althought I would love to trash all the IE6 hack, I don’t know if my boss is gonna let me :(

@Calvin Chan: March straight up to his table and go to this page and show him this post!

we just need to wait. In two years ie6 will be marginal browser

I’d love to trash IE hacks, I really would, but neither my employer nor their many government clients who are forced to use IE6 would be very happy about that. IE6 is a necessary evil for the time being – it will die out soon enough, until then I just keep my IE6 hacks in their own stylesheet to be deleted at a later date, and triple all my estimates.

Sorry;
http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk

couldnt agree more!

ie 6 doesnt deserve our attention!

I completely agree. At least for private web sites. I do not spend time on fixing Internet Explorer 6 bugs for nearly a year now. Instead, visitors using IE6 see a information bar: CSS information bar for Internet Explorer

As much as I hate it I’m afraid I’m with Paul Annett on this one – for the ‘average’ web user it won’t make a difference, we can’t persuade them to change browser because they probably don’t know what a browser even is. They’re more likely to think the sites crap than theres anything wrong with their computer (and their computer is what they would blame – to them it is the browser).

It’s also not just the fault of home users, many corporate users, especially in the public sector, don’t have a choice – its up to the IT department to make the move (and not matter what way you punt it thats a daunting task for thousands of machines!). The majority of our customers are either public sector or big organisations and as a result 90% of our users are on IE6 and theres nothing we can do about it! If we turned round and said “get a better browser” we’d loose business, plain and simple.

On a side note, I’d wish people would stop using the w3schools browser stats as a true representation of usage – the majority of visitors there will be people like us (developers/designers) who probably use Firefox. Check out TheCounter (http://www.thecounter.com/stats/) for what I think is more reliable stats.

I totally agree! If the users don’t even bother to upgrade, they should see the ugly side of IE and my guess is that they don’t even care that it looks ugly.

Good – it’s great to see an article about this. I’ve used transparent png’s in a few recent projects and I get emails about “why there’s a gray box” on a certain diagonal element – and I tell them it’s because their browser is too old and to get Firefox. I don’t do too many things that require a hack, but if it would need one (like the png issue) I ignore it. Why should I do more work for people who won’t even appreciate it?

I use Firefox since it’s stable and I’m happy and as webdesigner i know about the problems with ie so: Let’s trash all IE hacks and code happily ever after…

LOL… I love the little Explorer icon in the trash bin. :)

I spend way too much time at work trying to alter CSS to make it look ‘pretty’ in IE6. It sucks b/c the company hasn’t upgraded all it’s non-MAC users to IE7 yet! So everytime I build a site and try not to waste valuable time figuring out a way to get it to look the same in IE6 than it does in Firefox, Safari or IE7, I get a “the site looks funny” complaint (esp. if transparent PNGs are used).

Incorporating Flash into an HTML page is worse b/c of all those popups from IE6… so I have to use SWFObject just to get them showing correctly.

I’m all for trashing IE6 hacks for my personal and freelance work, but unfortunately they won’t let me do that at work! :(

Trash it! Trash it! We hate you IE! Actually I don’t understand why people is still using the excuse “IE comes with my OS, that’s why I use it” . For browsing purposes or for coding, Mozilla and others are quite better.

Most users have IE6 and not 7, thats a fact.
The transparente PNG always freaked me out with IE6. The “hack” you found Nick is really useful and I didn’t know about it. Thanks a ton.

Nacho.

I spend 99.995 of my time cursing IE, yet I just can’t bring myself not to care. There is still a large amount (some 30%) of visitors to my site who use IE6, so I just can’t give it up. Plus, I generally manage to patch things up without the conditional statements – heh tried them once and then nothing worked on Opera (lol)

I generally found that most problems are solved with specifying
*{ margin: 0; padding: 0} at the top of my stylesheet.

True, I then have to specify all margins, paddings for each and every HTML element, but it’s such a nice feeling to see it work after all that time. That doesn’t mean I don’t practically jump out of my skin when I see my parents browsing with IE.

Definately going to pass this around! IE stinks!

There are tons of business applications built for IE6, preventing an upgrade. Vendors have to release new versions, and the companies always have to pay for the upgrade. Many people are probably using windows 98 too (no IE7 update). “It works so why pay extra for an upgrade?”

