Why I Am No Longer Supporting IE6

Monday, August 18, 2008 6:17 PM Filed under:

General

Why I Am No Longer Supporting IE6

In the recent relaunch of this site, I created a new custom skin for Subtext. Since this is just a personal site, I threw things together fairly quickly, testing along the way with Firefox3 and IE7. Once I was getting closer to complete, I took a look at my new site in all the usual browsers, including IE6. Ugh, it looked terrible. I gave it some thought and made some decisions about supporting IE6. I'm not going to support it. Not on this site and not on others that I have a say in. I'm not talking about leaving my site unusable for IE6 users - they just won't get as good of an experience. I'm not alone with this decision. Read on to see why I am no longer supporting IE6.

As I mentioned above, I'm not talking about leaving the site inaccessible or unusable for IE6 users. I completely understand that there are many corporate machines that are held back by IT restrictions & policies where IE6 is the only choice. I'm not talking about making my sites inaccessible to these users, or even those who just don't upgrade due to their own ignorance. However, I'm just going to choose to no longer dumb-down my sites to support them. They'll be able to access my sites. They just won't have as good of an experience.

I know that this sort of decision cannot be made about all sites. It's a smart idea for major public sites to be able to fall back to IE6 support if needed. Most of my sites are focused on the developer, either in the form of a blog or a community site. Knowing that this is my audience I feel completely justified in not supporting IE6 and focusing only on more current browsers. When redesigning my new site, I intentionally used PNG images with transparencies among other things that I knew wouldn't look cool for IE6 users. I'm OK with that. I don't think that is me being "elitist" or anything, again the audience for this site is developers - although there is still a disturbing percentage of the traffic that is using IE6.

Letting IE6 Users Know What They Are Missing
OK. As I mentioned, IE6 users can still read everything on this site. Things are way too spaced apart and many dividers are not where they are supposed to be, but things are still quite readable. I don't want these users thinking that this is how my site is supposed to look. Come on, that would be embarrassing. Instead of fixing it however, I've decided to add a little item to the header area of the page to let them know that "I know the site looks like crap, it's because of your browser".

Users who come to this site using IE6 will see the above and can come read more on this post. I'm completely on-board with Mad Kristensen's post creating better experiences for your visitors, I'll just be focusing on creating a better experience for the users with more modern browsers.

What's Wrong With IE6?
This is a development blog, so I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone here, but off top of my head (this is a small part of a very large list):

Lack of support for current standards for HTML markup, CSS, etc
Support for non-standard features not compatible with other browsers
No PNG transparency support
Released in 2001, we've completely moved beyond everything about IE6. This is a browser that PC World rated one of the worst tech products of all time.

How Long Will Developers Have to Continue Supporting IE6?
At some point, we'll all have to be OK with putting and end to adding support for IE6 in our sites. 37Signals dropped support for IE6 in their products last Friday, Aug 15th. I've decided that for my sites, the time is now as well.

If you'd like to end supporting IE6 in your sites as well, all you have to do is focus on developing for newer browsers. Let the site suck for IE6 users IMO. To let them know that "you know it sucks and they should upgrade", SaveTheDevelopers.org has a nice little Javascript you can add to your site to drop down a little message on the top of your pages that encourages the user to upgrade their browser to IE7 or install Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.

Say No To IE 6!

Our current campaign focuses on assisting users in upgrading their Internet Explorer 6 web browser. This campaign will result in former IE 6 users having a more enjoyable experience on the web while (hopefully) creating a less stressful and complicated environment for web developers by hastening the retirement of an outdated browser.

OK. Enough for me. I'm sold. No more support for IE6 from me. IE6 users, sorry. You can still use my sites, they just won't look as nice. As a consolation prize, you will at least get to see my cool "Eek IE6!" message.

