Shall I ignore IE6 while developing a website? also any other browser to avoid?

Question

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Should we support IE6 anymore?

ripie6.com

I would like to know which browsers we can avoid. Many sites have stopped support to IE6. So, as developers we can also start avoiding some sites? If yes, what are all? (which versions of what broswers)

Even though I have asked the question already here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3139347/which-browser-to-start-with-ie-firefox-chrome-safari , I dint get the answer since its combined with another question.

Answer 1

Support the browsers that your users use.

stackoverflow.com can probably be less strict than other sites in the browsers it supports, since the vast majority of users are technically adept, and likely to be using a reasonably modern browser. amazon.com probably needs to support more browsers, since it will attract a broader spectrum of internet users.

Who uses your site? Who uses similar sites? What browsers are they using? That's how you decide what browsers to support - not based on what the population of internet users use, since the population of internet users probably isn't your audience (unless you're Google, that is).

Answer 2

Assuming it's a business site:

What's your target market? How long do you expect until you release a working version of your website? If current trends continue, what will be IE6's market share by then? How much profit/value will those users bring? How much will it cost to support those additional users? Unless the costs are far below the profit, then don't bother. Otherwise, it might be a good idea.

If it's not a for-profit site(hobby, for instance), then you probably shouldn't bother, unless there's a really significant IE6 market share in your target market.

By the way, remember to use graceful degradation when possible and use feature detection instead of browser detection. Finally, avoid blocking IE6 users and instead just display a warning saying the website is untested in their browser and suggesting an update(this last piece of advice only applies if you don't plan to support IE6)

Answer 3

You need to evaluate a few things:

1. Your audience. If you are targeting home users, informal or young audience, or technically advanced audience, you may wish to consider not supporting IE6. On the contrary, if you are targeting conservative business audience or large corporations, you should take IE6 in consideration
2. Are you developing for yourself, or on commission? If you are developing for someone, you need to discuss this with them
3. Is this a restructuring of an old site? You may use instruments like google analytics, to find out who your visitors are, and what do they use

Not supporting IE6 will save you a lot of headache, and many sites are starting to avoid it, to be free to implement new features using modern tools. But there are situations where you just can't afford this.