car will eventually be towed."
I think infected computers should be disconnected from Internet by ISP and send bill to customer. This will teach people to maintain and use decent versions of their software.
Jeff
· 4 months ago
When Microsoft first released IE7 they required users to install the 'windows genuine advantage' upgrade to get it. This meant that only legit copies of WinXP could download IE7 without becoming crippled. It didn't take long before the news went out telling people around the globe not to upgrade unless they knew they were running a legal and legit copy of winxp. Unfortunately this message and windows updates natural choice to force WGA down users throats has resulted in users not patching there OS's or upgrading them.
We need to provide users with a message explaining why it is safe to upgrade and that it will not lock up there copy of winxp like it did with WGA.
anonymous
· 4 months ago
"Unfortunately this message and windows updates natural choice to force WGA down users throats has resulted in users not patching there OS's or upgrading them.
We need to provide users with a message explaining why it is safe to upgrade and that it will not lock up there copy of winxp like it did with WGA."
This is completely users own problem. Not developers problem. If web site doesn't work, user must update operating system browser, switch browser or switch operating system. It is their choice.
Jeff
· 4 months ago
At some level you are very correct. On another we developers need to provide a method for users to use or site or service. if our user are unable to use our site or service because of incompatibility we need to make a choice. Either we ignore them and lose them as users or we provide them with the information they will need to upgrade or install a product that is compatible. As a developer many problems relate to how we communicate instructions to users to get the results we want. Simply raising your hands and saying 'not my problem' is a very junior solution.
anonymous
· 4 months ago
"if our user are unable to use our site or service because of incompatibility we need to make a choice."
Well, Windows XP users have the 8 years backwards compatibility.. It is strange if we should also support illegal operating systems too because users do not dare to update. Giving technical support for pirated software is just wrong.
Jeff
· 4 months ago
"It is strange if we should also support illegal operating systems too because users do not dare to update. Giving technical support for pirated software is just wrong."
You do realize that there are more pirated copies of XP out there than actual legit ones right? We aren't providing technical support for pirated software we are providing technical support regardless of the source or legality of the software. We have a problem users are not upgrading IE6, there are several causes of this problem, one antiquated systems running win98 cannot be upgraded, two it departments not upgrading organizations while also not giving users the ability to upgrade themselves, and three users who know there system is pirated and won't hit the 'update' for fear of WGA.
There is nothing I can do about the first 2. I can't force a user to upgrade there system from win98 to anything else. I also can't change how IT departments role out updates or what permissions they provide to there users. i can however provide the link and explanation to the third group. If I can reach a third of them and get them to upgrade its worthy of doing. besides we're not talking about anything major here, javascript detect and redirect to a plain jane web page with a link and brief couple of words.
In the real world we know that no shortage of our users are using pirated software. Microssoft has even realized this and now provides all security fixes as well as the IE upgrades for free even to pirated copies of XP. All we have to do is tell our users this fact and that they don't have to be afraid of upgrading. This isn't providing technical support this is just common sense and providing a link and a paragraph of text.
anonymous
· 4 months ago
"You do realize that there are more pirated copies of XP out there than actual legit ones right?"
Probably in Asia. In western countries.. I do not have a clue. Most of the computers sold preinstalled Windows are legal.
"We aren't providing technical support for pirated software we are providing technical support regardless of the source or legality of the software."
So we forget IE6 and put help text in the site: "turn off CSS if site is unusable or use newer browser". Then we are providing technical support regardless what kind of old crap user is using.
"We have a problem users are not upgrading IE6, there are several causes of this problem, one antiquated systems running win98 cannot be upgraded, two it departments not upgrading organizations while also not giving users the ability to upgrade themselves, and three users who know there system is pirated and won't hit the 'update' for fear of WGA."
Supporting antiquated systems is kind of wrong too. These are the tools of cyberwarfare and used in denial-of-service attacks.
"There is nothing I can do about the first 2. I can't force a user to upgrade there system from win98 to anything else. I also can't change how IT departments role out updates or what permissions they provide to there users."
We can make user experience on antiquated browser stressful and give clear hint to user that the problem is in antiquated software. This will create pressure to upgrade. It is wrong to force users to upgrade but it is right to not care of them if they do not update, and invest better user experience on modern browsers and mobile platforms. If site looks like shit on IE6 and user knows reason then it is not a problem.
Sad thing is that Windows 2000 users have to install new browser. I think it is acceptable to support only previous versions of operating systems, like Windows XP.
@nomadone
· 4 months ago
Just waiting for some really super geeky hacker type to create the ultimate IE6 killer which forces the world to upgrade in a matter of days!
anonymous
· 4 months ago
Google will kill all IE browsers. They only need to switch Youtube and Google Video on HTML 5.
4MIN
· 4 months ago
It is high time already, but you can sit on the old and open to more viruses than the new browsers browsers.
Tomaz
· 4 months ago
Most non PC literate users I work with think they are doing the right thing by always saying "No" to anything the computer asks of them - including Microsoft updates of course, and god knows what else. So they have moved on from the good old days of accepting any download no matter how dodgy, but haven't quite got to the point where they realise that just a tiny bit of brain power might be necessary when using a computer.
One day maybe... Until Google withdraws support i guess that day is a while off.
Anonymous
· 4 months ago
Want the answer ? People not good with computer and running on Windows 2000 Using IE and can't update to superiors version Suck but we have to deal with it....
Greg
· 4 months ago
Well, not really. That's the whole point. The royal "we" doesn't HAVE to deal with it... there's a culture of dealing with it which isn't easily displaced, but that's not an etched in stone mandate... even bosses and clients can eventually see the light. lol
Microsoft doesn't support Windows 2000 anymore. Why is it that web design is one of the only areas in which we feel the obligation to provide support past the date of expiry? Your own computer that you're using to view this message is in most likelihood out of warranty and not "supported" anymore. Many of us have cars that are out of warranty and we have to deal with maintenance with cold hard cash.
If, as a community, more and more people refuse to code "to" IE6, more and more people (even in these alleged corporations) will simply NEED to switch in order to use web applications properly. SOMEBODY, at some level of corporate or government, has the authority to say, "Yes, we have that custom IE6," (aside--I've never seen these companies, but I suppose the exist...?) "but for other tasks, the IT department will be adding FireFox/Opera/whatever".
For that matter, if IE6 is really THAT entrenched in the backbone of a corporate or government structure, there is very readily available virtualization. Run a virtual IE6 for legacy, and install IE8 to the real OS... there are many ways to skin the cat, but IT in "big government" or "big corporate" won't do it until they have to.
