In defense of IE6

Your principal point is about cost, but a browser is free; if somebody came to you and offered an Audi GT for nothing, with exactly the same running costs, wouldn’t you take it?

More importantly, a browser is not a car, so this analogy doesn’t really work.

two things here i suppose:

first is that some people are stuck with ie6 and no other browsers, adhered to the shitty dell computer’s their organisation/company splashed out on some time ago but can’t afford new computers, the IT resources to facilitate an upgrade to ie 7/8 or just being able to install another browser (from personal experience thinking - in particular - public sector).

another is to what degree we as designers support ie6. as a designer i have recently been a bit harsher in support of ie6 in terms of design but being a good, moral boy scout type of fella, will always provide full content and functionality in pre-ie7 browsers.

i suppose taking your analogy and applying it to my old, beloved 1969 triumph 1300, i can still use the car. i may need to buy some additives, i may need to appreciate that i’m not going to benefit from the super-duper high octane whatsitdubry fuel that is being offered at the pump but as long as my car starts when i need it and gets me from a to b then what more can i ask?

What if your car is not safe to drive, swerves uncontrollably and leaves oily skidmarks all over the place? MOT would pull it out of traffic, not to endanger the other drivers. The same should happen with unpatched IE6es. They are a security problem, no matter how bad they are in rendering web sites.

Comparing an incredibly expensive purchase to a free and accessible upgrade like a browser… Can’t say I agree.

Yeah, this was going ‘ok’ until they end and your comment about putting your hand ‘deep in your pocket’—the new car that might cost you a good chunk of savings is nothing like the new browser that you can download for free.

In fact, now you have the option of getting a new CR-V, a new RAV-4, a new Forester, or even a new X3!

Our local school district, with over 18,000 students and 2,000 staff, uses IE6. Due to viruses, the computers are locked down and users can’t download an updated browser.

Due to school district cutbacks, there are fewer than 8 people supporting over 20 schools with hundreds of computers. There is no technology plan in place to update the browsers in the next 18 months.

Isolated story? No. I don’t think so, given the economy.

Do I wish it were different? Yes!

Anything I can do? Yes.

Along with other concerned parents, I campaigned to get the community to pass the last two school bond issues, which fund school improvements and technology. Both bond issues were defeated.

When counselors at the school visit college websites and other websites that no longer support IE6, they are greeted with messages that say “You are using an outdated browser, please update” or messages that point to a page explaining why IE6 is outdated.

Is this helpful to them? No. Does it frustrate them? I’ve lost count of how many staff members have complained to me about “upgrade your IE6 browser” messages when they visit websites on the school computers.

The students and school staff don’t have a choice of browser at school. They have no idea what content they are missing from sites that no longer support IE6.

It’s likely the staff and students in our local school district are missing important and potentially critical information for college admissions, support services for students, and professional development.

Students and staff, through no fault of their own, are denied access to content due to a decision by web developer/team not to support IE6.

Students and staff have lost their choice to access content. Wait, they never had the choice.

@Deborah First, I’m inclined to disbelieve your comments because I highly doubt that there are that many sites locking out IE6 that the students can’t access.

However, even if true, the same budgetary constraints stopping the district from upgrading from IE6 are what will soon cause even more sites to stop supporting it. As the percentage of IE6 users drops lower and lower, the cost to continue supporting them won’t be worth it.

Guess who’s going to have to adapt? The district, not all the websites. Better keep pushing them…

it’s true…..i m agree ......

I don’t think we should be defending IE6 at all.

However, I do think we should be defending IE6 users.

I’ve seen a few IE6 analogies around lately, but they all seem to be flawed. This comes very close. Some have pointed out the issue of cost. To upgrade a car is expensive, while upgrading a browser is free.

While it’s difficult to determine, I think you’ll find that that the majority of IE6 users are in a corporate or organisational environment where IE6 is the browser they’re stuck with.
Maybe they have a legacy web-based system that only works on IE6. Perhaps the IT team has insufficent resources to develop, test and deploy a new PC build with a modern browsers.

So in this situation, upgrading the browser is not free.

Either way, we as developers have no excuse to not provide them with same same content and functionality as we do to users of modern browsers.

