In my article, "There is Life", I mentioned that I have dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. Visitors coming to this site on IE6 will see a text message at the top of the page explaining that the site may not have full functionality under their version of Internet Explorer and giving them links to the other major browsers, all of which are free to download and use.
I've dropped support for Internet Explorer 6 on my own sites…
The decision to stop supporting IE6 on my own sites was not taken lightly, nor has it got anything to do with my support for open source software. Nope, it was made purely on the basis that adding support for IE6 would have resulted in compromises having to be made with my site design simply to present the site well to a very small proportion of visitors.
In the past year, the number of vistors using IE6 across all my sites has dropped steadily. By November IE6 users represented only 6% of all traffic. Even so, I would have added a conditionally loaded stylesheet and supported IE6 (reluctantly) except for one major issue - IE6 does not support some of the JavaScript I have on this site. It throws up errors that are specific to that browser and cannot handle scripting that is supported by IE7, IE8, Firefox (2 & 3), Safari, Opera and Chrome. So, IE6 users need to upgrade to a more modern browser if they wish to have full functionality. Browser sniffing isn't reliable and swapping JavaScript in or out conditional on which browsers are accessing the site just wasn't a viable option. Maybe its justifiable on a commercial site, but not here.
The bigger question now is, should I stop supporting IE6 across the board?
According to Net Applications monitoring results, Internet Explorer is losing marketshare steadily. Their latest report on browser marketshare in January, 2009 shows the following:
Browser Marketshare January 2009
Source: Net Applications
| Browser | Total Market Share |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer | 67.55% |
| Firefox | 21.53% |
| Safari | 8.29% |
| Chrome | 1.12% |
| Opera | 0.70% |
The breakdown for Internet Explorer versions is as follows:
Browser Version Marketshare January 2009
Source: Net Applications
| Browser Version | Total Market Share |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 | 47.32% |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 | 19.21% |
With Google’s Gmail is now sending a message to IE6 users urging them to upgrade and "get faster Gmail", Apple’s MobileMe recommending only Safari and Firefox, and the release of Internet Explorer 8 just a matter of weeks away the time is fast approaching when we can ditch support for IE6 completely.
Is it worth supporting IE6 or not? What do you think?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or jump to the comment form to add your thoughts }
Just posted my reasons for dropping support for IE6: http://lynnepope.net/bye-bye-ie6
I came to that conclusion myself when I was building my own site. I don't support IE6 either. That doesn't mean they can't get to the content, just that the page doesn't look quite as pretty
Where did you get your blog layout from? I'd like to get one like it for my blog.
I think it needs to be done. I seem to recall a Slashdot post that implied that someone big (might have been Goooogle) was taking a similar stance. If NOBODY continues to support IE6, surely users will update. That is, if they can - anyone running Windoze who is that out of date probably has little control over their machines due to the amount of malware already present.
Let's see where this goes.
@Smiffy - this is where site designers can really help. I feel we have a responsibility to encourage people to use Standards-compliant browsers or, at the very least, browsers that are under active development. IE6 has a number of security issues outstanding that will never be fixed. Sadly, people often don't seem to realise that upgrading is free of charge.
@Sue - I designed this myself. I'm glad you like it.
Unfortunately, the public sector guys are still way behind as they are still locked down in older OS's and browsers and that is why we have to cater for IE6 at work, but things are changing slowly. I know my users are mainly tech orientated and the browser usage is very high for modern browsers and very very low for IE6 (almost non-existent), so that is why I dropped it for my site and for the next version of it. Great post BTW
@Johnny, Unfortunately, this is something that has to be considered BUT those in the public sector need to take more notice of security. IE6 is old, buggy, and insecure and being locked in to one vendor should not be an excuse for running insecure software. I guess that as more of the web drops support for IE6 the hold-outs will eventually get the message
@ Lynne, I wish they would take notice a LOT more, but even telling them about the security risk to their Intranet/Internet using older OS's and IE6 falls on deaf ears as they have 'patches and fixes' which their frustrated IT teams have to keep implementing to keep their network ahem.. 'secure'. MS should have made the updates mandatory instead of optional in the first place
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