Comments

DotNetKicks.com 8/18/2008 8:04 PM

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com
dzone 8/18/2008 8:21 PM

Why I am No Longer Supporting IE6
Roger 8/19/2008 2:08 AM

amen.
Janko 8/19/2008 3:08 AM

Great, mate you are my idol! :) I received a lot of critics recently why some of my examples do not support IE6. I'll just give your article as an answer.
Florin 8/19/2008 3:12 AM

I also decided to refuse IE6. People will get the http://www.savethedevelopers.com. The problem with that site is that it confuses people. I get emails back from people asking what the site is about.

I could not reach the savethedevelopers.com people.

Their message should be: Upgrade your browser and save the developers!

Yes, yes, people just don't get it, for whatever reason, no matter how baffling it might sound.
Zuhaib 8/19/2008 3:20 AM

the reason users are lazy about upgrading from IE6 is Microsoft is not including latest version of IE with its service packs. XP SP3 should have had IE7 included
Nick Berardi 8/19/2008 5:04 AM

You are a very smart man! We have been internally debating if IE 6 is even worth supporting, even with its 25% market share still. IT departments at these large hold out corporations just need to allow the push to go through and rid everybody of IE 6.
Philip Dockerman 8/19/2008 5:16 AM

@Zubaib:
May I suggest we're just as lazy to not support IE6 ?
Florin 8/19/2008 6:09 AM

Lazy? Did you consider why I should put the effort and companies should dish out the money to support a broken and non-confirming product? Did you consider how many hours professionals spend on IE6 - people that among other things, have a life, children, tasks, friends, appointments, etc? Do you realize that sometimes they are forced to sacrifice precious time tweaking their web apps just to fit Microsoft's way? Don't you find it to be arrogant for a company such as Microsoft to demand this from us, mere mortals?

If companies want their pet functionality in their browsers, wouldn't you prefer them to simply enhance but not break their browsers? No! For financial reasons, MS insists on 'forcing' their way on you.

Lazy? Give me a break.
Will 8/19/2008 6:53 AM

There's also http://www.pushuptheweb.com/
synodinos 8/19/2008 8:15 AM

Ryan you are right on target!

"Internet Explorer 6 on its way out (or not)?":

http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/07/ie6_on_its_way_out
Digg 8/19/2008 9:06 AM

Digg - Why I Am No Longer Supporting IE6
Jason Haley 8/19/2008 9:10 AM

Trackpack from Interesting Finds: August 19, 2008 - [Rough Cut]
Clánky - <!> Save Developers nepodporujte IE6 8/19/2008 9:14 AM

Pingback from Clánky - <!> Save Developers nepodporujte IE6
Dew Drop - August 19, 2008 | Alvin Ashcroft 8/19/2008 9:20 AM

Pingback from Dew Drop - August 19, 2008 | Alvin Ashcroft
Ryan Farley 8/19/2008 9:31 AM

@Janko, thanks! It's got to start some time!

@Florin, I agree, the SaveTheDevelopers.org site is confusing to the sort of people that it is targeted at. People who are less-technical, and likely have not upgraded their browsers, need more instruction than that. They need to be told 1) What is wrong with their current browser and 2) how to upgrade to a newer version of IE.

@Philip, I don't think we are lazy to not support IE6 any more. The support for it *has* to stop at some point. I mean, we're no longer supporting IE4 or Netscape2, or Lynx, are we?

@Will & @synodinos, thanks for those links. Those are great.

-Ryan
SeanJA 8/19/2008 9:41 AM

Uhh... I am using IE 5.5, so it should probably not say EEK! IE 6!
Ryan Farley 8/19/2008 9:43 AM

@SeanJA,

Uh, that it so sad. BTW, my code to display that actually just checks if you're on IE and *anything* less than v7.

-Ryan
Ryan Farley 8/19/2008 9:48 AM

Just came across another link that ties in to this:

Mozilla drags IE into the future with Canvas element plugin
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080819-mozilla-drags-ie-into-the-future-with-canvas-element-plugin.html

"IE's shortcomings won't hold back the Internet for much longer, however, because Mozilla plans to drag IE into the next generation of open web technologies without Microsoft's help."