And if we keep supporting IE6, they'll never have to....
Swashata
· 4 months ago
I wonder why the hell dont they give an auto update option to atleast update to a better IE version! This is the ....... of MS :X
RMPL
· 4 months ago
There's one good thing in IE 6: that you can make file available offline (actually from the section of cache), not to mention backward compatibility ..
IE 6 Liberation Front
· 4 months ago
This is a Communique from the IE6 Liberation Front:
We will never surrender to this IE6 genocide… as long as there are grannies still using a 1999 Gateway with Windows 98, as long as there are children in Africa using dialup on an abandoned Dell Optpilex from Seattle, as long as there are mobilizer web sites to strip the CSS out of your web site,
We will carry forth with IE6 SP1 holding onto the faintest hope of SP2.
IE 6 will rise again. "Hasta la victoria siempre."
888chilly
· 4 months ago
look at what ie6 lover are telling us at saveie6.com: Places Internet icon on desktop (you can do that with firefox and safari and everyone else duh) High security (many updates)(oh sure, firefx can actually block ads) More screen space thanks to no tabs(??? why would anyone not want tabs)(you can also disable them in firefox) Lightweight (no support for silly PNG transparency, etc)(ok... ) integrated in os no need to install clearly these guys dont know technology at all and those were everything comared to other browsers, and those reasons are crap look at these ones which are even worse: Proven technology. It’s been around since 2001. (it old duh) NO bugs. (well theres no bugs in the rest) No unnecessary features that use up valuable screen space, such as tabs. (lame) Handles GIF transparency. First with AJAX technology (XMLHttpRequest, available since IE5). (but its not the last) Renders all pages as they are supposed to look by the only standard that really matters.(yeah right) Consistent rendering of pages makes it the web designer’s best friend. (they are designers worst friends) The most aesthetically pleasing web browser logo. (does that matter) Highly secure (has received lots of security updates). (firefox is more secure) Clear interface. Used by 97.34% of all internet users according to a onestat survey released July 28, 2003.
ps they say that ie6 renders faster then firefox and safari
dancastellano
· 4 months ago
We are experiencing similar problems with IE6 here in Japan. Tabulating over 570 million unique accesses of our access analysis service in July, IE6 was the #2 browser in Japan with a 24.3% share.
It looks like IE6 is here to stay, unfortunately. I suppose the next step is to turn off styles for IE6 users. This site has a countdown until the death of IE6. http://www.ie6death.com/
Curtis LaMalfa
· 4 months ago
Here's a web site we've started linking to at my work on all our web sites. http://www.ie6nomore.com/
rida
· 4 months ago
+1. IE6 MUST DIE!!!! ))))
fwolle
· 3 months ago
Hooray, thats a good decision, because IE6 makes more problems than the other browsers. It's a wonder that so many sites support it today, although it's 8 a years old program,and unsafe too. I can't understand people who're crying about that decision, because the browser haven't supported the newest technology in the year 2001 and doesn't support it now, so why living in the stone age when the future is only one step away. I agree with that decision,
IE6 must die, fast and painless.
fwolle
· 3 months ago
Hooray, thats a good decision, because IE6 makes more problems than the other browsers. It's a wonder that so many sites support it today, although it's 8 a years old program,and unsafe too. I can't understand people who're crying about that decision, because the browser haven't supported the newest technology in the year 2001 and doesn't support it now, so why living in the stone age when the future is only one step away. I agree with that decision,
All Comments
I was just waiting for someone to ask, really.
Take a look at some of the most popular core apps used in healthcare, legal, and education. They are nightmare systems that definitely need some new competitors to push their technology forward.
There are large, expensive, mission-critical systems only work with IE6. Their interfaces were built in those heady days of 95% penetration, when the fact that they wouldn't work with any other browser was just not a concern. Because of the way they were architected, it will take huge piles of money to fix them; support for fancy new web tricks is unlikely to make a compelling business case.
And it's not likely that Microsoft will drop IE6 anytime soon because of their legal and business relationships to the companies that produced these systems. This is why they have had to put so much emphasis (with varying success) on backwards compatibility, even if it interfered with standards support.
I hope that corporate IT will start looking towards open source and hope that open source starts making itself much more attractive to corporations.
These same companies unfortunately don't realize that they would very quickly make back any money spent on upgrades. The hours upon hours of extra work web developers and designers must spend on their IE6-dependent intranets, etc. costs them boatloads. Due to IE6's poor usability and other issues, the sites created for it no doubt harm productivity, too. If nothing else, it's safe to say there would be a boost in productivity and efficiency with better systems.
I see that this problem does not persists with product like web apps .... which are mostly innovative ;) Yes today it's time consuming process to cope up the web app with all these browser versions. But scrap things should be left at some stage ! as it makes sense ;) MOVE ON...
Tell your users to upgrade or go elsewhere. It's as simple as that. I posted this on my website:
"We're terribly sorry, but Internet Explorer 6 (which you are using) is not supported on this website. While we'd like you to enjoy the site, we simply can no longer spend the resources to incorporate this browser due to incompatibility. Please visit the [link to MS website] to upgrade and be aware there is no cost to do so. Thank you for your understanding."
To date, over 126 people have clicked the upgrade link. It's a small website, but that's 126 more people who finally took the plunge to stay current.
Coders must take the responsibility to force the upgrades. Otherwise, people simply won't do it.
*Note: We also prevent IE6 users from reporting web errors and simply tell them an upgrade will fix them all.
Help the rest of us coders out, please. I beg of you.
MS or Google, anyone can take the lead by stopping support
@envisiongroup
But: "with a computer from 2001 (20 GB of space, 256 GB of RAM, anyone?)."
I´m sure, that you mean "256 MB of RAM". ;)
Regards,
Tom
Because it's companies controlling the majority of the users behind that browser I doubt we'll be rid of it anytime soon.
The power to change the landscape of the web really is in the developers' hands. If a corporation was no longer able to properly access resources and clients via the web, they will have to change or die. This might result in some miffed individuals, but according to Ben Parr's article, we're only talking about 15 - 25% of surfers. This is a sizable number of eyeballs, but it's a sizable number that should be made to upgrade or sit out the future.
IF the world were to band together to kill IE6 (yes that does sound cheesy) I think the only way to do it would be refuse service through search. If every major search engine killed IE6 users they would be forced to upgrade. Now who ever can convince any search engine to cut that kind of market share...
If/Once they do that, those companies will be forced to upgrade to Windows 7 and IE8.
