Obituary For IE6
IE6, well, was a browser with fresh features when it first came out but it is currently 8 years old (must be about 160 human years).
It is still around, mostly because it came bundled with many distributions of the most popular Windows OS ever: XP & bad luck that users still have that old CD.
So, within time, unlike every software, it didn’t disappear, got more powerful & managed to build new communities around it: "designers & developers who try to overcome the IE6 difficulties", "users with bad browsing experiences".. : ).
Now it can even:
- Make a web project development process longer
- Shorten the life of a web designer / developer (that’s what I had tweeted while working on an IE6 compatibility)
But it is time to go now. Hopefully quickly (with the medal).
Within this 8 year period, just for IE6, designers & developers are:
Defining The Problems & Creating Solutions
Explorer Exposed!
Position Is Everything provides an amazing list that defines Internet Explorer problems (not only IE6) in detail & shows some workarounds.
IE CSS Bugs That’ll Get You Every Time
CSS-Tricks presents the most common IE6 problems that can be faced including the box model & double margin bug.
IE6 – CSS Bugs and Fixes Explained
Dave Woods explains several IE6 CSS bugs & how they can be fixed.
Unit PNG Fix
A script, inspired from supersleight, to fix the popular transparent PNG problem. There are also many others like:
IE PNG Fix
One of the first fixes which is developed continiously. It adds near-native PNG support with alpha opacity to IE 5.5 and 6.
And there are many others like:
Trying To Stop It!
Stop Living In The Past
A campaign to acknowledge users that still browse with IE6. Users can find the reasons for upgrading IE6 & with a scripr presented a warning can be displayed to IE6 users.
STOP IE6 Campaign
The website lists the reasons why IE6 isn’t needed anymore & provides a script. The script can be installed on any website which will display why users shouldn’t use IE6 to users who visit the website via IE6.
I Dropped IE6
A website that encourages website owners to drop IE6 support & lists the ones already dropped.
Stop IE6
A very similar campaign that aims to stop the usage of IE6. It provides easy-to-install widgets that redirect users with IE6 to their website for informing them.
Even Wrote Letters
Dear IE6
Want to have IE6-related fun for a few moments? Then this website is for you.
It displays short letters – by users - that is written to IE6.
A Letter To IE6
A very funny letter written to IE6. From the letter:
It’s not you, it’s me. You’re still the same girl I met 7 years ago.
There are also letters written to IE6 users like this one.
And, Many Already Decided Not To Support It
- 37Signals (BaseCamp, CampFire..)
- Usability Post (Drop IE6 Support — Give People a Reason to Upgrade)
- Google tells users to drop IE6
- Salesforce and Internet Explorer 6
- Norwegian Websites Declare War on IE 6
- And many more..
Or Support It Partially
Conclusion
If IE6 hadn’t existed, we would probably be more productive by having the time spent on fixing bugs & writing hacks.
And, it is very clear that, if we, web designers & developers, don’t drop the support, IE6 is not going anywhere.
- Tags:
Browser IE6
- Filed under: Extras, Info, No License
- 13 Comments
13 Responses for "Obituary For IE6"
Fiyafox III and some plugins work for me. Used to like Maxthon but it became slow. Plus, now I have colored tabs based on url
Great post. Maybe I will start redirecting IE6 traffic directly to this post, and bundle it in my website proposals, maybe that will get the point across.
Writing an obituary for IE6? That’s a very cool idea. I really had fun reading it. Amazing, thank you.
And yes, I hate IE6 too
))
Brilliant article. I have been thinking about a web standards initiative for my business model, so when people ask why Im not supporting IE6 I will just reply ‘..recession of course!’
Ah yeah that would be nice.
Unfortunately we live in the real world, where 18.5% of the users still use ie6 (according to w3c, this month).
And they, well they, I’m afraid almost all of them, can’t, can’t afford or just don’t know how to upgrade.
So really, just get your conditional comments and underscore hacks out and do what you’re getting paid for. You are the professional right? It is not THAT hard.
In my opinion it doesn’t need to be pixel perfect (who notices that double margin anyway?), that flashy javascript can fail (it’s unobtrusive right?), but the content should be accessible, the navigation should work.
If we have the right to complain about stuff (firefox plugins, whatever) not being available for Mac or Linux, which together have less users than IE6, we should also give the less fortunate Internet users a reasonable experience.
