The only way to completely kill IE6

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Sindarin
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The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by Sindarin »

I am no longer supporting IE6.
I don't accept having hacks on my websites for the sake of someone else's bad coded, outdated application.
Legacy support is good and convenient but relic support is not, the only thing it does is hold back evolution of the web. Visitors using an outdated browser, without knowing it prohibit us from serving them better and more user-friendly content.

I put a notification on my sites using conditional comments that if IE is lower than 7, the user need to upgrade to see the website correctly. I don't force or prohibit access to the user, but I do nag him by having a notification all the top on his page with a bright yellow color. I am also providing a link to the latest IE version.

This comes from a web radio website where we have about 1000-2000 visits per day,
Out of IE versions we had a 80% using Internet Explorer 6. A couple weeks after look what happened,

Image

Pretty impressive isn't it? Users upgraded because they were notified.

I also thought fast and complete transition to a better version of IE could be 'forced' by Microsoft. Not by making IE8 a required update. Remember how the last version of AOL Netscape nagged its users to upgrade to Firefox? There should be a similar notification for the obsolete browsers by Microsoft.
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onion2k
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by onion2k »

Is that chart for 1 week? Coz 1000 - 2000 a day is approximately 10,500 a week, and you appear to be demonstrating that while you've gone from 80% IE6 to 25% IE6, which is ace, you've lost about 20% of your traffic. That's a problem.

And you're still getting 25% IE6 so you really should be supporting those users. Few businesses can afford to ignore 1/4 of their customers.

As a method of binning IE6 I'd say that's a pretty epic fail.
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Sindarin
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by Sindarin »

Actually there was also an increase in other browser usage such as Firefox and Chrome, I assure you that no traffic was lost.
The period from April to May was after the site went live,

Image

Until the present day from then, Google Analytics reports a visitor raise of 199.44%
For a matter of fact my superiors say that hits via internet were increased dramatically in comparison to our older site. :D
As I said before the site doesn't disable IE6 users, it works, but it nags them to upgrade. And it seems users respond to that nag.
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JAB Creations
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by JAB Creations »

Not to defend IE6 but as I've continueously have gotten better at clientside coding ...really...there are only so many limitations. In fact the vast majority of bugs on my site in IE6 for the 29th version of my site are fixed by just this style sheet in addition to a single CSS related JavaScript...

Code: Select all

.checkbox_a, a.checkbox_a:link, a.checkbox_a:visited, .checkbox_b, a.checkbox_b:link, a.checkbox_b:visited {height: 16px; width: 16px;}
code {border-width: 0px 0px 1px 0px;}
#bottom {bottom: -1px;}
#head #menu a:link, #head #menu a:visited {line-height: 20px; text-align: center;}
#head #menu a:hover, #head #menu a:active {background-color: #696; border-bottom-color: #ebef92; color: #fff;}
#head #menu div.menu_ah {padding-top: 1px;}
#head #menu div.menu_ah {float: left; width: 84px;}
#head #menu_aux div a:link, #head #menu_aux div a:visited {line-height: 17px; width: 113px;}
#prompts {width: 740px;}
#prompts form fieldset label select {width: 116px;}
#prompts h2 {height: 15px; overflow: hidden; width: 738px;}
#side div  {width: 100%;}
#side form fieldset div.form_left {margin-left: -6px;}
#side form fieldset div.form_right {height: 22px; margin-left: 0px;}
#side form fieldset div.form_wide {height: 18px;}
#side #side_authentication form {box-sizing: border-box;}
#top {font-size: 0px;}
#side form fieldset div.form_search_left {margin: 0px 0px 0px -3px; padding-left: 2px; width: 65%;}
#side form fieldset div.form_search_left input {height: 20px;}
#side form fieldset h2 {height: 22px; margin: -2px 0px 2px -7px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -1px;}
#side form fieldset h2 label {height: 18px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; top: 0px;}
#side form fieldset div.form_wide #signin {position: relative; left: 8px; top: -2px;}
It might look like a lot...and yeah it still takes time to fix IE6 but the vast majority of issues caused usually turns out to be the web designer. Most people don't even comprehend CSS level 1 which after the JavaScript fix (the #body on my site) most of the page works fine except for very moderate to minute details.

