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Is Internet Explorer 6/7 Support Required Now?
k33l0r writes "Following Google's announcement ending support for Internet Explorer 6, I find myself wondering whether we (Web developers) really need to continue providing support for IE6 and IE7. Especially when creating Web sites intended for technical audiences, wouldn't it be best to end support for obsoleted browsers? Would this not provide additional incentives to upgrade? Recently I and my colleagues had to decide whether it was worth our time to try to support anything before IE8, and in the end we decided to redirect any IE6/7 user-agent to a separate page explaining that the site is not accessible with IE 6 or 7. This was easy once we saw from our analytics that fewer than 5% of visitors to the site were using IE at all. Have you had to make a choice like this? If so, what was your decision and what was the reasoning behind it?"
You could just let IE6 "try its best". And use a big red notice bar at the top with a link explaining it.
Depends on your clients. If you're talking about a mostly technical crowd? No, probably don't need IE6. If you're talking about a site for corporate users, yea, you need IE6. There are many major companies out there still running IE6 on XP. It sucks, they should all switch to Firefox (Or Chrome, or Opera, or anything but IE), but unfortunately most don't have a choice in the matter. Oh and if you're trying to sell people something, then most likely yet again.
Of course it all depends on what your usage stats/analytic say. Personally, I've not supported IE6 for a long time, but then on most of my sites Firefox is more than 50% of the market.
snowulf.com
Actually, no browser should be explicitly/directly supported. Only standards need to be supported. The browsers and their makers should be forced to comply.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
your thinking is the typical fail thinking that persists here on /. that technology sets the agenda not the customer.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
How well does page support standards and is it designed that blind people can run it trough voice syntetisator or Lynx to read it with the "blind keyboard".
I would not like that any page is designed for specific browser at all. Was it FF, Opera, Safari, IE etc.
If "security was tight", IE would not be allowed at all.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I should have clarified. My sites are all now built for HTML5 and every attempt is made to stay standards-compliant.
While users with older browsers are redirected, the entire site (short of the few pages with directions) use those standards and are still visible selects the ``I know my browser was made in the 1800s but I still want to see your site'' link.
It's code and pages that I wrote one and just copy into new sites. *That's* what I wish more people would do. We could all gently urge those who either don't know or don't care and perhaps make the web a better place, one user at a time.
Get rid if IE6? Boy I wish we could. But we can't.
Our 4-man startup software company targets medium sized corporate customers (250-2500 seats) and they are still using lots of old computers with IE6. There are many reasons but a few of the most noticable ones are:
1.) a ton of old Line-of-Business applications still uses IE6 for presentation.
2.) a surprisingly large amount of corporate software uses embedded IE6 components in their GUI.
Most of these corporations have installed newer browsers on their machines (some of them even installed non-MS browsers) but IE6 is still there - under the surface - because critical business applications are still depending on it.
All those Line-of-Business applications are extremely hard to remove. They often solve critical business needs so nobody wants to throw them away. They work and "do the things they were built to do". And since they just work there is no budget to replace them with somerhing else. The people who created them have left the company years ago so nobody really knows exactly how and why they are implemented.
But everbody knows this about their old LOB apps: they neeed IE6, they still work as intended, nobody can tell how to make an alternate solution, and there is no budget to analyze or re-implement them (and why would anybody want to - right?).
I imagine this is quite common for many corporations around the world and not just in my region.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
My stats indicate more visitor use IE6 than Opera (all versions combined) or Safari (all versions combined).
If IE6 is dead, then so are both Opera and Safari.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The stuff I really want on the web would work fine with Netscape Navigator 3.x and the correct plugins.
Do us all a favor and get rid of CSS, XHTML, and all the other alphabeet soup. Oh, and stop using target _blank. I've held out quite a while, but I think I'm finally going to install one of those script/tag-stripping proxies just so I can get rid of target _blank.
I wanna new window, I'll click right-click and chose "open in new window". That's what it's there for. Oh, and how's that back button compatability thing working out? No? Still not there? Wankers.
Oh, and "get off my lawn".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Make a list of the software that doesn't work properly with IE6. Try to evaluate the lost productivity. If hit by a virus that uses a flaw in IE6, count the time lost and put a $$$ figure on it. Then defend your case. Your employer is concerned chiefly about money. Make a case with monetary facts.
Also in some kind of companies (high tech startups) the argument "Google did X" is often very powerful. Tell them that now you are using a technology that someone like Google does not consider usable anymore.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Still supporting IE 6/7 is similar to acting like those EA managers, who would never dare to do something innovative, edgy, fresh or even slightly offending, to get a target group as big as possible...
How do you explain something like Mirror's Edge then?
What's tight at these locations is compliance auditing more than security.
In many environments, these compliance requirements have the force of law, and it can be a long up-hill battles to change a poor, "hack" compliance regulation, such as "Use Internet Explorer 6 with these settings and patches", to an effective one (use a browser that supports the following security...).
Since the ostensible purpose of compliance is security, many people mix the two concepts.
When I worked at a job that not only used IE6, but used a heavily-locked-down IE6 that wouldn't even let me change the homepage.. I ran Portable Firefox from a USB drive and stopped caring.
So.. it has come to this
As a web developer, I hate supporting IE6. It lacks so many things that make the web a better place today (poor CSS support, no PNGs -- yes there are fixes).
I've found it depends on your target demographic. If you are looking at business people, IE6 is still in the ballgame. Offices are still lagging behind in their conversion to modern browsers. This is probably because the IT staff just doesn't care.
In talking with user groups, I've heard people say (frequently) that they prefer Firefox or Chrome at home, but at work aren't allowed to install those browsers -- so they are forced to use IE6 during work hours.
Let's say I'm running a version of OSX that the best it can do is FF2 and now you are automatically sending me to a page telling me how I'm an idiot or how my IT staff should have bought me a new computer or why your website should cast judgment on policy decisions to stay on IE6 at a corporate level.
I don't care that there is a link to return, you obstructed my navigation of your website and I'll likely never return (especially with an insulting reference to the 1800s). Fine for your blog, not so hot for a business when you could have just put a div at the top of the page displaying a warning. *That's* what I wish more people would do. It's a gentle way. Redirecting isn't gentle, unless you're a cowboy and have warped views of gentle.
And when your employer finds out you have a netbook there, maybe you can hang out in the coffee shop and show it off to all your friends. While you peruse Monster and Dice looking for your next job.