If a company has software that is happily running solid on win2k boxes why should they be forced to upgrade? If it ain't broke, it don't need to be fixed.
Locking their users down to a buggy/non standard-compliant browser (for which the standards are still evolving) is the biggest problem, but in these cases they should roll out a browser that is not tied to the operating system ala firefox, chrome or safari.
As you point out, most IE6 users nowadays are in corporations that don't see a reason to upgrade or depend on applications built on IE6. For these kind of users it's perfectly possible to provide basic functionality (necessary anyway if we want to respect the principle of accessibility on the web) while the main core of users get the whole kaboodle. Providing that basic functionality shouldn't cost a lot and should be relatively straightforward.
So, we can start using all the cool stuff now. Some users won't be able to use our sites fully, but that has always been the case. If we build with accessibility and graded enhancement in mind, IE6 need not be a concern. Unless the client specifically asks for it, of course, and then we can explain why they'll need to pay more, why some things simply won't work and whether it's worth it.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/200...
The reason nothing actually wants to fully block it, is because people will stop using it. If Google, for example, stopped supporting IE6, employers would just tell their employees to use Yahoo!. And an smaller websites (Google is the largest after all) would have an even less support.
IE6 dieing out is in the hands of users.
While between laptops last year, I found myself using public libraries for Internet access rather frequently. I used Portable Firefox 3 on a variety of old, crusty machines and never had a problem of any kind.
The option is there, even in these corporate environments - it is completely possible to have both IE6 and Firefox installed at the same time. IE6 for whatever random web application your company needs, and Firefox for the rest.
What's the point you fucking idiot?
Go back to your hole, idiots will be idiots, and all you're doing is joining them. Tragic.
Some people's kids.
im looking for a job with a tech/research company through Twitter - its a decoy. Ur attention 2 detail is amazing. I work with hammer & nails & use iTwitter with iPhone 3GS. The town I leave in, it takes me 5 mins to get to work - about the same time it takes to load a page with IE. I love MS Office though - especially Excel ...my bread; I dont like butter.
All the best Denis! :)
I looked at your other posts, too. How are you trying to make a statement when your spelling is idiotic? Shame. And you want to be taken seriously. "im", "its", "leave" instead of "live"...COME ON. If you're in the early states of internet marketing, you should be aborted by whomever convinced you that you can actually be one.
"early states of internet marketing" or "early stages". Considering on the key board that the "G" is below the "T", u probably were referring to stages - LOL. UR probably in the state of Nevada now. Make sure that when UR quizzing me on spelling, u actually spell right. UR lack of attention to detail is imputed with the IE thinking.
I think the word marketing is 2000 & late - its more like innovation. With the IE, u have marketing; with Chrome, u have innovation.
Come on & get registered. http://disqus.com/people/d1b18369dff4d231fbf094...
Another Ghost Folloer , sorry Follower!
Im a lover not a hater - remember that! :)
If people won't do it what can they do?
Kind of like digital tv.
Just do it.
Kind of like digital tv.
Just do it.
Short of that, websites may want to follow Facebook's example by recommending a browser update/switch, when people attempt to connect with IE6.
It's free, open source, will probably run like a champ on your machine and it has tons of fun kids games included!
This is not something that will be fixed, even by the all the tempting features anticipated by HTML 5, because of the desire to upgrade online technology. Short of the entire web moving on without IE6, visitors lost during business hours be damned, there will always be companies and their IT departments fighting tooth and nail to not have to pay for a major overhaul to their Intranets, and the browser they support.
In the end, it won't be technology upgrades that does the browser in. It's getting the companies with corporate intranets to bite the bullet and force IT to upgrade.
*Apologize for double-comment. Browser timed out when writing the first response. And no, I wasn't using IE6 =D
They refuse to upgrade the browsers by claiming the tab browsing have security issues because it shares the session. Almost all of the banks and big companies are still using IE6 because of those lazy, incompetent and selfish IT administrators.
IE6 is holding back the future. Please visit http://www.free-the-web.com/ and join the cause :)
I'd hope that banks would be able to prevent basic XSS.
http://abetterbrowser.org
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the people coming to your sites using IE6 aren't supposed to be doing that during work hours in the first place. It's going to be a very rare environment where IT cares that you can't go to Facebook or Digg anymore.
This is an issue for us, but not for them. Don't blame them for not wanting to deal with our problem.
Even for some industries (obviously not the ones still stuck with IE6 in the office) use of Digg and Facebook is part of their business. Social Media is no longer just a waste of time.
Fact is, the web is moving on. It's the websites with the B2B market that are suffering by not being allowed to join the momentum.
Look at the evolution of the home entertainment industry: Betamax (dead), Laserdisc (long gone) & HD DVD (decomposing) - time to trade up folks
One of the biggest reasons why corporate IT has been so lazy upgrading to IE6 is that upgrading will break damn near every single intranet HTML page and internal app created in the last 10 years or so. In a lot of cases, pages have been suited so much for IE6 and MS-centric crap that the functionality will be broken along with the visuals.
I've been doing my intranet-related development with standards compliance in mind for years now, but some of the people who came before me were coding in garbage like the marquee tag and other things that are IE-centric.
Gonna have to be a breaking point eventually...
Any unfortunately the people using IE6 right now probably aren't reading this article or can't upgrade for business reasons.
Any unfortunately the people using IE6 right now probably aren't reading this article or can't upgrade for business reasons.
Just wondering though, why does Windows insist on bundling XP with IE6? If it is so outdated, why not upgrade the bundled browser to at least IE7, since Windows can't really recommend the users to go Vista instead. I mean, honestly, between XP and Vista, there's no contest.
It's not IE6's fault designers/developers spend countless hours creating work-arounds. It's not IE6's fault that management dictates that a software has to be innovative AND compatible with outdated technology.
Cut the cord and IE6 goes away. The major players are on that track finally and so should everyone else. The people using IE6 are usually not the demo-graphic for innovative apps and sites in the first place and if they want to be, they should make a simple upgrade and turn out auto-updating.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/200...
There's every good reason to believe that by this time next year, we'll have IE 8, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 3 making up a very large majority of browser usage -- maybe as much as 80%.
That's pretty awesome.
Because it's done at work places where people have no choose in what they use. [1]
As designers/developers what should you do with throes who can't change? a) Pester them b) give them a less than brilliant, but still good experience?
I'd go for B and I'd call that progressive enhancement.
[1] http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/10/can-you-di...
SERIOUSLY YOU ARE A FUCKING WHINING CUNT.
INTERNET EXPLORER IS NOT 'EVIL'. YOU ARE A STUPID HIPPY.