If people learn to live with spyware, they’ll learn to live with bugged websites. The average user’s knowledge of the web is clicking on the “Internet” icon. Telling them to switch browsers means nothing to those people. The only ways to get them to switch are going to be forcing it on them though os patches, some form of Firefox-installing spyware, or possibly a widely-distributed article that teaches people what a browser is and why IE6 isn’t one. Security issues alone might be enough to scare some people into getting a real browser.

If users are just going to use what their OS tells them, we could start promoting Vista, Macs, or Linux more – anything to get them away from IE6.

(As usual, nicely designed site Nick)

trash it! why stuck on old version for goodness sake technology is growing.

Who on earth is still using IE6, they should be shamed…at least upgrade to IE7 if you can’t bare to be without IE.

I say we start a new website, get a bunch of coders together, and revolt and stop hacking IE. Seriously, I’ve had enough of this, we’ve been doing it for how long now? Microsoft needs to do something about this. IE7 isn’t exactly up to par, either.

The majority of commenters obviously don’t work in a corporate design firm and have have high-demand clients to please. There is no way we can ditch IE6, live with it, work around it, build up skill and altogether it might take an extra hour (few hours if it’s an advanced layout) per website to fix the problems. Fix them with conditional comments and charge client.

Somewhere we have to draw the line even with our clients on whether or not to support IE6. If we don’t, users will still be using IE6 even when IE10 comes out. (if it ever does.)

So, whether you work for a corporate design firm or your a full time freelancer, now is the best time for a boycott.

It’s hard to take a decision like this, there are so many users that won’t change their browser. They will think your site has something wrong.
I’d like to stop supporting IE6, but there will be at least another year of agony.

Half of the internet is still browsed by IE6 and it is important to design keeping them in mind.

One of my clients’ websites have IE6 visits of over 80%; there’s no way I can tell them we’re dropping IE6 support.

The problem as I see it is twofold:

1. Some people don’t know – or don’t care – what a browser is. As far as they’re concerned, it’s the internet. Unless we can make a case to them that’s better than “IE6 means more work for us”, we’re never going to persuade them to change their browser.

2. Some (many?) users at work can’t install software on their machines, and have to wait for their IT department to upgrade. Why haven’t more IT departments upgraded? Who knows.

If you use a correct doctype and valid code, and reset the browser defaults, you’ll find that IE6 isn’t very much of an issue; any small fixes can be done with a conditional stylesheet. If you want to use progressive enhancement to make sites look prettier in modern browsers, that’s a better way forward.

You *can* use PNGs with alpha transparency in IE *without* that hack if you’re willing to live with minor image degredation for IE (depending on how the image is constructed): http://www.kevinfreitas.net/pro/articles/png-magic/. I use this whenever I can because creating alpha trans pngs in Photoshop requires png-24, which is a rather bloated image size. One of the comments links to png-quaint, which works similar to Fireworks, but doesn’t produce as high of quality image.

Personally, even if I wanted to, I could not use IE7 because I’m still using Win2k, even though M$ has officially dropped support for it. I have yet to see an app that is going to force me upgrade.

I don’t usually have trouble with IE unless I’m trying to do something *really* bleeding edge, like reformatting tables (IE6 explodes on that). Conditional Comments are only used as a last resort (I’ve only used them on *one* site). Advanced CSS selectors and !important are my “hacks” of choice for helping disabled browsers along, and even then it’s only a few lines here and there in my main CSS files. I am willing to live with minor inconsistencies in IE as long as they aren’t hindering the user. Then again, I gave up on being anal about pixel-perfect layouts long ago: my designs are fluid and forgiving.

If sites are broken in a user’s browser, the user will blame the designer before they blame their browser and spend their money at your competitor’s site.

Quit being lazy.

People have the right to use whatever browser they want to. Sometimes you dont get a choice.

I know lots of huge companies who’s IT teams only support microsoft products and are still running windows 2000 so they CANNOT upgrade to IE7.

We all know the crap which is the IE browser — but whom are we to command people what software they use just because we think its proper?

What if someone tomorrow told you tomorrow that you could no longer use Firefox? You’d be pissed.

I’ve been doing this a while and to be honest, its alot better that it ever was before. You try supporting IE4 and Netscape Navigator 4 .. IE6 is cake.

Do your job RIGHT or don’t do it at all.

Just my .02 cents.