Hehe :-)
Sean Carpenter 8/19/2008 1:10 PM

I like this idea in principle, but we found it wouldn't fly. As part of a re-launch of a whole bunch of public sites on ASP.Net MVC we looked into our traffic by browser since we were converting to a CSS-based design. 40% of our traffic was still on IE6 and that's just too many people to provide a sub-optimal user experience to. Especially when many people have no control over the browser they are using (IT policies, etc.).
Ryan Farley 8/19/2008 2:17 PM

Thanks for the comments Sean. I agree that not everyone can decide to make the IE6 cut off quite yet (but I also believe that day is approaching).

For me, most of my own sites are targeted at developers. That's an audience that is more likely to upgrade, assuming they are prevented from doing so by IT restrictions. However, even for my own company website (which is visited by as many business types as tech types) I've decided to stop supporting IE6. I'm not going to do anything crazy to make the site a bad experience for them, I'm just not going to spend the extra hours to make it the best experience for them either.

It's sad that there's so many out there still holding on to a 2001 piece of software, and a bad piece of software at that. :-(

-Ryan
Ryan 8/20/2008 8:38 AM

Although I agree if the internet is to start looking better we need to spend less time worrying about outdated browsers, it's hard to stop supporting IE6, I'm curious as to what percent of your users are still using it? I know for my friends and family most of them still use IE6, not by choice but several reasons.

They don't notice the difference. It's a hard time getting them to actually switch to Firefox, a lot of them don't really see the difference at first, "the web is the web". Generally what I have to do to get them to convert is to show them how add ons work, usually finding one that looks really cool to them, something they will find interesting. And most people don't like the idea of having to download a browser, they want what "came in the box", upgrades apparently scare them. I have to pretty much do all of the upgrades for my friends.

Windows 98 does not support IE7, and I couldn't get it to update, which is good for MS at least, they know when to stop supporting old tech too I guess. However a few people I know have machines that are just too old to support XP, so they don't really have the choice to upgrade, so it's either FF (or Opera or Safari or any of the other browsers) or a new computer. And a lot of my family seems to be distrustful of FF, don't really know why, but my grandma is still using IE6.

Upgrading on XP can be a real pain as well, if you're not "genuine" at least. Windows Update just doesn't work like it should, you can't scan your computer and simply make the updates, you need to know you need IE7, search for it and download it. I actually finally got around to updating my XP a few months, take a few hours for SP3 and IE7 to work, and finding an actual download link on MS's site was not too easy too, something I don't think the common user will be willing to go through.
Bruce Clark 8/20/2008 10:13 AM

Great posting. I support your decision. IE6 is a hindrance to developers' time. And most good developers should have a site that looks *decent* in IE6, just not pixel perfect.

This is okay! IE6 users that are locked in can still use it, but really the time and effort can be put forth for those with a better browser to enjoy the site more.
Ryan Farley 8/20/2008 10:28 AM

@Ryan, I feel your pain. I support my family with their computers as well. Fortunately, they take my word as to why the need to upgrade and they do it. Even the most computer illiterate of my family is on the newest browser. The sort of people you describe, that are still on Win98 or just don't know how to upgrade (or what the benefit would be) are definitely not who this site, or any of my other sites, are targeted at. My company is one that deals in technology (a consulting company). We don't deal with people on Win98 or non-genuine copies of WinXP or people that don't understand the benefits of upgrading (notwithstanding the companies with IT restrictions preventing upgrades). However, my sites, even this blog, sees a significant amount of IE6 traffic. These are developers, IT professionals, etc who understand, or at least *should* understand the value of upgrading and have not (not counting those who are prevented from upgrading by IT). These are the people that this movement is directed to. I seriously mean no offense, but your family and friends who are refusing to upgrade because they don't see what the difference is will eventually get left behind as far as web technology is concerned. I don't think that the development community should be required to support these sort of users indefinitely. Besides, maybe they would understand why they need to upgrade if every site they went to told them that they needed to and stopped spending all the extra time to cater their sites to these users with antiquated browsers.