P.S. WE ARE ALL USING IE8 NOW. GET WITH THE TIMES LOSER.
ALL YOU CHOWDER-HEADS ONLY COMPLAIN ABOUT MICROSOFT COS U DON'T LIKE PAYING FOR SOFTWARE. MAYBE IF YOU HAD A REAL COPY OF WINDOWS NOT A CRACK THEN YOU'D BE ABLE TO GET UPDATES YOU TOOLS.
P.S. THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE HAS A VERY SMALL FACE ON A VERY LARGE HEAD. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT SHIT?!?
When we relaunched our site, we created a browser sniff to display an interstitial when IE6 users come to our site. you have IE6, you can check it out here: http://www.sonomacreative.com
Hopefully we're going to migrate anyway - Fingers crossed!
and the reason it wont go away isn't ony of the reasons you listed. tons of corps have inhouse webapps that were written so they work in IE6 (idiotic decision i know) and they wont spend the money to upgrade if they work fine with the browser on everyones computer.
—————--/—-/ IF YOU THINK
—————-/—-/ NICK IS A FUCKING IDIOT
———--/´¯/'--'/´¯`•_
———-/'/--/—-/—--/¨¯\
——--('(———- ¯~/'--')
———\————-'—--/
———-'\'————_-•´
————\———--(
————-\———--\
————--\———--\
——————/´ ¯/) COPY AND PASTE
—————--/—-/ IF YOU WANT IE6 TO DIE
—————-/—-/
———--/´¯/'--'/´¯`•_
———-/'/--/—-/—--/¨¯\
——--('(———- ¯~/'--')
———\————-'—--/
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(8) Firefox killed the Microsoft's star (8)
No seriously, we already have all those Gecko-powered web browsers that kick butts. The only thing we need are more sites doing what developers and designers at Facebook did. If a user logs on with that cancer (IE6 I mean) the site should recommend him/her to update to a recent version or to download any other browser they want.
Once IE6 has finally dropped to a low enough level, people will start wishing for IE7 to die, as it doesn't exactly support HTML5. Which I'm surprised you brought up in your argument Ben, since we still have a long way to go after IE6 dies to support HTML5. I don't think IE7 has any support for any of the new tags and IE8 is not that much better. Example IE8 doesn't support the video tag and not all the functionality for the canvas tag.
The following link is a good indicator of when specific HTML5 tags will be supported across all browsers:
http://a.deveria.com/caniuse/#agents=All&eras=A...
Since we will have to wait for IE9 for better HTML5 support, which is at least a year like 2 or 3 away and then we have to wait for the majority of users to upgrade, this means it might be around a decade before developers can program in HTML5 without concern of supporting older browsers.
RT
www.anonymize.tk
Oh well.
If enough business based websites stop supporting IE6 then companies will have to update.
Get a hint. Piss off.
Mixed feelings,
A Web Developer
It will need more then Youtube, Digg and Facebook to get the Mum and Dads to upgrade their browsers, or even know how to upgrade.
It will be really interesting when Win 7 rolls around and if it will force companies to finally have to deal with this issue than ignoring it.
I like to browse full screen (i.e. no menu bars, toolbars, status bars etc.)
I know Firefox and Chrome have full screen by pressing F11 (IE7 does not).
But in IE6 full screen, if you move the cursor to the top of the screen, the menu bar drops down so you can use all the menu functions and Google Search Bar (without pressing F11) and if you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, the task bar shows up, showing all the programs running, the status of the computer, and to launch other applications from the Start Menu (without pressing F11). This is very convenient.
In Firefox and Chrome, this does not work. You have to press F11 to get out of full screen mode and then you can use the menu functions at the top or use the task bar at the bottom.
Most ordinary people (including myself) don't have a religious affiliation with any browser or operating system or technology. They just want to get their work done in the easiest way possible way and don't want the technology to get in the way.
Why these functions are not incorporated into Firefox and Chrome? Why take away functions that are already there and people are used to? I can understand Microsoft taking away the full screen mode in IE7 in the name of security (to protect from phishing scams) but let the users decide. Don't take away their choice. You should have learned a lesson from Vista (forcing security down people's throats). People will always vote with their feet if they have a choice.
Same with web designers trying to force people to use browsers of their choice, to make life easy for themselves. You know people don't care about that. Give people what they want and you will have no problems.
Push to boycott and stop supporting???!?!?!?
Anyone? Bueller?
About geolocation, I hate it. I can't browse in Hulu, Pandora, Last.fm or Spotify without a VPN (with US or UK Ip address).
I have personally dealt with companies that are stuck with this limitation. And know that the application vendors (we're talking big names here), have no desire to correct this.
You can't just abandon it, because clients get freaked out when you tell them that 20% of web users won't be able to see their site. That's a lot.
I'm not convinced that 15%-20% use IE6, though. Isn't this worldwide, including all developing countries where there are a huge number of old PCs running pirated WIndows which can't be updated - often Windows 2000 or 98? Is this relevant to companies targeting people in western countries? I haven't seen anybody running IE6 in the UK for a very long time. They've all done Microsoft's automatic update to IE7.
It easy to write a blog against Microsoft related product, but you should really ask, why after 8 years there are still 20% of users that still use it?
You can't just abandon it, because clients get freaked out when you tell them that 20% of web users won't be able to see their site. That's a lot.
I'm not convinced that 15%-20% use IE6, though. Isn't this worldwide, including all developing countries where there are a huge number of old PCs running pirated WIndows which can't be updated - often Windows 2000 or 98? Is this relevant to companies targeting people in western countries?
I haven't seen anybody running IE6 in the UK for a very long time. They've all done Microsoft's automatic update to IE7.
Sounds like iPhone.
Cheers
Daina
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
As far as the new features are concerned I can see a problem with the offline applications running in persistent mode.
The law of unintended consequences is going to kick in.
In usability terms the users will not necessarily realise this and this means virus writers could possibly exploit this issue and write a application that runs persistently and then only executes once the browser window is shut down so that the human cannot see what is going on. At no point would I recommend this in a production machine as people do forget and this is the nub of the issue. It is for this same reason js pop-ups became a menace.
What do you think?
Again apologies for the triplication
IE6 - rest in peace.
http://code.google.com/p/sevenup/
http://www.thedonutproject.com/2009/05/22/overl...
http://ie6update.com/
Coming in the next 13 years you mean? http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/HTML_5_Won_t_Be_R...
Coming in the next 13 years you mean? http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/HTML_5_Won_t_Be_R...
