www.flickr.com

Sep

15

Drop IE6 Support.

Filed Under Software, business, life, technology |

Ask yourself, why are we still supporting Internet Explorer 6? Not as developers, but as people who use the Internet. If you are a web developer, you are one of the first people who will scream “I F#$@ this browser!”

So I ask the question, why are we still supporting this browser, 7 years later?

Everyone who is still using IE6 does so because we allow them to. We still add “degraded” support for the browser, we still make alternate stylesheets, we still make a ton of hacks that only work for the redheaded step browser. I dare you, tell me one time you said the word “happy” and “IE6″ in the same sentence! Enough is enough.

The Line in the Sand

I am proposing we set a day to “turn off the lights” for IE6. Much like our government has decided that on a specific day, over-the-air analog broadcasting will go away. Why not do the same? That glorious day, everyone who supports the “lights out” concept, will actively limit IE6 users from accessing their sites and applications. Now, I am not saying lets just let things degrade and look unprofessional, I am saying turn it off completely. Its a rash move right? Does that potential user base you are shutting out scare you? Not really. It doesn’t scare me. Take a look at the global statistics for its use, we are talking about a very small minority of people. But it is still enough to count, and for some reason we still support this aged code.

How can we ever hope to as a community of engineers hope to better ourselves and the things people are using if we have to worry about this sort of legacy. There is nothing beautiful about what it takes to support even the simplest of CSS techniques in IE6, and it just doesn’t make sense for us to keep wasting important dollars on it.

Now, the irrational part of me says, as soon as I hit publish, I am going to block IE6 traffic from ever viewing my blog again. But lets face it, that is not a solution that is going to help people understand the reasons they need to move, nor is it going to make you as a person look very wise. I want to set a date far in advance for existing websites, and for all new and upcoming websites and services, already have it off. Lets say, 10 months from now? That gives us a long time to be able to warn and let people know that they need to upgrade or move to a different browser. I mean hell, by the time that 10 months is up, we should be seeing IE8 in the wild, isn’t that a good enough reason?

Ramifications

Okay, lets be more realistic, the only people who are really stuck with IE6 are the people suffering in cubicles run by IT departments that are either lazy, stuck with legacy issues, or just uneducated about the real reasons to upgrade their company.

Well to that I say, too bad. You have had 7 years to decide what to do about this problem, and I think its unfair for developers to have to pay the price. Why should be have to bastardize our software, and invest a large sum of our time and money into something that has not even been updated since 2004?

I am definitely impressed by companies like 37signals and Apple who are putting their foots down when it comes to their products. Don’t think of it as an exclusive, elitist club, but a very important reason to educate and explain to people (well in advance) why it actually hurts their experience of the web today to be stuck in the past. Going forward our company is going to be following this mantra, educate and upgrade. I am entering a market demographic that will most likely be stale and out of date, but I still say its unacceptable, we as the developers need to help people understand.

Am I crazy? How do you feel about it.


Comments

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

10 Comments so far

  1. Jake Munson on September 15, 2008 6:12 pm

    I like your idea, and I’m tempted to do it for my blog and cfquickdocs.com. However, I have to correct one thing you said: “Take a look at the global statistics for its use, we are talking about a very small minority of people.” Most of the studies I’ve seen lately put IE6 at between 30% and 40% of the market:
    http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/June/browser.php
    http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

    But that wouldn’t stop me from putting an “Upgrade your browser” page up for IE6 users >:)

  2. Jeff Self on September 15, 2008 6:18 pm

    I totally agree with you. Unfortunately, where I work, IE 6 is still the standard, although I don’t use it. I have IE 7 installed and only use it for testing. The problem at my work is all the vendor apps that they’ve purchased over the years that run on IE 6 only. Apparently, nobody thought it was important to include multi-browser support in the RFP’s.

    I wish I could write for web standards only. It would make my life much easier.

  3. ike on September 15, 2008 7:31 pm

    The sooner software companies draw the line, the better imo.

  4. Ben Nadel on September 16, 2008 6:08 am

    When I heard that 37 signals was going to stop supporting IE6 on their product line, I was definitely impressed. My first thought was, “That is awesome - we have an industry leader that is willing to move forward so that the rest of us can follow suit.”

  5. James Moberg on September 16, 2008 6:30 am

    Before turning off the lights, consider using the Pushup script:
    http://www.pushuptheweb.com/

  6. Steve 'Cutter' Blades on September 16, 2008 10:15 am

    Brilliant. I feel sorry for guys like @Jeff Self, who are pigeon holed by non-scaling legacy apps. Highly unfortunate. As for the IT depts who are too lazy, or just don’t understand…are they living under a rock? The security swiss cheese, that is IE6, should have been blocked years ago. Just the fact that it’s still out there shows how unprotected people are, as Service Pack 3 automatically pushes the IE 7 upgrade, and it’s been out for months now.

  7. Alan McCollough on September 16, 2008 10:22 am

    I think you’ll find in corporate circles, there are plenty of IE6 sites out there, including the place where I work. If it was up to me, we’d be running IE7 now and would have been a year ago. But, we got standards, you know. And I understand why we’re still running IE6. If you want support from vendor X, Y, or Z; and they say you need IE6, well, you’re stuck with IE6. You get an environment with 10 or 15 such apps, and you’ll be IE6ing for years. And we are. Ugh.

  8. Alan McCollough on September 16, 2008 10:24 am

    Oh another comment on “web standards”; face it, there are none. At least none that are reliable. How much work do you do amounts to CSS hacks for this browser or that? CSS has been around for over a decade now, and there still is no “perfect” browser out there. We have more browsers, but no two work the same. Why oh why? Argh! I love the -idea- of standards, but the implementation? Yagh!

  9. JD on September 17, 2008 4:47 am

    Interesting thought, but in reality, no company should(would) want to leave out any potential customer….the browser is inconsequential. You can’t force tech savvy on the 65 year old grandma looking for hip replacement options!

  10. Tom Simnett on September 19, 2008 6:37 am

    Hi, I wrote an article on IE6 support just the other day. Thought I’d share my viewpoint.