Possibly adding fuel to the fire, but to at least put my opinion on the matter out there… here is my view on the prospect of web developers discontinuing support for Microsoft’s eight year old browser Internet Explorer 6 (released on August 27, 2001).
According to Wikipedia:
“The end-of-life support for Internet Explorer 6 is July 13, 2010″
That alone tells me that it is an actively supported means of people accessing websites for at least another 10 months.
A lot of opinions seem to be around the lack of standards support by the browser and I don’t dispute this fact, but you also can’t look beyond the fact that there are still users out there that are stuck with it. Unfortunate, but true.
Just so you’re clear on my position on the matter; we will support IE6 until there is what I deem to be a sufficiently low enough percentage of visitors using it. There will be exceptions in cases where I know for a fact that the audience of the site/intranet is closed enough and mandated to use a newer or different browser, but by rule of thumb, we will support it.
My clients’ reputations are important to me!
According to w3schools, last month 13.6% of users were still on Internet Explorer 6.
For technology to cause their image to possibly be tarnished to approximately 13% odd of their visitors is simply unacceptable. Especially when those possible problems are avoidable through producing “gracefully degradable” sites where necessary and providing code hacks (a sad reality my geek friends) to have them rendered properly.
Really people… if you’re not in the web design and development industry, and you can’t update your browser, then you probably wouldn’t give a toss about anything besides the fact that you’re inconvenienced by a breaking website! In my eyes, thats not good business.
A good coder should make a site work in all required browsers
The discussion often pops up in forums I frequent, and it’s usually someone having a hard time getting something to render consistently. While I do empathise with them (I have been there too), you need to suck it up, figure it out and make it work… it is your job, do it properly!
Usually someone with a bit more experience will chime in that it’s not that hard when you know how. Those people -in my opinion- are the true professionals. Not the guys whining about it and trying to get everyone to stop supporting it.
Upgrading your browser is necessary
All the above being said, don’t get the impression that I think the www should stagnate and indefinitely be stuck with archaic systems like IE6. There is a world beyond simple browsing, and the likes of the Mozilla Foundation, Google, Opera, Apple and even Microsoft themselves have forged on and created some far more modern, more secure, more user friendly and just better browsers.
Here is a list of browsers I recommend:
- Mozilla Firefox (my choice)
- Opera
- Apple’s Safari (available for Windows machines too)
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8
It cant come soon enough. It just doesnt fit many formats and is right out of step with everything else its not funny. Scrap heap please IMHO.
moi
I don’t know about you Ross, but I offer IE 6 support as an additional add on to my design services and generally charge a nominal fee for the inconvenience and extra hours required to make things work. I wish that Google would go ahead and block IE 6 users, this would surely be the death knell we have all been patiently waiting for.
I hear you. The problem comes in when the client might not even know what a browser is (sad but true). You can explain it to them, but it can still come back and bite you… especially when their nodding was merely them trying not to look like they don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Sure different sites have differing levels of modern browser using visitors, but I’d rather include it by standard practice than to have it as an addon. If an audience doesn’t require it, then by all means; progressive enhancement for the win!
Sigh, if only people would go back to the good old days of using tables in their designs then none of this would ever be a problem!