Soon, my friend, hopefully within a few years, once it gets below 1% or 2%, but right now it’s too early.
That being said, I applaud Google and other big corporations who can and do make a stand.
But in the mean time, you won’t hear me telling my clients that 1/6th of their visitors can’t checkout their cart because their browser is outdated. (Best viewed with… anyone?)
Hey, what a great post
Really nice.
Last week we started an amazing anti-IE6 campaign in Norway. Today – one week later 12 of the 13 largest Norwegian sites (alexa.com http://bit.ly/QNJzq ) have joined the #IE6 campaign with banners.
I’ve posted a thorough description of the campaign and how we united a country around it in only 48 hours:
http://www.larre.com/2009/02/23/the-norwegian-web-changed-in-48-hours-how-is-that-possible/
@Joost,
The problem is, it never ends like that or will end very slow. If it is still >18% after 8 years, it’ll probably be >10% after 5 years from now on.
On the other hand, I agree that not every website has to be pixel-perfect in all browsers. But mostly, IE6 problems get bigger than double-margins. Those extra margins can cause the div-blocks to collapse or not being able to use PNG transparency because of “a browser version” is at least sad.
On the other hand, I clearly see your points & the difficulty in applying this to clients. And I don’t know what is the best approach to follow in such situations, because you’re right, clients won’t accept this.
For a project I’m working on, we decided not to support it after few hours working on compatibility (& I decided to write this post after that). And this is what I’ll do for anything new.
For WRD, I’ll take an action, but decide -how strict it will be- with the help of the comments – after hearing more thoughts about the subject.
Thank you for sticking up for us poor IE6 users, Joost. I’m one of those that can’t. I hate IE6. I would upgrade if I were allowed.
I am one of those in house designers forced to use IE6. I petitioned for Firefox but corporate acquisitions said IE6 is the only approved browser (duh. That’s why I want FF!). We are not allowed to upgrade any software on our computers; they are locked down.
So, sometimes it’s not that users don’t want to or don’t know how to upgrade, but their companies say they can’t. Specifically for us, apparently IE7 crashes our machines (some monkey business they did with the imaging to get other programs to run). Oh, and we’re still using Lotus Notes for email, too.
I agree with others here that it’s too early at the moment to dismiss IE users completely and as most of IE’s problems are easily resolved once the bugs are understood properly it shouldn’t be too much of a headache to at least get layouts for IE in a reasonable state (I still strive for pixel perfection and there’s no reason why it can’t be achieved).
However, as Joost pointed out, things don’t have to be pixel perfect. For example, if you want to ignore the PNG problems (as long as the content is still readable and the site usable) then IE6 users aren’t going to care too much that there’s no semi-transparency on an image.
The fixes in my article (which you’ve kindly featured) on IE6 bugs and fixes should resolve 95% of IE6′s major layout bugs so if you look for them while you’re coding (e.g. put display:inline on all floated elements with margins on the same side as the float) then you won’t even encounter the double margin bug. Just get into the habit of fixing these problems before they even occur, educate yourselves and 9 times out of 10 when you come to testing you should find that the page renders just fine
Thank you for linking my IE6 breakup letter. I had fun writing it
This is a good article on IE6 too:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200902/no_more_pixel_perfectionism_in_ie_6/
I feel the pain for those who are stuck with IE6(gov, corp inhouse designers). I feel a site doesn’t have to look pixel perfect in IE6, but should still function.
@LaurenMarie
Its not the fact that us designers will immediately STOP support for IE6, its the fact that we HAVE to do something otherwise this beast will STAY around.
I am a designer that just hates taking the extra day and headaches to fix IE6 at the end of every development cycle. But I still do it, because I HAVE to. And I will continue to do so until I no longer have to.
I sympathize with you corporate users who have no choice. But if all of us just accept the fate that IE6 is going no where, then it will not. We all have to continually try to get rid of it.
I do not agree with refusing access to IE6 on my websites. Some websites can. Mine can not, I rely on each and every visitor being able to use my sites. Its a business. But I will be damned if I sit on my ass and just LET people continue to use it without any clue as to what they are doing.
Its not about forcing change, its about not ignoring change.
Awesome list! I’ve gotten a lot more adept at predicting IE6 issues, but even now, every once in a while one will pop up that makes me want to throw this poor mac out the window
Great!
Link to stopie6 campaign is stopie6.com (not org).