There used to be an organization called savethedevelopers.org dedicated to encourage users to upgrade from IE6 but I there site is down.
Here is a post on techcrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/save-the-d...
>(Opera), and Chrome (Chrome), as well as Internet Explorer 8.
Which of these doesn't belong? Hint: It doesn't support HTML5.
Seems a bit drastic, and to be honest, I wouldn't of suggested this a couple of years ago, but it's been hanging about for way too long.
"THE INTERNET HAS BROKE" ... time to upgrade.
It's not IE6 thats the problem, its the fact that web designers/developers still continue to make sites it.
We have the power to stop this, by giving a scaled down version of the site, so people/users actually see the difference when using firefox and IE7/8. Anyway, sites are about content, if the content is good, then who cares about the bells and whistles.
Designers have been bending over backwards to please the client (just like me!), .."..yes we will make this compatible for IE6" for what, people seeing a site that has less css capabilities then my nan.
I had a client that insisted their site look the same in IE6 . Even though this was possible, i purely said no.
This is how i put it across to him....You can still use your analogue TV to view your favourite shows, but wouldn't it be best to see them in HD for free. Your company should be pushing boundaries, using the latest technology, giving the user a better experience of your product...So you choose....would you present your site in all its glory or use an outdated piece of rubbish.
So stop moaning about IE6, if we keep supporting it by giving in to the clients, then long live IE6 and down with designers that choose to build for it.
Web design is our future, we dictate where it goes dont let a piece of shit browser ruin it and your day.
Thanks
Darren
It's not IE6 thats the problem, its the fact that web designers/developers still continue to make sites it.
We have the power to stop this, by giving a scaled down version of the site, so people/users actually see the difference when using firefox and IE7/8. Anyway, sites are about content, if the content is good, then who cares about the bells and whistles.
Designers have been bending over backwards to please the client (just like me!), .."..yes we will make this compatible for IE6" for what, people seeing a site that has less css capabilities then my nan.
I had a client that insisted their site look the same in IE6 . Even though this was possible, i purely said no.
This is how i put it across to him....You can still use your analogue TV to view your favourite shows, but wouldn't it be best to see them in HD for free. Your company should be pushing boundaries, using the latest technology, giving the user a better experience of your product...So you choose....would you present your site in all its glory or use an outdated piece of rubbish.
So stop moaning about IE6, if we keep supporting it by giving in to the clients, then long live IE6 and down with designers that choose to build for it.
Web design is our future, we dictate where it goes dont let a piece of shit browser ruin it and your day.
Thanks
Darren
Some of us do. Not everyone can afford to spend hundreds on a new computer, thanks very much. And newer browsers don't tend to play ball with older equipment.
Stop being such a snob.
Tnx bro! Nice one! Woooot!
I am so EXCITED to hear about all of this!
We're in a catch 22 situation, we need to upgrade our environment, but can't until our customers upgrade their browsing platforms. If we upgrade our systems now we could see our clients going to our competitors in a very competitive market.
We're in a catch 22 situation, we need to upgrade our environment, but can't until our customers upgrade their browsing platforms. If we upgrade our systems now we could see our clients going to our competitors in a very competitive market.
The email system has to change also. The same stone-age thinking is holding back repairs to this spam-ridden mess (99.9% of my email is spam).
And I would say you're wrong about why corporations stick with IE 6. We're stuck on it, because we have internal apps that will only work on IE6 and the vendors of these apps won't update them.
Problem is new apps coming in the door are now requiring IE 7 or better, which is something we can't deplpy.
Sad part is, if companies forced vendors to write to web standards, most of them would not be in this mess now.
At least all the big news networks, all google websites (like search, maps, gmail, youtube), and all Microsoft and Yahoo websites.
This committee comes together, say, 4 times a year and decides on which browsers are to be considered as outdated. Then, they issue a warning like: "your browser is outdated. from May 1st, this website will no longer work with this browser, please upgrade" and offer some download locations for all the latest browsers. Once the agreed period has past, all members block their website for the outdated browsers and only offer the download links. No matter if the website would still work with the old browser (so even Google search). No one does this now because of fear of losing visitors, that's why it should be an official committee. And by the way, Microsoft won't stall this because they too want their IE6 users to upgrade to IE8.
At least all the big news networks, all google websites (like search, maps, gmail, youtube), and all Microsoft and Yahoo websites.
This committee comes together, say, 4 times a year and decides on which browsers are to be considered as outdated. Then, they issue a warning like: "your browser is outdated. from May 1st, this website will no longer work with this browser, please upgrade" and offer some download locations for all the latest browsers. Once the agreed period has past, all members block their website for the outdated browsers and only offer the download links. No matter if the website would still work with the old browser (so even Google search). No one does this now because of fear of losing visitors, that's why it should be an official committee. And by the way, Microsoft won't stall this because they too want their IE6 users to upgrade to IE8.
I think we are out of luck until more computers become obsolete.
I think we are out of luck until more computers become obsolete.
my blog
If you want to get rid of IE6, stop developing for it. I have seen many sites that break when browsed with IE6. Also, it would help if MS would engineer new IE versions so that the new features can be turned off if they are not wanted.
I have to say I'm pretty excited about the video and audio tags. Hopefully wordpress.com will support them.
Just as a side note, I could easily browse the web and do video on the PC I had in 2001, a 667Mhz Pentium 3 with an nVidia GeForce2 graphics card. If I used Linux, I could even get cool 3D effects with compiz-fusion. Sure I wouldn't be able to do some of the more advanced coding/video editing/etc. but a good Linux base would still allow a system like that to be very usable.
It's interesting how OSX 10.5 and many Linux distributions are faster and more memory efficient than their predecessors. Vista is an albatross hanging around Microsoft's neck. With all the new Cell phone OSes (Palm's web OS, Google Android, Apple's iPhoneOS, etc.), the distribution of Linux based OLPCs (One laptop per child), and with Google finally releasing their own Linux distribution, I think we'll finally see the decline of Microsoft in the OS market just like we've seen in their web browser market.
With the massive usage of google.com, they can have the most influence on making this become a reality. Just 1 day of posting that message would prob convert about a million users.
Go ahead and push your proposal in the name of the future -- but you succeed, you'll disenfranchises millions of users -- only in a scattershot manner, as one site at a time drops IE6 support. Think of it as a DTV transition, only instead of on 1 day, over a period of years.
Like deciding that we're going to start driving on the left side of the road, like the Brits -- only we will phase in the transition over 2 years.
