There has been much talk in the web design and development community of late regarding the demise of Internet Explorer 6. Most web developers and designers have a special place in their hearts for their hatred of IE6, but the strength of their loathing varies from the occasional moaning, to the t-shirt wearing, to those running campaigns of contempt (see IE Death March, Bring Down IE 6 or Stop Living in the Past).
Personally, I strongly disagree with those who say web folk should stop supporting IE6 now, that we should use special stylesheets to make sites look particularly ugly in IE6, or more worryingly that scripts should be used to prevent sites from working in IE6 at all. It is the job of a web developer to support all major browsers (of which IE6 is still one) and punishing unwitting users is not the solution. It is Microsoft’s job to cease support of this ancient and incapable technology not ours.
The problem lies with the large number of companies and organisations that depend upon either Windows 2000 (which only supports IE6 not 7 or 8) or IE 6 for their internal business applications to function (think public sector in particular). It is these sources of revenue which force Microsoft to continue to support old technology & which keep the IE6 usage statistics high. All of these companies are aware that these technologies will be phased out eventually and should have plans in place to upgrade their systems, but again it’s not our place to force these changes.
Microsoft are now pushing IE8 through automatic updates and will cease support for Windows 2k in July next year – with this I can see the lifespan of IE6 finally drawing to a close. With the death of the OS which supports only the abominable IE6, it will be feasible for Microsoft to finally cease supporting IE6 too. When Microsoft say IE6 is dead, and only then, will IE6 really start to die – so the web design community needs to stop wasting it’s breath on users who can’t do anything about it – and tell it to Microsoft.
For now IE6 is still here and web folk still need to do their jobs. This means continuing to develop websites which support IE6 even in a slightly downgraded fashion, but it also means pointing clients towards a future without IE6 and guiding them them through this transition by removing all reliance on it. Cheer up, just think of all the work that will come flying in when IE6 does die.
12th Apr
Rob Hawkes says:
A very timely and interesting topic you’ve brought up Eris. I certainly agree with a lot of your points, in particular that of Microsoft ultimately being in control of IE6′s destiny. What I don’t agree with though is what you say about it not being our problem as web developers to cease support for this crusty old browser. I’d certainly stop short of saying we should universally stop considering IE6 support, and definitely don’t condone forcibly preventing access to people who use that browser. What I believe we as web designers should do is start scaling back our support for IE6 in such a way that we are just producing the bare minimum for the website to be coherent in that browser. We need to look into the future and embrace technologies such as HTML 5 and CSS 3 without having to sacrifice time making the website look exactly the same in IE6 as it does in modern browsers. I’m certainly not afraid to drop full support for IE6 in the future redesign of my personal website, and I’d definitely think twice about supporting IE6 for client websites – only doing so fully if the client has a valid reason for doing so.
I just feel that we can’t leave the whole decision up to Microsoft. They don’t have the best track record at doing the right thing and we don’t have 100% certainty that the drop in Windows 2000 support will actually kill IE6 for good. Only time will tell it seems.
13th Apr
ErisDS says:
Personally, I’ve not yet seen a case where it was feasible to drop or even significantly reduce support for IE6 on a client site. IE6 is still just too large a percentage of the target user base for many websites.
I agree that in many cases there is no longer need to make sites pixel perfect in IE6 – I would comfortably add CSS3 features for a site such that it looks better in other browsers but I don’t think it is right to go out of our way to degrade user experience in IE6 – the experience should be maintained wherever possible.
I don’t think we should leave it up to Microsoft either, but rather feel we should focus our attentions on them rather than the IE6 user base. How we should go about this though is another question entirely. I imagine that large campaigns would go a long way to convincing Microsoft, but I don’t think anything can or will really happen until Windwos 2k is out of the picture.
13th Apr
Scott S says:
Interesting read. I’m inclined to agree with you on this subject, although my “feelings” towards IE6 do tend to be at the extreme end of the scale. Whilst I feel that the sooner it’s disposed of the better, I also feel that we, as professionals, need to keep supporting it in our work :(
13th Apr
Wizely says:
I’ve worked in big companies that supply work with other big companies and IE6/ Windows 2K is everywhere so you can’t just decide to ‘take the law into your own hands’. If your client’s target audience is these companies then you’re letting your designer sensibilities dictate, not the client’s needs – that’s a bad designer. If the audience is savvy techno-thangs then sure drop it like a puss-oozing leper.
Why not do as Eris advises? Design for the modern browsers in a way that degrades for IE6. It doesn’t matter if it looks a bit different as long as it works.
Or you could all stop trying to over-design every pixel!!!!
14th Apr
Rob Hawkes says:
That’ll never happen! I do agree that for some clients we can’t just drop IE6 entirely, just yet. However, like both of you mentioned we can scale back support in the sense that we don’t provide any of the new-fangled features that come with CSS3 and having a modern browser. What will be interesting, and possibly an uppercut to IE6, is when HTML5 is finally supported across the modern browsers, including in-browser databases. This will certainly provide a feature that IE6 will find impossible to support without the use of server-side code.
