Why are people still using IE6?

Question

Duplicate:

Why is IE6 still a corporate favorite in some organizations?
How to (kindly) ask your users to upgrade from IE6?

I am really tired of dealing with IE6. I want to do something about it. I appreciate the work put into the Stop IE6 Campaign. Thanks guys! However, I'm not sure they're really attacking the problem.

Why are people still using an eight-year-old browser? What reasons do you know of, personally, from your family or friends? Is it just ignorance, laziness, negligent IT staff, or even (god forbid) preference? I've heard plenty of speculation, but few personal accounts, and even fewer hard statistics. If you know of actual surveys, I'd love to see that as well.

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EDIT: Thanks for those of you giving specific examples. It seems like a lot of people don't understand why I'm asking this, because it's so obvious. To clarify, I agree that "Most people couldn't care less" is the most likely answer. And as to whether there's anything to be done about this, the consensus seems to be "nothing". I kind of agree with this too, though I'll do what I can. But how prevalent has this reason been for you personally? What other reasons are there, particularly on the business front? What specific applications are tying people to IE6?

I'm entirely serious about this question. My goal is to be able to actually do something, like change how I treat IE6 on my sites, or even offer specific upgrade services. Whatever it takes. I just want to find out what road to go down.

Answer 1

Because most of them don't know that there exists a browser called Firefox.

And yes, some of my friends (who know about other browsers) even make of me when I ask them to switch to a browser with tabs. Their answer is typically, "We prefer Microsoft, it's easy to use, not Linux and Firefox. You carry on your work Mr. Open Source."

I know, it's total ignorance.

Answer 2

Most folks couldn't care less about what browser they are using.

Do you care if all the plumbing in your house is up-to-date? I'll bet a plumber would shake his head at the state of the pipes and drains in my home and yours. Yet we don't care as long as those pipes and drains get the job done.

Answer 3

Mostly spite

Answer 4

My client company (A rather large one) still enforces the use of IE6 (Maybe because their apps use Active X? I have no idea but it is policy), it was a nightmare getting my web app that I was testing in Firefox to look correct... ugh.

Answer 5

There are people still running Wind 95 and Win 98. There are people who have been explicitly told not to upgrade. There are people who don't want IE7 because of some of the other OS security features that come with it involve more dialogue boxes.

And then there are large installations, corporate, educational, or governmental, where some IE6-specific ActiveX or something else is used for a mission-critical application. It "works" in the eyes of management and accounting, so replacing it is nearly impossible.

Answer 6

Non technical people typically look at any technical changes as opening up a can of worms they will not be able to deal with.

Answer 7

some people just use what another person installs on their PC, which is in the most cases WINDOWS XP SP1-2. Which has an "Internet" icon which is actually IE6.

Answer 8

Because it came on their computer and to them IE = the internet. They don't even realise there's different versions and/or they're worried about updates breaking things. You can't get through to them, you need to wait until they get a new computer.

Answer 9

For most people, I'd think it was the browser that came with their computer, and they haven't had reason to upgrade their computer. For quite a few years now, computers have been good enough for most purposes, and there's no obvious need to upgrade.

For many businesses, I'd expect to find web apps that work in IE 6 and nothing else.

There's really no way to change this any time soon. The people in the first group won't notice any publicity campaign that goes on, and likely wouldn't know what to do in the first place. The people in the second group are locked in.

Answer 10

Look at it this way - say you're Joe Sixpack. You, your wife, and your kid all share the family computer. You go online to check news, your wife checks her email, and your kid looks at pictures of silly cats. Given that you probably don't even know what a browser is, is there any reason whatsoever to upgrade?

Answer 11

In an awful lot of cases, the problem is companies whose computers have to work with some ancient and proprietary intranet apps which only work in IE6.

As pointed out by others, many people simply don't care (or know) which browser they're using. This isn't as much an issue as it used to be, since IE7 has been offered as an automatic update on Windows Update for a long time now, so if you have a legit copy of Windows, and you haven't explicitly disabled updates, you should end up with IE7.

And of course, if you really want to help drive IE6 to extinction, the best you can do might be to put your money where your mouth is. Don't accept jobs that require you to target IE6. Or charge extra for time wasted on IE6 hacks. Of course this could mean you lose income, but it may also convince a few people that their new website doesn't need to work in IE6. Not if supporting it would add another 70% to the price.

Answer 12

Some organizations use proprietary (borderline legacy) webapps that are validated to work in IE6. By validated, i don't mean merely tested. I mean documented to work as expected, which is important in dealing with certain areas such as pharma/FDA regulated stuff. It's those legacy apps that keep big orgs from switching to newer/different browsers.

Answer 13

you should take a look at this site (it's April fool, btw :P)

I guess some people still use it because it comes with the system (win XP). They don't want to (or know how to) upgrade, they don't know that other browsers exist.

Answer 14

Because to many users "Internet Explorer" IS the internet.