If you think IE6 is hard to work around for you fancy programmers, think how hard it is for idiots like me who are just barely scraping by with web design! i CAN'T hack a web page to work in IE6, so i stopped trying a year ago. DOWN WITH IE6!
It does sound as though your arguements are based entirely on emotion, with little of no knowledge of the mechanics of what goes on behind the scenes.
That is one reason I detest Adobe Flash and like minded apps....If I loose control of my computer I may just as well trash it!! P.S. You really don't NEED the web...you're just hooked
Why are they forced? Simple they are using pirated copies of Windows XP.. and are therefore stuck with SP1 or SP2. In order to upgrade beyond IE6 they must be able to grab SP3 and complete the Windows Validation!
That's the reason that I personally do not like to support IE6 in my work. As you mentioned if we as designers and developers stop supporting IE6 they will be forced to upgrade!
Great post!
I test my code in all the major browsers, but I must say this in defence of IE - It does run Flash content the fastest - way faster than all the rest.
Have a look at this in different browsers and you can see what I mean: (requires Flash 10)
http://www.caspianit.co.uk/index.cfm
Besides corporations, who obviously carry the bulk of IE6 users, there are definitely older people who may not even know to upgrade or know what a browser is that are still clinging on to IE6. My mom for instance...to get on the internet she clicks an icon that says "Comcast" (which basically is just a shortcut to IE6) so she has no idea what Internet Explorer even is (or probably a web browser for that matter). She also refers to the entirety of the internet as "the email". Don't worry, I've upgraded IE for her. =P
JDE's support for IE8, FF, et al is nonexistent.
But, the little software-as-a-service company I work for offers a product to hospital workers, and a whopping 75% of those users are on IE6. Fully 4.5% of them are still on Windows 2000 as well. Our users have precisely zero choice about the browsers or other software they use; their institutional IT departments make all those decisions. These folks are nurses and social workers, not doctors. One of the mistakes we can make in IT is to convince ourselves that our users have the power to make good decisions. They don't in our case.
I'd love to dump IE6 -- it's costly to support, and constrains us to inferior user interfaces -- but it's just not feasible.
The recent trend that many designers have been following is reduced support for ie6. Basically not caring anymore to have a pixel perfect ie6 version and instead just doing enough to make the site usable in ie6, but perhaps missing polish or enhancements that other browsers see. This approach has merits but I think ie6 users don't realize that there is anything better, or that the page is actually a lot nicer looking than they see.
The recent trend that many designers have been following is reduced support for ie6. Basically not caring anymore to have a pixel perfect ie6 version and instead just doing enough to make the site usable in ie6, but perhaps missing polish or enhancements that other browsers see. This approach has merits but I think ie6 users don't realize that there is anything better, or that the page is actually a lot nicer looking than they see.
And 20% of the users are a big piece of the market, if you have a company who sells online, can you afford to lose the 20% of your income?
I think you are right and the change can be start now.
And 20% of the users are a big piece of the market, if you have a company who sells online, can you afford to lose the 20% of your income?
I think you are right and the change can be start now.
I think it's important to tell people what a designer/coder must go through in order to cater to outdated and significantly inferior web browsers.
Microsoft has been exceptional at listening to the lamentations of programmers, as well as notorious for NOT listening to the lamentations of "other" programmers...and dare I say--designers. Notice that 2/3 of the blatant disregard of veritable standards mentioned are design oriented.
Please MS, I love you, but dagnabbit encourage IE7/8 MORE. PNGs should not be just be a javascript luxury.
Microsoft has been exceptional at listening to the lamentations of programmers, as well as notorious for NOT listening to the lamentations of "other" programmers...and dare I say--designers. Notice that 2/3 of the blatant disregard of veritable standards mentioned are design oriented.
Please MS, I love you, but dagnabbit encourage IE7/8 MORE. PNGs should not be just be a luxury.
Here is a little secret for you - Google Chrome OS is built on the Linux kernel. Not on Chrome browser.
http://jerusalemstyle.com/blog/dropping-ie6-no-...
A lot of people will say - well we don't care about the technophobes, but the fact is, MOST people aren't tech savvy. The IT industry seems huge, but it's really a tiny fraction of the population and most non IT people aren't interested in learning new software or the latest meme. They want to watch their funny videos or mail their children and then get off and watch TV.
If people want to make the greater public aware of this, then the mozilla foundation should start running TV spots on basic cable channels at 9:30 at night saying: Do you get to the internet with an icon that looks like this? (shows IE 6 icon) BOO! Find a faster internet with an icon that looks like this (shows Firefox, Opera, Chrome, IE8 icons.) Go to makeminefaster.com
Then the real question comes, will chrome or firefox 3.5 or IE8 work on 7 year old hardware and will it really be faster for them?
Don't forget that software runs out too. It happens when software is no longer updated.
"Then the real question comes, will chrome or firefox 3.5 or IE8 work on 7 year old hardware and will it really be faster for them?"
I don't know about speed but usability is better and security too. It's easier to change browser later when the changes are small. Waiting ten years without updating and then you don't know how to use computers because everything is changed.
It is recommended to make major update in software every 1-3 years (big operating system updates like service pack, new browser and so on) and check security updates every month. Of course last one is mainly for Windows users because in Windows there is little integration in software.
I don't think IE6 is the problem here. The problem for designers is that there are numerous browsers out there that you have to test on... And min. 2 platforms Mac and Windows (If you don't count Linux).
That's FF2, FF3, Opera, Chrome, IE6, IE7, IE8, Safari for Windows, and almost all of them for Mac. And it's not true that IE should take all the blame. All of these aforementioned browsers have there own stupid anomalies that you have to tend to not to mention the differences between the same browser on different platform.
The easiest would be that there would only be ONE browser and then life would be easy.
Last but not least huge corporations will never switch from IE6, because they use customized, hacked versions of IE6 that don't suck as much as the one available to the general public.
Right way to do job is using standards and picking lowest common denominator. And I think that it's the Firefox 2. It is a most rudimentary browser what is the operating system default browser in current or previous operating systems after installing operating system updates. You can find it from example in Solaris 10 or Debian 4.
After site is "ready", test it on IE8 and Safari 4, it probably works everywhere. Also works on mobile devices because if you keep document structure correct (no table layout shit) it works directly, or when you turn off CSS. Sites that I have done, have worked well on Symbian and iPhone OS with CSS.
Well, my rule of thumb works brilliantly. I don't use Flash or other crap and I try to make site works directly in browser, and there is plenty of backward compatiblity. And there is not even a need for thinking what browser or operating system there is. I just pick the most rudimentary browser from previous operating system releases.
