IE6, is it time to kill the little bastard?
According to Market Share from Feb 08 to Dec 08 overall IE usage has dropped 6.73%. A quick look at browser trends show that in the same period the “evil spawn” has lost a whopping 10%, going from 30.63% to 20.46% in December.
From January 2008 to December 2008 according to W3Schools reports a drop from 32% to 19.6%. On a large community website we launched last January, IE6 holds 28.38% average. In February, the first full month of stats it is at 37.27% and in December 22.59%.
From these different sources, drops in usage percentages appear to be consistent and somewhat encouraging. With IE8 on our doorstep, or at least on windows users doorsteps, the constant thought I have is to abandon 6.
Being a web-hybrid I see how difficult it is becoming to FULLY support the little bastard. Regardless of what hat I’m wearing on each occassion, whether it’s the developer’s hat or the designer’s I always have a little nagging voice in the back of my head telling me “Ah, IE6 support for that sexy thingamijig doesn’t exist.”
I’m fed up of having to cook and serve different stylesheets to the whinging brat [never was a lover for hacks]. I’m fed up of having to find workarounds for behaviours and adding extra functionality to the browser with javascript. It pisses me off that I have to programmatically add :first and :last pseudo selectors to my applications when I could just write a little bit of css.
On the other hand it’s 19-20% market share is still quite considerable if you are not thinking in terms of my blog with it’s handful of readers but in terms of conversion rates in business applications. I do not want to shut these people out.
It truly is a catch 22 situation. “… Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. “ Wikipedia
Supporting IE6 is driving me crazy and is dangerous for my sanity. A real & immediate danger. So I should really stop supporting it. But since I am able to make this logical decision it means I’m sane so I should support it. [bugger!]
Actually making the decision to stop supporting IE6 completely would be the decision of an unstable mind, as I’d be shutting out 20% of users. Not something I would want to do if I’m thinking market conversion or accessibility.
But has the time come where I should expect the user to look after their own experience too, without relying on me to do everything? You would not expect champagne and oyster on the half-shell when flying economy, so why should we as developers and designers offer all the frills to someone who’s refusing to upgrade?
In the fear of been considered crazy I have decided to stop supporting IE. By this I do not mean I will leave users on a limb but as long as all content and functionality is there and the site is usable, I will not strive for pixel perfect layouts or fancy effects. I will try and educate clients and friends in using a more up to date browser.
And if all this fails then a few broken layouts and a little bit more ugliness in their browser window might actually give them the kick they need to upgrade and save both themselves and a poor developer.
Comments
We’re on the same side, more or less. I’ve long decided that striving for pixel-perfect designs in non-modern browsers is a utopia, so I’m just content with no serious display bugs and some proper javascript functionality.
For my blog-in-redesign, I won’t support IE6, since the percentage of my readers that uses that thing is minuscule anyway, less than 5%. But at work, when building stuff for a site like Pathfinder.gr, where almost 60% of users are on IE6, what to do?
Seriously, killing IE6 in Greece is not an option.
I couldn’t agree more with both of you, but I do find it pretty silly to support the sixth version of a browser that will soon launch its 8th update. IE6 is a freaking nightmare.
Still there is a golden ratio that many designers seem to use, the progressive enhancement. I can’t imagine though how many clients are happy with this idea ;)
IE6 sucks my time, the bliss I feel during markup and my energy. All the time.
I think I can’t provide any logical assumptions anymore for this: let’s kill it. No matter what.
I can agree that we should start not supporting IE6. But based on Sugarenias’s comment that “killing IE6 in Greece is not an option”, I’ll tell you the following:
I’m working on a company that primary focus is to create websites for the European Commission. I had the change to go and work for 5 months to a department located in Spain. Despite of having new computers with XP and the release of IE7, they have decided to use IE6 as primary browser and they still do. And we are talking about an organisation of at least 1000 people.
Plus, if you read the official guidelines of the EU for creating websites, you can see that this is the case for most of the offices in EU.
And finally, every new contract that we get, it strictly says “fully supported by IE”. If it was partially, I wouldn’t care less but fully is a pain in the ass.
From what I remember, you can officially NOT support a browser if it is pre-release or if the percentage is lower than 10%.
Until that day comes, I’ll only be cursing the day it was created.
It was about time! IE 6 is the biggest drawback of the web, but I see light at the end of the tunnel (at lest)!!!
@Dimitris Giotas : I’m working on EU projects the last 2.5 years and my professional opinion is that EU regulations is a big joke, and the people who write them are at least web-illiterate !!! EU-founded projects is just another way for Commission to distribute money…
So is progressive dis-enhancement the way to go? Progressively supporting the browser less and less till our target audience falls under 10%?
But still in my head I can’t stop thinking about that 10%. It is still a big percentage of people who walk into our virtual doors and expect to be served as well as everyone else and will potentially spend money on products or services.
Damn conundrums!
Generally, in my personal/freelance projects, I don’t care (unless told otherwise) if I support IE6. I use a Mac and I don’t want to install Windows on it.
For my company’s project I don’t have a choice. I have to support every browser even if it is Lynx, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, IE etc..
@John Tsevdos: I couldn’t agree more. But what can you do if you create a project for an organisation that it’s primary browser is still IE6? Give up, Tell them that this cool feature is only non-IE6, or bust your @ss of to try and make it work? Believe me, in most cases you do the last.
@Dimitris Giotas : Oh I know that from first hand mate…