There was a time when I loved IE6 more than any other browser, but that was between 2001 and 2004. They owned the browser market then — successfully whipping Netscape into submission. Now, ten years later and a web designer, it’s a thorn in my side.
Times are a changin’
For the past several years, I have included IE6 in my cross-browser checks because the percentage of visitors who still had it installed was very high. In fact, I’m proud that most of my sites do not need a separate stylessheet for IE6 (thanks Dean Edwards). However, several factors and recent developments are influencing me to not include IE6 in major browser considerations.
- For the sites I manage, I have seen a sharp drop over the past two years in the percentage of IE6 users. Now it’s at 10%.
- Effective yesterday (3/1/2010) Google made the recent decision to discontinue IE6 support for Google docs. That’s HUGE!
- Many developers have stopped considering IE6, including this group in Denver who is throwing it a funeral this week: http://ie6funeral.com
- YouTube is killing IE6 support on March 13.
Sneaky Alternatives
Let’s face it, your average visitor doesn’t care about what browser they’re using. All they know is they click on the blue “e” and boom, they’re checking email and reading news. So, let’s not blame them or make life miserable for them. There are some ways we can “coach them” or at least make their browsing more tolerable.
- Two words: Progressive Enhancement.
- http://ie6update.com: “IE6 Update looks like IE’s Information Bar, but instead of offering your visitors an ActiveX plugin, it offers a browser update.” Awesome tool. Check out the demo.
- Nathan Smith, from Sonspring, offers a great idea for an IE6 re-direct: ”Politely explain why it [IE6] is no longer being supported, whilst giving suggestions on how to obtain a better browser, such as a newer version of IE. It could also point them to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari — all of which are superior to any available version of IE.”
- http://www.ie6nomore.com: Copy and paste code samples for different styles and languages that alert your IE6 visitors they are using an outdated browser.
What solution(s) have you implemented to provide a tolerable browsing experience for IE6 users?
* Graphic found on ie6funeral.com
The vast majority of users who still use IE6 are people browsing from work at big companies where they have no control over what browser they use. Why punish them? I hate IE6 as much as the next developer, but I’m not willing to cut out even 10% of the market from accessing my sites.
I use a method similar to Nathan Smith’s, but without the redirect. I simply hide the normal content from IE6 and provide an alternate page that explains that IE6 is not supported, and make suggestions to upgrade to IE8 or Chrome, Safari, Firefox.
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@Jamie Wallace,
I say that is just too bad for those people. We will never get these companies to change their policy and finally upgrade their employees if we keep killing ourselves to make our sites work on a 9 year old browser. The time is now for web developers to take a stand and say no to IE6. When the companies get enough flak from their employees they will have to cave.
We have to be on the offensive.