Yes, I dropped IE6 when Vista came out. Still I get five year backward compatiblity with CSS because there is update for Windows XP.
I had used IE until I turned 26. Now, I'm a full on, hard core FireFox fan. IE7 made some good adjustments, but it still doesn't compete with FF.
I had used IE until I turned 26. Now, I'm a full on, hard core FireFox fan. IE7 made some good adjustments, but it still doesn't compete with FF.
Also I think it's very arrogant to tell visitors to upgrade their browser. You are a web designer/developer your TASK is to create a website for the client that works on all major browsers, and 15-20% is still major.
If you educate yourself while evolving as a web designer/developer you probably will come face-to-face with the handful problems that IE6 causes after max. 4-5 sites.
Stop whining, if you don't know how to slice a design to make the site browser compatible, then outsource the project to an Eastern country. Win-win situation :)
Updating software is norm. Think again. If you don't update, computer gets filled malware and slows down, programs stop working and web pages start looking wierd. It is enough to support previous version of operating system + updates. Currently FF2, IE8 and Safari 4. Kill IE6. Flash and Java too if possible.
Reading Web sites with your eyes is the norm. Walking into the public restroom is the norm. Listening to major political speeches or lectures using your ears is the norm.
A good friend's parents live an hour away. The least little thing causes these folks, in their 80s, to become paralyzed on their computer. For technical reasons we can't set up remote desktop, so any change requires a truck roll on our part.
There are millions of people who simply can't cope with computer updates.
Updating is the norm? It is a crime! On my newish HP laptop, everybody wants my attention for "updating software" --
-- WIndows itself
-- Office
-- HP's maintenance tool
-- Norton antivirus
-- Java VM
-- iTunes -- wants to update Safari, which I don't want to update
-- Roxio
-- Browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox battling for supremacy)
-- The damn fingerprint scanner
Now you tell me how folks in their 80s who are barely able to cope with a new dialog box have an obligation to update their software. Are you telling me they also must update their 1991 Oldsmobile? Just because that's the norm?
Since it's the norm to use eyes and ears while navigating the Web, should section 508 be repealed? Since it's the norm to use a mouse to navigate, should keyboard shortcuts be eliminated?
Wrong. Even high quality software, there is 1-3 bugs in every 1000 line of code. In low quality software there is 20-30 bugs in every 1000 line of code. Some of them are security holes and full software systems have hundreds of millions lines of code. It is a crime if these are not fixed! People use computers for money transfer and shopping so software must be secure.
Of course new versions rewrite the code and there becomes new bugs so the only way is to upgrade the security holes when they are found.
"On my newish HP laptop, everybody wants my attention for "updating software" --"
Yes, I know that Windows maintenance is a hell. If Windows maintenance is too difficult, I recommend using Suse, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, Solaris or something else easier operating system where operating system updates about everything from one button.
I don't know reason why I should make website work for those people who don't know how to maintain their operating system. If the layout is broken they don't know reason because their computer is anyway full of malware and behaving odd.
It is good thing if they learn to use their operating system. I made my sites for those who use computers as usual. I don't rush for update but eventually it is necessary.
The point is simply that millions of people are not capable of coping with the complexity of understanding what's a needed, legitimate update and what's itself spyware or spam. You might as well insist that people who can't hear must get cochlear implants if they want to "hear" the major political address in real time.
Think of the inability to cope with software updates -- and their implications, which Anonymous admits are not always beneficial -- as a form of handicap. Millions of people have this handicap.
Moreover, everyone updates their software cavalierly, and without coordination. Just now Adobe Reader won't play nice with IE 8 on my computer. Who broke it? My guess is IE8 -- which I recently "upgraded" to.
A wise business consultant once told an audience that if you buy a piece of hardware, for instance a drill press, expect to spend 1/10th of its cost on training. If you buy a piece of software, expect to spend 10 times its cost on training. The reason? The malleability of software.
If we thought of software as firmware, and every vendor limited "upgrades" to once a year or when only essential, then manufacturers and OS vendors could certify bundles that were known to work. Then we'd make that 1 hour truck roll once every year or 2.
_______________________________________________________________________
Wrong. Even high quality software, there is 1-3 bugs in every 1000 line of code. In low quality software there is 20-30 bugs in every 1000 line of code. Some of them are security holes and full software systems have hundreds of millions lines of code. It is a crime if these are not fixed! People use computers for money transfer and shopping so software must be secure.
Of course new versions rewrite the code and there becomes new bugs so the only way is to upgrade the security holes when they are found.
Upgrading to a new browser because it works better on Facebook, Digg, Youtube, and 99.99999999% of the sites maintained by people commenting on this thread would amount to upgrading for the hell of it for the vast majority of companies out there because most website have no valid business purpose, and those that do aren't talking about killing IE6.
Figure Windows 7 SP1 before Microsoft makes a serious push to get rid of XP in the enterprise. 3 years after that before most have made the leap. That puts us at around 2014 before we can count on IE 8 being ubiquitous. Timeframe for Firefox and Safari is going to be approximately never.
I know. That's why I don't expect people to know how install browser which passes Acid3 100/100 and let them find out how to get site working, I will do the job and I only expect them to click operating system update button if web site looks wierd. And my rule of thumb, there is no rush to update. I make sites compatible with older browsers from several months to several years. Of course web sites are not updated when there is fancy new technology. They are updated when needed giving more time to update browser.
People who don't NEVER update find everything rotten in web gradually at some stage.
"Moreover, everyone updates their software cavalierly, and without coordination. Just now Adobe Reader won't play nice with IE 8 on my computer. Who broke it? My guess is IE8 -- which I recently "upgraded" to."
This is problem only in "Windows" brand operating systems where is little software integration. It is better to select operating system where is much as possible, what software you use in integrated package.
Last I checked stupid isn't a disability, and that seems kind of insulting that you would take intellectually lazy people and compare them to people with real, genuine disabilities.
Making a site friendly for those who CANNOT change their situation is a given (visual/audio impairments). If anything, modern browsers are allowing for far more options for the disabled in order to access the web. So, in reality, it's your stupid, frightened web users who are holding the genuinely disabled back by forcing developers to spend more time making a site compatible and less time making a site completely accessible to those with a genuine need.
Solution: Hire someone familiar with the concept of scalability.
The issues are sometimes silly security requirements, the resource consuming nature of the testing and documentation process, and the fact that this simply isn't an issue for the IT departments involved. They don't care about the sites that consider this a problem (my site included) because they aren't on the list of sites they have to support.