The next few months are going to prove extremely interesting.
17th Apr
Luke Jones says:
I say this every time people complain about Internet Explorer 6, it’s our job to adhere to our clients needs and their clients needs, so refusing to design for Internet Explorer 6 and complaining about it won’t do a thing, there are still millions of people around the world using the software, so we should just get on with it and not complain, and if anything just write in the footer: ‘Works best in Firefox, Safari & Internet Explorer 7+, if you’re using Internet Explorer 6, please upgrade’.
Whilst I don’t agree with it, why not hack Google and stick an IE filter in so there’s something with a ridiculous z-index that doesn’t allow the user of IE6 to do anything until they upgrade
17th Apr
ErisDS says:
I agree wholeheartedly that it is our job to support IE6 and that it should be supported to the best of our abilities. However that fact alone doesn’t make IE6 any less of a pain in the arse and there is nothing like a good moan (especially for us Brits).
I completely disagree with the idea of putting a “best viewed in” or using any script or stylesheet to make the user experience in IE6 particularly bad. I think it’s unprofessional and just bad form.
Rather, IE6 users are in some cases going to have a downgraded user experience because the browser just doesn’t support new technologies, and IE6 shouldn’t hold us back from using HTML5 and CSS3. Learning techniques for graceful degradation is now a key part of our job and will keep the web ticking over until the eventual death (with flames, chanting and much celebration) of IE6.
9th Jun
Rob Mason says:
http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/
:)
9th Jun
ErisDS says:
Amen to that!
BUT that doesn’t mean you don’t have to TRY to make your website look reasonable* in all browsers. It’s called graceful degradation (or progressive enhancement depending on how you work) NOT I-can’t-be-arsed-to-do-my-job-properly-so-I-won’t-bother…
*Note the use of the word “reasonable” not “pixel perfect”
16th Jun
Steve says:
Eris,
Some good feedback and I think its come around to everyone understanding that Microsoft does not control the life-and-death of IE6 — the customers do. Legacy systems have been around forever (hence the name), and we continue to struggle and be haunted by them. I have Oracle ERP java applications requiring IE6 and Java 1.4. It took us months to come up with a configuration that runs on XP instead of 2000 and no way to get to Vista or Windows 7. That’s just the way it goes. Customers cannot upgrade because they have old software that will not run on new operating systems, or browsers and they are locked in. It goes way beyond just Microsoft and IE6.
26th Jun
Kamal says:
Well, as long as one feels obliged to provide *full* support for IE6, they are unfortunately amongst the people keeping the browser alive and counted as a major browser! Agree to Steve’s comment, that the customers are locked in, and its way beyond MS and IE6. Sadly, i believe it’s MS that has created this horrible trap for themselves which has translated into enormous pain for web devs around the world.
There’s no eventual way to get out of a lock-in like that except incurring additional costs – be it in a platform upgrade to adopt newer technologies OR to get stuff developed that works on dated browser software. Our choice – in case we want to fully support IE 6 – is, so far, limited to whether we wish to incur that cost ourself or pass it on to the customer who made a choice that resulted in this lock-in (even if unknowingly)! Although the point on additional cost only applies if the customer wants to support “all the real browsers” + IE6, obviously.
I, for one, believe in being responsible for my choices and expect others to be responsible for theirs. Is that asking for too much or is that being unfair?
13th Jul
John Wright says:
Hey Eris,
I see your point, and I agree, IE6 will not truly die until completely phased out by Microsoft. That being said… I’ve had an idea for a while and as with many ideas I’ve had, this idea came with a great desire to do it! So I did it, I created Death To IE6 http://deathtoie6.com, which is a script website owners can install on there site to attempt to help IE6 users to upgrade and optionally block IE6 users from their site.
From some of the feedback and reaction to the site, I’ve come to the conclusion that at least 50% (I said at least) of all IE6 use is by a computer locked to it. And admittedly this script will only cause problems for those. I mean, I can see the scenario where someone is searching for something, they find the info on a blog with this script, they get redirected and can’t upgrade, and basically miss out on the info that would be available to them had this script not been installed (although I think this would be a rare occurrence).
But on the other hand, I’m relying on website owners to make the judgment whether this is something they want to do. I understand that this script is not for all sites. Usage of it should depend on factors like what percentage of your visitors are on IE6, how much traffic the site gets overall, do you feel strongly enough about trying to help users upgrade that you are willing to potentially reject traffic to your site?
I’m assuming that most people who would install something like this probably wouldn’t get enough traffic or have a big enough audience to matter much. And it’s worth it to them if they can direct someone to upgrade. I’m sure there are still people out there using IE6 unwittingly. My mom was one case until recently lol.
In the end, we are all looking forward to saying good bye to IE6, and I suppose with or without scripts like this, your right, when MS pulls the plug, the end is near for IE6.
This is just my 2 cents. Hey thanks for following on twitter! That’s how I found your blog!
Take care,
John
13th Jul
John Wright says:
their*
(and probably other mistakes)