What we should not do is present users with an IE6-target message encouraging them to upgrade to a modern browser. This will only frustrate them, and we should be doing everything in our power to provide our users with the least frustrating experience we can. In most cases, it’s not the users’ fault they’re stuck with IE6.

What we should do is lobby organisations still using IE6, encouraging them to upgrade. We can write or circulate articles, blog-posts, etc. that express the necessity to upgrade to a modern browser.
If it really means that much to us, we could offer our own time and/or expertise to help these organisations in their browser upgrade process, where appropriate.

As for users of IE6 who do have control over which browser they use; I imagine that this group is very small. I should set up a user-defined metric in Google Analytics to report IP addresses so I can determine if they’re coming from an organisation or not.
These users will eventually disappear as their old Pentiums fail and they buy new machines with IE7 or IE8 pre-installed.

So, for a while yet we must maintain the status quo.
Let’s not make irritating “Please upgrade your browser” messages for IE6 users. Let’s ensure that they can access all site content, and are provided with the same functionality as users of modern browsers.

(Comment deleted. If you don’t have anything intelligent to say, try commenting on Digg or YouTube instead.)

What’s with the Americanisation of the title?

Nice to see something written in IE6’s favour, if only for a change. I think the money issue comes down to people who still only have Windows 2000, I know they exist in the backwaters of this country and would stare at you blankly if you mention something about a firefox.

As long as the base content and structure is there, it doesn’t matter about certain transparencies or maximum widths not being supported. You can even have a lot of fun creating a retro version of your site as you have done in the past, Andy.

I am completely for supporting IE6 in so far as making it accessible and basically function.
That doesn’t mean it has to look and function the same as it does in FF3 or Safari.

But I have worked with IE4 and 5, IE6 was a dream after them. I have worked in a Government organisation with 100,000 employees that had NT4 and IE6 on the desktop until fairly recently.
I currently work for a 3500 employee organisation that still has IE6 and a restricted desktop so I can’t upgrade.
So sites that block me or don’t function at all will lose my custom. It’s as simple as that.

Of course to some extent, the target market of the site may mean that only very technically forward people will be using your site, so go for it.

Also, how can you say IE is free? Unless you have a pirate copy of Windows you have paid.
And for those corporates with 300 web apps in use, they all have to be tested and possibly upgraded to support new browsers. Is all that time free? no.

Sorry if this seems like a rant but I thought that the original point of the web was to open up access to information for all.

And what happens when FF2 or IE7 is the new IE6? It just drives the needless upgrading of hardware.

phew, thanks Andy :-)

That’s fine, just as long as Honda CV /IE6 users don’t expect the same quality of travel that our Learjets / FF3 users enjoy.

This is the perfect time to go ride my horse on the highway. I expect the gas stations to sell hay and spare horseshoes.

After all, I’m used to that horse and the cart I just build is not compatible with the modern “cars”, so I can’t upgrade.

I should be free to make that choice on my terms, not have it dictated by others.

It’s interesting that upgrading a browser being ‘free’ is repeated so many times here.

If you’re talking about a big business, there’s a lot of cost associated with an upgrade. Before you even get started with the upgrade, you’ve got the research and analysis to make sure that the browser works in an expected manner with all the bespoke apps and any vital purchased web apps that the company uses, often these aren’t standards compliant.

So there’s project management costs, desktop support installation costs (which will need to be done and tested outside of work hours, so that’s overtime), possible retraining costs for the staff, post-migration support costs etc. The software might be free, but the man hours for the project could cost tens of thousands, not to mention the impact if the upgrade fails for some reason and the users are unable to do business for a day.

I hate IE6 as much as any standards loving developer, but for a lot of companies where IT is a cost centre rather than an earner, the justification for that spend sometimes just isn’t there.