If you want them to upgrade, convince salesforce.com or dnb.com to stop supporting IE6. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels.
But if your websites aren't commercial and don't have to deal with real people that is great. On the websites I work on we call these people customers and we want the business.
If they don't maintain it the car will eventually break down/become unsafe to the point where if a cop sees them, they'll probably be fined and the car will eventually be towed. Maintenance is a part of life, and if you can't handle it you probably need some assistance in your daily activities, in which case you have bigger things to worry about besides seeing websites the way they were meant to be seen.
I think infected computers should be disconnected from Internet by ISP and send bill to customer. This will teach people to maintain and use decent versions of their software.
We need to provide users with a message explaining why it is safe to upgrade and that it will not lock up there copy of winxp like it did with WGA.
We need to provide users with a message explaining why it is safe to upgrade and that it will not lock up there copy of winxp like it did with WGA."
This is completely users own problem. Not developers problem. If web site doesn't work, user must update operating system browser, switch browser or switch operating system. It is their choice.
Well, Windows XP users have the 8 years backwards compatibility.. It is strange if we should also support illegal operating systems too because users do not dare to update. Giving technical support for pirated software is just wrong.
You do realize that there are more pirated copies of XP out there than actual legit ones right? We aren't providing technical support for pirated software we are providing technical support regardless of the source or legality of the software. We have a problem users are not upgrading IE6, there are several causes of this problem, one antiquated systems running win98 cannot be upgraded, two it departments not upgrading organizations while also not giving users the ability to upgrade themselves, and three users who know there system is pirated and won't hit the 'update' for fear of WGA.
There is nothing I can do about the first 2. I can't force a user to upgrade there system from win98 to anything else. I also can't change how IT departments role out updates or what permissions they provide to there users. i can however provide the link and explanation to the third group. If I can reach a third of them and get them to upgrade its worthy of doing. besides we're not talking about anything major here, javascript detect and redirect to a plain jane web page with a link and brief couple of words.
In the real world we know that no shortage of our users are using pirated software. Microssoft has even realized this and now provides all security fixes as well as the IE upgrades for free even to pirated copies of XP. All we have to do is tell our users this fact and that they don't have to be afraid of upgrading. This isn't providing technical support this is just common sense and providing a link and a paragraph of text.
Probably in Asia. In western countries.. I do not have a clue. Most of the computers sold preinstalled Windows are legal.
"We aren't providing technical support for pirated software we are providing technical support regardless of the source or legality of the software."
So we forget IE6 and put help text in the site: "turn off CSS if site is unusable or use newer browser". Then we are providing technical support regardless what kind of old crap user is using.
"We have a problem users are not upgrading IE6, there are several causes of this problem, one antiquated systems running win98 cannot be upgraded, two it departments not upgrading organizations while also not giving users the ability to upgrade themselves, and three users who know there system is pirated and won't hit the 'update' for fear of WGA."
Supporting antiquated systems is kind of wrong too. These are the tools of cyberwarfare and used in denial-of-service attacks.
"There is nothing I can do about the first 2. I can't force a user to upgrade there system from win98 to anything else. I also can't change how IT departments role out updates or what permissions they provide to there users."
We can make user experience on antiquated browser stressful and give clear hint to user that the problem is in antiquated software. This will create pressure to upgrade. It is wrong to force users to upgrade but it is right to not care of them if they do not update, and invest better user experience on modern browsers and mobile platforms. If site looks like shit on IE6 and user knows reason then it is not a problem.
Sad thing is that Windows 2000 users have to install new browser. I think it is acceptable to support only previous versions of operating systems, like Windows XP.
One day maybe... Until Google withdraws support i guess that day is a while off.
People not good with computer and running on Windows 2000
Using IE and can't update to superiors version
Suck but we have to deal with it....
Microsoft doesn't support Windows 2000 anymore. Why is it that web design is one of the only areas in which we feel the obligation to provide support past the date of expiry? Your own computer that you're using to view this message is in most likelihood out of warranty and not "supported" anymore. Many of us have cars that are out of warranty and we have to deal with maintenance with cold hard cash.
If, as a community, more and more people refuse to code "to" IE6, more and more people (even in these alleged corporations) will simply NEED to switch in order to use web applications properly. SOMEBODY, at some level of corporate or government, has the authority to say, "Yes, we have that custom IE6," (aside--I've never seen these companies, but I suppose the exist...?) "but for other tasks, the IT department will be adding FireFox/Opera/whatever".
For that matter, if IE6 is really THAT entrenched in the backbone of a corporate or government structure, there is very readily available virtualization. Run a virtual IE6 for legacy, and install IE8 to the real OS... there are many ways to skin the cat, but IT in "big government" or "big corporate" won't do it until they have to.
And if we keep supporting IE6, they'll never have to....
We will never surrender to this IE6 genocide…
as long as there are grannies still using a 1999 Gateway with Windows 98,
as long as there are children in Africa using dialup on an abandoned Dell Optpilex from Seattle,
as long as there are mobilizer web sites to strip the CSS out of your web site,
We will carry forth with IE6 SP1 holding onto the faintest hope of SP2.
IE 6 will rise again.
"Hasta la victoria siempre."
Places Internet icon on desktop (you can do that with firefox and safari and everyone else duh)
High security (many updates)(oh sure, firefx can actually block ads)
More screen space thanks to no tabs(??? why would anyone not want tabs)(you can also disable them in firefox)
Lightweight (no support for silly PNG transparency, etc)(ok... )
integrated in os
no need to install
clearly these guys dont know technology at all
and those were everything comared to other browsers, and those reasons are crap look at these ones which are even worse:
Proven technology. It’s been around since 2001. (it old duh)
NO bugs. (well theres no bugs in the rest)
No unnecessary features that use up valuable screen space, such as tabs. (lame)
Handles GIF transparency.
First with AJAX technology (XMLHttpRequest, available since IE5). (but its not the last)
Renders all pages as they are supposed to look by the only standard that really matters.(yeah right)
Consistent rendering of pages makes it the web designer’s best friend. (they are designers worst friends)
The most aesthetically pleasing web browser logo. (does that matter)
Highly secure (has received lots of security updates). (firefox is more secure)
Clear interface.
Used by 97.34% of all internet users according to a onestat survey released July 28, 2003.
ps they say that ie6 renders faster then firefox and safari
http://www.prlog.org/10306512-ie6-still-broadly...
))))
IE6 must die, fast and painless.
IE6 must die, fast and painless.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A//mash...
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A//mash...
Errors found while checking this document as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
Result: 377 Errors, 65 warning(s)
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://mashab...