Anti-Internet Explorer 6 campaign grows

[kilobits]

IE6 is entrenched in many corporates. If MS were to release a stand-alone IE6 package, maybe that would get the ball rolling on dumping this piece of dead weight into the abyss.

If that's your audience, then be prepared to support it until 2014, maybe even further, as there's no law saying people can't keep on using an unsupported browser. If you don't care then drop it.

To be honest, a skilled developer should be able to produce a version of their site that is awesome on new browsers but still degrades nicely in IE6.

I say to hell with it degrading nicely !

Design according to accepted standards and let the IE cards tumble where they must.
Goddamit, let it degrade ugly ! Let the fekken IE users be greeted by broken this-and-that, and all the rest of the work-around rubbish that comes with IE territory.
Tell them that the site looks crap BECAUSE of your IE rubbish browser... and it is going to stay that way until they upgrade to something decent.

I can just picture how soon this swing away from this IE turd will begin if designers just complied with net standards and left the necessary work-around out completely... the choice would be simple... use IE and see this all broken or change and see it as it really looks.

Bah. Humbug.

 

[stephangrobler]

I too have seen the light and will hence forth be inserting the sevenup code to tell IE6 users to upgrade or suffer a not well put together site experience. It is time to move on! I mean really, what browser version lives this long anyways (except IE6 )

 

[InTheCube]

I say to hell with it degrading nicely !

Design according to accepted standards and let the IE cards tumble where they must.
Goddamit, let it degrade ugly ! Let the fekken IE users be greeted by broken this-and-that, and all the rest of the work-around rubbish that comes with IE territory.
Tell them that the site looks crap BECAUSE of your IE rubbish browser... and it is going to stay that way until they upgrade to something decent.

I can just picture how soon this swing away from this IE turd will begin if designers just complied with net standards and left the necessary work-around out completely... the choice would be simple... use IE and see this all broken or change and see it as it really looks.

Bah. Humbug.

+999. Couldn't have put it better myself!!!

None of the websites I have recently designed were made to degrade nicely in IE6. Heck, I don't even care what it looks like in IE6, or even test it.

The only time I ever need to test something in IE6, is to see if my nice big fat IE6 warning message displays correctly.

 

[kolakidd]

Around 25% of users in South Africa still use IE 6

 

[apogeeza]

Quote Originally Posted by rpm View Post
Anti-IE6 campaign grows

[Microsoft] has, however, agreed to support IE6 until 2014.

2014!!! You mean us web developers have to put up with writing parallel code for another 4 years!?

I can't imagine how worlds apart modern browsers will be ahead of IE6.

If MS officially support IE, they are in direct opposition to their leader speaking on behalf of MS itself:

http://www.stoplivinginthepast.com/news/steve-balmer-voices-support-for-the-norwegian-ie6-campaign/
Posted by Morten Rand-Hendriksen on February 26, 2009 at 4:34 am.

Microsoft recommends end users that are browsing the web with Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade today to benefit from numerous improvements including security features and usability enhancements.

Interoperability is key to enabling developers to continue to create great user experiences on the web. Our commitment to the technical community continues with our significant investment in Internet Explorer 8.

We continue to believe in the importance of supporting the end users and encourage the technical community to work with us in securing a good transition for the users that today are using IE6.

Hope that helps

how can they hope to get a complicated OS right when they can't even get two ducks in a row ON THE SAME ISSUE ? ?

 

[Fudzy]

To be honest, a skilled developer should be able to produce a version of their site that is awesome on new browsers but still degrades nicely in IE6.

Yes, let's stop the progress of technology...

 

[murraybiscuit]

most users don't know and don't care what browser they are using, because in their minds, all that a browser does is load internet banking, facebook and google.
who needs an upgrade when those three sites work fine?
who needs tabs when one browser window is the only thing open on your computer?
who wants another browser when you have to figure out where to get it, install it and then teach yourself to use it?
for these people, technology is a fickle master, not a compliant serf.
shame.

 

[rogerwe]

To be honest, a skilled developer should be able to produce a version of their site that is awesome on new browsers but still degrades nicely in IE6.

True, but its costly in terms of development. IE6 is still the most unsecure browser, no matter how skilled a developer you are.

 

[nexxus]

Yes, let's stop the progress of technology...

Well, that's not what I said is it? There are numerous techniques to produce great interactive sites, while at the same time addressing graceful degradation & accessibility without running parallel code.

Of course I recognise that IE6 is a horrible little turd of a thing, but if the majority of your paid clients are using it, you can hardly tell them to stuff off can you?

 

[Xyber]

down with IE6,, burn burn die burn die!

 

[murraybiscuit]

the persistence of ie6 is really just a testimony of how well xp worked for ms.
vista never really replaced it and therefore nothing really replaced ie6.
thank goodness everyone didn't adopt ie7.
once windows 7 becomes the dominant os, ie6 should die off.
2014 is probably accurate.
12 years is way too long for an os to be around.

 

[_TrXtR_]

True, but its costly in terms of development.

If youre still suffering to write browser compatible code then you deserve to downgrade to ie3.

Of course I recognise that IE6 is a horrible little turd of a thing, but if the majority of your paid clients are using it, you can hardly tell them to stuff off can you?

Exactly, I think that '25%' figure includes some companies I know about.

Tell them that the site looks crap BECAUSE of your IE rubbish browser... and it is going to stay that way until they upgrade to something decent.

So you saying users at work should without permission upgrade/install software not on the rollout?
And me as a developer should stop developing ie6 capable code untill my clients upgrades their 2000+ userbase?
I think i'd loose a job And go hungry... very hungry... all just cause I didnt like ie6 anymore.

Oh and sadly I had to vote yes in the poll

 

[Smooth Criminal]

IE6 renders HTML pages in such a way that it is largely incompatible with most other browsers. The result, for Web developers, is that they often have to develop two parallel versions of their sites; one for IE6 users and one for other users with more standards-compliant browsers.

The answer is simple - just stop developing for IE6 and force people to upgrade.

Does MS show pity on people who still use Win2k? No, they just don't support it anymore, and if you don't upgrade then to hell with you.

 

[Maximus]

As long as sites continue to "sort-of" work in IE6 people will continue using it. At some point sites must start displaying an error - not a warning and then disable the site completely from further use. That will force the old lady who don't know what a browser is to call little Pietie, her grandson, to come figure out what is wrong with her computer. Maybe Pietie will figure out that a new browser needs to be installed.

Furthermore, for companies who tightly integrated their web applications into IE6 and can't move on now without spending big bucks on development... tough sh*t! I've had to adapt my software and development tools to DOS, Win 3.11, Win95, NT, win98, WinME, Win 2000, XP and finally Vista and Win7 as well, and that is just on the M$ side of O/S's.

 

[rogerwe]

If youre still suffering to write browser compatible code then you deserve to downgrade to ie3.

I said it was costy and insecure. I didn't say I was suffering. Just because I hate IE6 doesn't mean I'm a bad programmer and should downgrade to IE3. If you're a developer I would never hire you because your logic is that of a child and your arrogance stinks.

So wise guy who is god's gift to programming world: Try render this simple control in IE6:

Create a dropdown box in HTML and make one of the items disabled. Item font must be normal.

Not a complicated requirement. Post your solution here.