Author - Priit Haamer

Leave IE6 alone! August 10

One of the more popular bandwagons rolling around the net these days is "Kill Internet Explorer 6". It started with some cool tech companies like Digg and Youtube announcing that they will drop IE6 support. Now everybody and their mother is trying to climb aboard. Well, count us out. Here are few reasons, why we won't be begging our users to switch from IE6.


Whining about browser incompatibility is not a very professional thing to do

A few weeks ago I tweeted this. I cannot see a valid point in all the hoopla around browser incompatibility issues. If you're whining about it, it means that there are things for you to learn. Now, this doesn't mean that I'm a fan of Internet Explorer but when you get your site to work on it, it just feels right. And for us IE6 isn't even the worst. It may be a surprise but we have most issues with Opera (Don't worry, I have spoken to both Opera users and they said it's fine for them to use Firefox sometimes... Just kidding :).

It's not our job to tell the customers which browser to use

Users come to your website to complete their own tasks and not complete your mission to kick some browser's butt. If you want them to upgrade a  browser before they can move on, you're doing it wrong. Just keep in mind all the trouble user must go through when upgrading IE. We want Edicy to work for all people, no matter what their computer literacy is - so why would we want to make them install and uninstall programs? 

Some of the people don't have an alternative

Much has been made of a Digg survey that showed, that a great majority of IE6 users can't switch because it's mandated by their IT departments (frankly if I owned a company, people not being able to use Digg and YouTube during work hours would be a pretty good argument against upgrading too. More here).

But also, let's talk about countries. Edicy has been quite popular in China. And 65% of our Chinese users are using IE6. In general we see that IE6 is more popular in economically less well-off countries. So we've decided we don't want to block the next billion internet users coming from the part of the world that will lead civilization for the foreseeable future.

A website does not have to look the same in every browser. 

And here's the proof. It's OK to have sites look worse in IE because I believe that people who use it don't care about the looks of your website anyway -- otherwise they would have migrated years ago. So if you want to create stunning effects with just a couple of lines of CSS, do it in other browsers and spend the time you save from work with your family. Create a version that works best with browser features that are available for free. Do not waste time replicating pixel-accurate version that image you got from web designer.

If you try, you can make it work

Here are some ideas for web developers to follow:

  • Know the basics about how browsers work, how they lay out elements. This makes you almost good to go. 
  • Learn the history of web browsers to understand why things are the way they are. If you don't know where to start, watch some Douglas Crockford talks and you'll be enlightened.
  • Make yourself familiar with capabilities of CSS rendering in different browsers. If you know these "little differences", you'll be able to make use of the common part very professionally.
  • Use a Javascript library that will abstract out the differences of event management and DOM manipulation in browsers.

More coverage on the topic: Mashable, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb

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Comments: 10

August 12, 2009
Mr.Wuzz: IE6 upgrade was killed by microsoft, forcing windows validation with ie7 autoupdate. most of ie6 users are using pirated version of windows so the only option was ignoring this windows update thus it cancelled any IE future upgrade (even when it doesn't require windows validation anymore).
August 12, 2009
Tester: I hope you inform your customers about security issues when they keep using IE6. Browser is not a usual software. It is the gateway to the outside world!
August 12, 2009
Kajar: Mr. Wuzz, interesting point. And Tester, sure, just as Priit said we're not fans of IE6 ourselves - for security reasons as well as several others. But that doesn't mean we'll be droping support for it. We're trying to make our product usable for all our clients. BTW here's what Microsoft themselves had to say: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/08/10/engineering-pov-ie6.aspx
August 13, 2009
Squidbilly: Weird. That website link (dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com) says "No!" in IE6, but "Yes!" in Firefox and Safari. WTF? Tested FF 2 and 3.5 and Safari 4. Haven't tested it in Chrome or Opera. I wonder why it doesn't render the same.
August 13, 2009
aabram: About IT-depts mandating IE6 use. Any IT-department who has IE6 only policy AND allows people to access public internet with it, needs to have their heads, certificates and job eligibility checked. If they need it for in-house apps and/or intranet, then be it, but that's exactly the reason they should propagate separate browser for public internet use. Also, using crippled software to restrict your employees access to YouTube or other sites is kind of bass-ackwards. You have firewalls and blocklists for that. As for that MS post: of course 17% of IE6 users don't feel the need to upgrade when countless of website builders slave their night hours away to develop workarounds for IE6. I, for once, support the idea of charging extra for IE6 support. If webdevelopers are expected to bend over backwards for broken and unsecure browsers, then they might as well charge for their wasted time. After all, you pay extra for obtaining rare spare parts for your '76 Chevy truck compared to any modern model.
August 14, 2009
Kajar: Well, aabram, you can certainly try to charge for IE6 support. I suspect you wont find many customers, though, they'll just turn to somebody that provides the support for free - however begrudgingly. I guess that's just how life is and we'll have to get used to the fact that until XP is around, so will IE6, campaigns or no campaigns. BTW here's another articulate article on the subject that sort of ends up in our corner: http://www.sowrey.org/2009/08/you-cant-kill-ie6/
August 15, 2009
Tajo: Aabram, in a way you're right. Companies do charge for IE6 support anyway - if the client demands backwards compability, the extra hours are added (more often than not - silently) to the final bill. I think the point is not to roll eyes and complain to the client or to everybody else. If it takes extra hours, charge extra hours. You don't hear dry cleaners moan over extremely stubborn stains :)
August 26, 2009
cchong: 1) "65% of our Chinese users are using IE6" - occured to you that majority of Chinese internet users are using pirated versions of windows (and thus limited their ability to upgrade) 2) "A website does not have to look the same in every browser" - tell that to your clients, see their reactions. 3) "Whining about browser incompatibility is not a very professional thing to do" - neither is whining about the whiners. 4) "It's not our job to tell the customers which browser to use" - and thus its high time to make sure your website is readable in Lynx as well.
August 27, 2009
Tajo: 1) Whatever the reason is for such high IE6 use, we ought to deal with it not hope that these users all magically go legal - it just won't happen. 2) We do tell them. And most of the time they agree with us or pay extra. 3) I think Priit was rather offering some constructive thoughts on the issue, not just whining and pointing fingers. 4) I think here you are missing the point - it's about the browser popularity, not the principle that we should support every browser on earth with the same dedication as Firefox or IE.
November 05, 2009
Henri Jeret: Ma arvan, et IE 6 näitab tegelikult mõnes olukorras koodi loogilisemalt, kui standardid on ette näidanud. Siiski on ju tore, kui oleksid kõigil ühed ja samad reeglid. Need oleksid nagu veebibrauserite seadused. See säästaks mingil märal aega ning siis saavad kõik nautida kõige uuemaid efekte ja uuendusi veebimaailmas. Samas aga äkki muidu ilma IE6ta liigukski veebimaailm liiga kiirelt edasi ja tekiks liiga palju blingbling lehti. IE võtab hoogu maha ja paneb meid ehk rohkem läbi mõtlema disainis ja selle teostuses. Ma olen suht erapooletu. Ta võiks ära kaduda, aga samas ei ole mul tema vastu ka midagi :P

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