Though I ultimately agree IE6 is the Netscape 4 of the second half of this decade. IE7 will be the Netscape 4/IE6 of the first half of the next decade...and IE8 will be the Netscape4/IE6 of the second half of the next decade. Microsoft's behavior will have long term consequences for years to come so ultimately while we can choose to drop IE6 support like onion stated few businesses can afford to drop a full quarter of their potential user base.

I highly suggest offering highly desirable features that aren't critical yet still highly desirable to people if they take the time to upgrade to a better browser or at least update IE.

The vast majority of force that is keeping IE6's shares intact are people outside of any technical influence (grandmothers in example) and corporations unwilling to downgrade from XP to Vista. Yes I said downgrade intentionally.
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jaoudestudios
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by jaoudestudios »

Its a difficult decision to make, without alienating too many users. It is a debate that has been ongoing for a long time. Giving the user notice that they need to upgrade is a good way to slowly move everyone forward - especially if the notice mentions security issues, the user will upgrade double time.

To be honest, Microsoft should stop flogging a dead horse, they've lost the browser race by far and should just give up (and die - added for dramatic effect)!

Most people use it because it is the default browser when they turn their windows computer on, not because it is any better - infact by far it is one of the worst browsers available.
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Sindarin
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by Sindarin »

What I am not definitely happy with Microsoft is that they do not provide developer versions of IE, like an Internet Explorer versions 6,7,8 separately meant only for testing websites in them. I am on Vista, Internet Explorer 6 doesn't work on there, as soon as you install IE8, IE7 vanishes (IE7 compatibility mode is not fully emulating IE7), so the only way is to install Virtual PC and have to switch all the time which is tedious.
To be honest, Microsoft should stop flogging a dead horse, they've lost the browser race by far and should just give up (and die - added for dramatic effect)!
I don't know why they don't switch to some other more reliable framework such the Gecko engine or Webkit, ( Damn, the IE team must be very proud of their buggy work! :roll: ) after all they try to show that MS embraces open source software.
Not to defend IE6 but as I've continueously have gotten better at clientside coding ...really...there are only so many limitations. In fact the vast majority of bugs on my site in IE6 for the 29th version of my site are fixed by just this style sheet in addition to a single CSS related JavaScript...
IE6 is not that hard to fix, the more new features you add to your website though the more you have to fix for IE6.
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Weirdan
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Re: The only way to completely kill IE6

Post by Weirdan »

Sindarin wrote:What I am not definitely happy with Microsoft is that they do not provide developer versions of IE, like an Internet Explorer versions 6,7,8 separately meant only for testing websites in them.
Actually they do. First, there's Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview (available for free download from microsoft site) - works very good if you want to check the html+css rendering. And if you want full-blown version of IE - there are virtual pc images with various versions of IE available from msdn.
Sindarin wrote: so the only way is to install Virtual PC and have to switch all the time which is tedious.
How it actually different from switching between different windows? Where I work we use vmware for this, but I guess virtual pc is very similar.
Sindarin wrote: I don't know why they don't switch to some other more reliable framework such the Gecko engine or Webkit, ( Damn, the IE team must be very proud of their buggy work! :roll: ) after all they try to show that MS embraces open source software.
Internet Explorer powers many parts of user interface in windows, so I don't think a replacement is feasible. First, the replacement should provide same features and services IE provides to other parts of the system. Next, if we're talking about these ancient client computes still running XP it would have to provide the same rendering to not break the software relying on it. This kinda defeats the purpose of switching.

I specifically mentioned XP because Vista comes with IE7 and if windows update is turned on it has been replaced by IE8 already. And IEs >6 are not that bad, really. IE7 is a bit quirky, but it doesn't come even close to IE6.

So it's not Microsoft to blame for IE6 predominance - it's users who refuse to upgrade, turn windows update off, fear of vista, etc.
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