IE6 why oh why!

GreGorGy

GreGorGy

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Please, let's not get into MS bashing or anything like that. I was at a client last week and the one guy brought in his home laptop to connect to a backend I made for them. And on launch, I realised that stuff was not working 100%. jquery literally slowed to nothing, styles went out the window and javascript was patchy at best. The site works perfectly across IE, Safari, Firefox etc - just IE6.

Quite simply put, I will not be recoding or fixing for IE6 - I cannot be expected to support something that MS themselves dropped months ago. Now, my problem: how do you handle such incidents? Do you tell your client to leave the 20th century behind and drag them into the present? Do you just say sorry and install Firefox? Or do you pretend the issue does not exist? Not my machine, not my client's equipment, therefore not my problem?
 
GreGorGy said:
Please, let's not get into MS bashing or anything like that. I was at a client last week and the one guy brought in his home laptop to connect to a backend I made for them. And on launch, I realised that stuff was not working 100%. jquery literally slowed to nothing, styles went out the window and javascript was patchy at best. The site works perfectly across IE, Safari, Firefox etc - just IE6.

Quite simply put, I will not be recoding or fixing for IE6 - I cannot be expected to support something that MS themselves dropped months ago. Now, my problem: how do you handle such incidents? Do you tell your client to leave the 20th century behind and drag them into the present? Do you just say sorry and install Firefox? Or do you pretend the issue does not exist? Not my machine, not my client's equipment, therefore not my problem?
Click to expand...

Have the site throw a message that says it requires IE X or newer to function correctly? One can't be expected to maintain compatibility indefinitely.
 
Explain politely that IE6 is outdated, does not support modern standards, is no longer supported by Microsoft, and that it is uneconomical for a web developer to support it. Advise the person to upgrade to IE8 (unfortunately they cannot go to IE9 if they are on Windows XP), or, better still, to install Chrome or Firefox.
 
Yeah, I have had this problem too. Did a huge web app project that was being used by around 4000 people, we had around 15% of the people trying to access the site, using IE6 (most of them were from south Africa).
I just made the thing put up a nag message on the login page, saying "Please upgrade, here are links for newer versions. We cannot be held responsible for the usability or functionality of the site if you continue"

I couldn't be bothered about IE6 (its basically 10 years old)
 
It wont work in IE 5 either. Just saying... you gotta learn to draw that line.
 
Yeah, thanks, you're all right of course one just needs to vent about it somewhere I suppose. And since my cursing under my breath is the equivalent of most people's shouting, I couldn't do that.
 
To be fair, some people (most IE6 users I'd guess actually) don't have a choice. If IE6 is the mandated browser at work, then what can they do?

Also, display issues aside, your app should at least function properly on IE6. (Graceful degradation and all that)
 
It would also depend on what you were contractually obligated to do. I can tell you from experience, large corporates like ABSA don't give 2 figs about web standards, if the thing doesn't work on a user's machine & that user's machine is up to their spec, then you've gotta make it work.
 
nexxus said:
It would also depend on what you were contractually obligated to do. I can tell you from experience, large corporates like ABSA don't give 2 figs about web standards, if the thing doesn't work on a user's machine & that user's machine is up to their spec, then you've gotta make it work.
Click to expand...
Thats not always only the case, the company i work for cant upgrade I.E 6 , they have spent millions on a Custom existing Oracle system.
Its been working for years and support on it has ended, so Oracle says now upgrade then we can support you.

But atleast its possible to run more than one browser, if a company turns down another company because their software is too new or security conscious , that doesnt say much about them.

I think the Browser ID check is the best bet, I.E 6 still has allot of unpatched security exploits
 
Get a copy of portable Firefox on thge users machine, set up a shortcut on the desktop that opens Firefox with a parameter to the url to open your app.

Bundle it in one install and you are sorted.
 
It's not just that you can't install stuff, in some places you're not allowed to actually use anything different (maybe via software or just a terms of usage agreement that you sign), even if you can somehow get it running on the machine. We all know you can have 2 different browsers on a single machine but some places simply don't allow it. You can question them as to why, you can disagree or argue with their choice as much as you want, in the end it's just their way or no way and that's the way it is, like or lump it.

Would you expect a user to risk disciplinary action to use your app?

Then again, you need to consider your market. If your app is built for the general public, then you're more than welcome to tell IE6 users to take a running leap, if not, then you've got to cater for them. Nobody said work was always going to be fun and easy. Some of the very best developers out there are able to have the best of both worlds by using intelligent design & coding techniques. It's not impossible & it's not some kind of secret, there are podcasts, blogs & entire books dedicated to this. Do what you need to do.
 
What my company does is we offer to upgrade the clients browsers or any part of their system that is outdated and will not incur a cost on our behalf, it helps build the relationship with the client. It also helps us not worry about developing for IE6
 
I would advise them to upgrade. Tell them IE6 is a security risk - it is not secure at all. Plus, it does not support the features your site requires to operate.
 
Also ran into this in the week, client called to say our web app isn't functioning properly, we assumed the user had a new gen browser because they've been using the app for a year already. After a prolonged telephonic fix attempt, I asked the user to send me a screen grab or 2(can't remote desktop into their environ). Took about 10 seconds to realise this chap still has IE6 on his pc... needless to say... @#$@*(&^ ()&Q@# )(*()&)*@#$!!!!!!!
 
I have downloaded that toolbar looking thing mentioned above and I will use that. The work I did was for a non-profit institution that lobbies occupational health, safety and environment issues (among others). Their members range from small operations to some of the country's largest producers. Quite frankly, if any of these has some backward IT policy that restricts browser usage, then I feel sorry for the state of affairs of this particular sector in South Africa, especially considering we are among world leaders in this field.

By coincidence, two of my cousins work at two of the bigger players and both of them are on decent hardware so I don't foresee a problem. I will however be logging browser usage for the first 6 months to gauge things for myself.
 
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