Developers to stop supporting IE6?

[creospace]

So you are stuck with IE6 for a while.

Sounds like you are

 

[DotNetWebs]

Here's a good site for you Gary:

http://idroppedie6.com/

I found the above in the printed version of this interesting article:

Calling Time on IE6

Regards

Dotty

 

[creospace]

Thanks Dotty.

It's only a matter of time mwa mwa Mwa Mwa MWA MWA!

 

[NickReffitt]

It's an absolute pain, but I have to make sure my sites work in IE6 really. However, each year the percentage of usage of IE6 drops by quite a lot. Statistics can be found on the W3Schools website.

 

[DotNetWebs]

I realised another reason why it might not be a good idea to drop support for IE6 just yet - Netbooks!

My father has just visited with his new Dell netbook. It's a nice little machine but I was suprised that its shipped with IE6!

Regards

Dotty

 

[ozbon]

I'd suggest that's because Netbooks are pretty underpowered, and IE7/8 are total resource hogs.

Still, I'm sure netbooks will develop in power/capacity over the next year or so as well, which might help.

But the big issue is still the umpteen IT departments and big corporations who won't update to >IE6 yet for whatever reason. (I've worked with three in the last year in this situation, and the IT departments just biffle on about 'security testing' etc., and won't make the changes)

 

[DotNetWebs]

...But the big issue is still the umpteen IT departments and big corporations who won't update to >IE6 yet for whatever reason. (I've worked with three in the last year in this situation, and the IT departments just biffle on about 'security testing' etc., and won't make the changes)

100% agree and have said so in this thread.

I think that you can only safely drop support for IE6 IF you are not bothered about visitors from big corporations and public bodies (and netbook users!)

Regards

Dotty

 

[get clever]

Sometimes you can really feel stuck between a rock and a hard place with IE6 - it's a lousy, insecure sack of crap, yet there's a significant number of people still using it.

Personally, I take the view that until the Internet becomes unusable on IE6, people (and lazy IT departments!) won't upgrade. So it's definitely time to forget about it and just put in a conditional css statement that hides the website and displays a nice little paragraph suggesting that perhaps it's time to upgrade. Heck, even some links to some proper browsers. There's nothing to stop people from continuing on to the website (with the lengthy IE6 compatibility hacks if need be - it's important to remember who your clients are) but at least they've been educated.

The longer support is kept, the longer it'll have to be supported.

 

[creospace]

Since I started this thread our ie6 visits have dropped from 30% to around 13%, if we pandered to the 13% by dropping some things that dont' work in ie6 then we'd alienate the 87%. I anticipate that figure will drop dramatically further over the next 6 months.

The netbooks is not another reason to support ie6, poor show on Dell really for not building something that can't support the newer browsers.

You can do so much more with websites post ie6, it's a crime not to use the new technologies (at least it should be) and lowering everything to the lowest common denominator just to suit ie6 visitors is no longer viable and becomes less and less viable day by day.

 

[DotNetWebs]

...if we pandered to the 13% by dropping some things that dont' work in ie6 then we'd alienate the 87%...

There is no need to alienate the 'other 87%' - just have on CSS rule for IE6 users and another for everybody else.

I am guessing that it is MS not Dell that have configured the netbook XP to use IE6. If that is the case you could be alienating a large proportion (if not the majority) of netbook users.

Regards

Dotty

 

[creospace]

It's a % thing, I don't really care if 100% of netbook users are ie6 users if they represent .5% of our total visitors.

The technologies I refer to go deeper than css changes, maybe that wasn't clear.

 

[DotNetWebs]

...The technologies I refer to go deeper than css changes, maybe that wasn't clear.

Ah yes. If you are talking about applications (as opposed as to sites) then I 100% agree.

Regards

Dotty

 

[MattyB]

It seems like such a long week for the out dated and way past it's sell by date IE6. Microsoft's promised better web browsers that landed on virtually every desktop PC on the planet but it was never up for the job.

Well this week the frenchies have advised all IE6 users to say non and upgrade to a newer (still flawed) version or move onto Chrome or Firefox.

Why IE6 Must die

French say "Au revoir" to IE 6