@Bruce Clark, amen! That is exactly what this is all about "have a site that looks *decent* in IE6, just not pixel perfect"

-Ryan
cfx 8/20/2008 10:45 AM

I think its even better to be non-technical about it. most of these people do not know they are using IE6. they are often just using some computer and don't know the difference between OS and browser.

so framing it in terms of "the developers" (what are they ?) or "standards" or some confusing message about lots of different upgrade options is simply speaking the wrong language the wrong people.

I say on non-customer-serving websites just returns a simple message: "IE6 is no longer supported". they will eventually get the message.
Ryan Farley 8/20/2008 11:14 AM

@cfx, that is an excellent point. That is why I am liking the http://www.pushuptheweb.com/ route better than the savethedevelopers.org. The http://www.pushuptheweb.com/ site doesn't say anything about "developers". You can add their script to your page and it will float a small box to the user saying that they have an important upgrade available. They click the link and it takes them to the Microsoft IE upgrade page. I like that better - although it is just the sort of thing I always tell my non-tech family members to never click on :-)

-Ryan
Scott Hulbert 8/20/2008 11:55 AM

Hey Ryan,

Why not use Dean Edward's IE7/8.js files that will fix a lot of the issues. The way I see it, using a Javascript solution means worse experience for IE users but things will still display decently and it saves you tons of time.
Chuck 8/22/2008 1:20 PM

Don't forget that there are a lot of companies out there, stuck on IE6. The poor saps working in these companies have no input as to when/if the company will upgrade to IE7.
Janko At Warp Speed 9/3/2008 1:27 PM

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CarbonGraffiti 9/3/2008 1:29 PM

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Think about it... 10/21/2008 12:45 PM

Having IE6 is mandated by my company. We are a Fortune 50 company with thousands of internal applications. Continually certifying them to the newest IE/Windows release costs millions of dollars. My company made a decision to skip Vista & IE7. There simply is no compelling business reason to upgrade while XP & IE6 are patched/supported by MicroSoft.

A lot of businesses are making these choices rather than lay off IT workers just to play 'chase the browser, chase the OS'.

Good luck with your crusade.
Ryan Farley 10/28/2008 10:15 AM

@Think about it...

Thanks for the comment. As I mentioned earlier, I realize that there are many who are restricted by their corporate IT departments and only allowed to use IE6. That is fine. I don't intend to make my sites inaccessible to them, I just don't want to be held to catering to the lowest common denominator, dumbing down my sites and making them less than what they *could* be because of them. These corporate IE6 users will still be able to access my sites, it just won't be as nice of an experience as those with more up to date browsers will have.

However, I don't understand your reasoning of "businesses are making these choices rather than lay off IT workers just to play 'chase the browser'". How does a company's decision to support a version of a browser equate to laying off IT staff?

-Ryan
PG 12/12/2008 3:32 AM

Hi guys.
Guess what. I'm a web developer, prefering IE6. Suppose our kind must be rare these days, eh?
I'm not going to be very specific, cause there are a lot of reasons. Summing it up:

* IE6 is much more responsive than IE7. I'm not talking about page rendering, I'm talking about gui. IE7 smells like Vista. And that's a bad thing.

* IE6 has a more configurable gui. This one's weird, but true. And sad. Sad but true.

* IE6 eats less resources.

Of course it would be a better world without IE6, but without a better substitute + 23% IE6 users out there I don't think that this will happen tomorrow. When IE8 arrives I will have my fingers crossed that Microsoft learned their lesson.

Firefox is another sad story. An application that doesn't follow windows standards is bad. Talking about bad, using a frickin sql server for handling browser history and bookmarks is just plain stupid! Take a look at the disk access when FF3 is running. Hell, you just have to use your ears to hear what's wrong with this idea.