Me parece que al usar la analogía esta, se está perdiendo de vista el punto. Un coche es un coche, y un navegador un navegador, y no hay punto de comparación. Siendo sincero me parece burda y falsa la comparación. Para hacerla mas realista debería existir un auto, de gran calidad, rendimiento y capacidad al que se puedea acceder gratis, y con la posibilidad de cambio en cada esquina por uno mejor aunque poco, pero mejor. En ese caso el usuario “conductor” podría cambiarse de auto cada vez que quiera, gastar menos y disfrutar mas. Ahora bien, aclarado este punto, porque no habría de cambiar por el auto nuevo? por un sentimiento de cariño, de comodidad, de costumbre… OK, si es así genial, es respetable la postura, pero si todos los autos me pasan en la carretera y cuando llego a la fiesta se hizo tarde y terminó el problema es mio, yo tengo la oportunidad de cambiar, pero no la quiero, entonces bien, debo afrontar mi decisión y hacerme cargo de sus consecuencias. Llevado a la web, si no puedo ver una web porque mi navegador es viejo y no cumple los entandares, el problema es mio y no del diseñador, las posibilidades de cambio están, existen y son gratuitas, no tengo excusa si algo me funciona mal. El mas apto sobrevive…

Ummm, did I miss something? I thought IE6 was a bicycle… I’m not even sure about this. A scooter maybe? ;-)

Theis: that’s not true.

Firefox is not free.

You haven’t read through the comments - read my comment above.

Are there many websites that block IE6? I thought most mission-critical sites work with IE6, and even though designers bitch about IE6 louder than ever we still design for it.

Of course the positioning of the element and speed (png hackery) might not be up to par but everything should still work and tweaked to not look “broken”.

Nobody is blaming people who can’t control their work computer, but just like you have a right to complain designers have a right to display warnings to urge people upgrade.

So look, loosing visitors/customers aside we can do whatever the hell we want to our website. Extending support to IE6 is a courtesy not an obligation. Best you remember that.

Hehe…

Of course it’s free, but it doesn’t matter how much it costs if you’re not allowed to use it.

But still, the other users who do have control over which browser they use -  but don’t know how to upgrade - should not be penalized.
In the case that you’re building a site for a client, I’m not so sure the client would be happy for you to intentionally exclude a proportion of their potential customers, either.

Either way you look at it, we still need to support IE6 until the percentage of users is quite insignificant, and we’re still a wee way off yet.

@Dan Hallock,

You’re right, you have to be pragmatic.

I’d still maintain that we have no excuse to not provide end users with the same content and functionality as we do to users of modern browsers.

While IE is a pain in the ass, there are ways you can manage development (new develpment, particularly) such that IE is not so much of an inconvenience. If you follow the principle of Progressive Enhancement, then you can create a basic experience with access to all content and functionality for IE 6 or other older browsers (and/or users/browsers with no CSS or JS support), and then go on to enhance the user experience for users of more modern browsers.

This is good practice, and means you’re not sifting through complicated CSS and JS trying to undo bits to get it to work in IE6.
Remember, as features develop and new standards evolve, sure IE6 will be gone, but today’s modern browsers will become the old browsers that everyone curses. Old dodgy browsers will always be with us, so it’s good to have a development methodology that can account for this as painlessly as possible.

Yes, there is a cost-benefit tradeoff in catering for IE6. Depending on your target audience, you may discover that the number of visitors to your site who are using IE is a insignificant percentage, and not worth considering - that would be great. The decision to ignore IE6 users largely depends on your business and your audience, but I’d say there wouldn’t be too many cases where it’s a good idea, yet.

“There wouldn’t be too many cases where it’s a good idea, yet,” I can support much more than “no excuse.”

I do think that browser platforms will even out over time. There’s less difference between a 7-year-old CRX and a new car than between, say, a Model A and Model T, to borrow the car analogy. Or back to software, look at Office 2003 & 2007 & OpenOffice, and compare to the hassle of competing file formats and widely varying capabilities found in Word 4, WordStar 2000, WordPerfect 5.1, and let’s say PFS:Write.

The platform will stabilize, and the cost of supporting “old” browsers will go down.

Maybe instead of cars, we should analogize browsers to operating systems. Firefox 3 / Safari 4 / Chrome: OS X. IE 8: Vista. IE 7: Win2000/XP. IE 6: Win95/98. IE 5: Win 3.x. IE 4 / Netscape 4: DOS. IE/Netscape 3: CP/M. Nobody’s designing for CP/M any more, and supporting only Vista would be a foolish move in today’s market, but you see a lot of software leaving Win98 behind.

I agree that it should be a gradual phase-out over years, but IE 6 is eight years old.