Hi All,
I'm fed-up supporting all the strange behaviors of the IE6 browser, so I'm wondering how, as a web developer, can I help killing IE6.
Should I just stop supporting it? I think there is still a big mass of pepole that use it for various reasons.
Maybe show IE6 users a special message that asks them to upgrade and hope it would help? (does it help?)
Any better ideas?
I use IE 6 at work- it is out of my control (I can't just install other browsers- well actually I can, but other uses who don't have admin right can't). Maybe you should learn to live with the fact that IE 6 is still used heavily in corporate environments and there is not a lot you can do about it, unless you wish to alienate a certain user base.
IMHO one of the best ways to do this is to provide IE6 users a complete but downgraded version of your site.
Most companies can't afford to just deny access to the swathes of people who use IE6, and of course users don't read messages, so just denying access to IE6 users won't work.
In addition to this many users don't have the ability to choose a different browser because of their network's group policy.
So I think the best you can do is give a (maybe deliberately) downgraded experience (not AJAX, simpler interface) and try to make it clear that this would be better if you were on a more modern browser. This is what GMail does, of course.
The important thing is to make sure the IE6 version still works and doesn't crash or render hideously. IE6 users will see that and think 'Oh, that website doesn't work, I won't visit there again.'
This should spur people to ask their IT department to upgrade.
It's not perfect, but then I doubt any method is.
Edit: Take a look at this blog post, basically says what I've said
I make sure that all my sites still "work" fully in IE6, but it doesn't bother me if there are some display issues. For example, things may not line up perfectly, or some non-essential javascript might not work.
A while ago someone actually started a campaign to get rid of IE6 (after some Norwegian websites started warning users that they were using IE6). They started a WIKI which also contains several examples on how to warn users that they're using IE 6.
The problem is that in most corporate environments, IE6 is still the standard browser. This will slowly erode in the future, when Vista/Win7 will replace XP as the most common OS. Before that I see little chance of IT departments voluntarily rolling out IE7 or 8 when there is no clear need to do so (don't fix it if it ain't broken).
It would need at least one of the big guys (Google, Amazon, Yahoo...) to push IE6 out by not supporting it any longer. Since this will reduce their number of potential customers in the short run, they are unlikely to do so. You have to decide for yourself if the potential customer loss for you is worth the effort saved if you don't support it any longer.
If you decide to not support it any more, give your users a short message about this (maybe like the notification bar here in SO?), together with a link to a more elaborate explanation why you decided this.
That being said, I just wish everybody would stop supporting IE6 now.
You could add the upgrade notice from http://ie6update.com/ to your site. However, you need to consider that many users are not on IE6 by choice and have no power to upgrade their browser.
You might not be able to kill IE6, so why not make some extra money off of its carcass?
If you're fed up the quirks and hacks, tell your clients that you won't be supporting any IE6 fixes and workarounds out of the box. You'll instead spend your time on the other, more compliant, browsers.
But, that you will offer to work with IE6 for an extra fee given the extra amount of time it realistically takes to accomodate an out-of-date browser.
When the clients realise how much extra time, effort and especially money, it takes to support such a legacy browser, you'll be steps closer to no longer having to support it.
First of all keep in mind that IE6 usage primarily originates from office(the place, not the software) users. If your site targets home users and not office users, you might consider dropping IE6 support.
Other than that there are a ton of initiatives. A few examples:
If you work for a paying client then you're out of luck, your only option is to try to educate him and hope he's an understanding type.
As for the public sites, well, just drop it. I haven't seen IE6 since two or maybe three years on my PC and I consider that enough to bury it.
You may however wish to display a message to the user, but not saying he's using an outdated browser but something with more psychological touch: "This page looks broken to you? This maybe because your browser is broken. Wish it to be fixed? Get an update.".
Consider adding the css provided on http://www.ie6nomore.com/ to your web pages. It's a friendly little message that tells the users to upgrade :)