Cheers.

yes,I hate ie too
for a beginner learning css,it must be interesting,but when I switch it into ie,
It’s awful…

As long as microsoft hold the market we wont see any improvement with IE browser. MS just stop tryng. So help yourself get an alternative browser.

It’s understandable that not everybody can just up and ditch IE6. I am, like many others, stuck developing for a Windows 2000 environment. It’s a place where vendor lock-in chokes out attempts to move forward without additional cost. It sucks for designers, developers, and end-users.

However, I still wanted to make a few observations.

“What if someone tomorrow told you tomorrow that you could no longer use Firefox? You’d be pissed.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us here used IE back in the day. We’ve already had to switch browsers. I wouldn’t be pissed if I had to switch again–not if this somebody gave me a list of logical reasons to switch.Education is part of the battle in getting people to upgrade software.

“Somewhere we have to draw the line even with our clients on whether or not to support IE6.”

This is another key. When do we throw IE6 into the “Outdated” barrel with Navigator 4 and IE 3? At the release of IE8? At the Windows XP end-of-life? Is that too long? How much time has to pass before this is acceptable?

At some point the people with the technical knowledge have to take charge and educate the people without it. And, when that fails, you do the same as you would with a NN4 or IE3 request—charge more money for having to develop in an “obsolete” environment.

“How can we ethically not support a browser that still maintains a larger market share than firefox users?”

How could a person ethically support internal combustion engines when green car technology exists? It’s not just an issue of market-share. There are several factors to take into account, such as the security of our users. The ethics are blurry, that’s why this conversation is taking place.

One other thing I’d like to point out: if I recall correctly, new versions of Flash seem to get scooped up. Are there lessons we, or the browser developers, can take away from that fact?

We can’t just sit around and hope change will happen. Each one of us is capable of making a difference.

Accessibility, accessibility, accessibility…no excuses.

Here’s a suggestion: How about educating visual designers so that they can design websites that don’t require web developers to create browser specific hacks?

Two different issues here. Do we like accomodating for IE6 bugs? No. Does our business allow us to ignore people who don’t know any better? No. Users who are still using IE6 are not the sort of people who will feel appreciative and helped when some company who hopes to win their business says “You are using an outdated browser! You must come to us on our terms.” That translates roughly into insecure techno-oblivious consumer-speak as “You are inadequate and your decisions are poor.” Great way to get the middle finger, not another sale.

Okay, the ideal behind this rehashed battlecry is wonderful, but there’s more than a few problems with it. To sum it up rather quickly:

1) a large percentage of businesses lock down user permissions and don’t provide Firefox to their employees. Hence, they get a “broken” site.

2) your boss/client isn’t paying you to play tech-politics. They/you need to deliver something that works, not one that makes a statement at the expense of alienating a large portion of internet users.

3) non-techies are going to do one of two things with your “standards only” website: use it anyway with their browser of choice or just leave because it’s broken. The non-technically inclined couldn’t care less about how secure or standards compliant their browser is. In fact, I still know a great deal of people that call a browser “the web”. They don’t use Internet Explorer, they “open up the net”.

So if you want to do this with your personal projects, be my guest and try to educate your audience

Instead of blatantly picking on IE. I’d really like to see certification of browsers. Many people care a great deal about having the latest TV set or stereo, but don’t know anything about their web browser. We need to find a way to get consumers educated about their browsers the same way they educate themselves about their stereos and HDTVs.

One way to achieve that is for someone to create a CSS Badge that only renders properly when the browser supports the standards correctly. Sort of like the Acid2 test, except instead of a big smiley face, it would say something like “CSS3 – Where Available”. The badge would render well in Mozilla, Opera and Safari, etc. Bad browsers (like IE6, for instance) would show a disheveled badge.

Clicking on the badge would bring you to a beautifully designed page educating the public on the best browsers.

It would be similar to the “Dolby Surround” and “HDTV” badges that you often see on TV shows. Those were industry sanctioned badges that encouraged people to buy new TV sets. There’s no reason why we can’t do the same thing with web browsers.

Yes, I agree! We have compassion with users who dont care a bit about web standards and the faut is not of then, with in the ie6 hacks the users dont feel the need to upgrade. We should put a sign on our websites : “works only for good browsers”.

Just trash it!
I dont noe why to keep using IE, it sucks a lot :B

Me personally, for client work, it has to be cross browser compliant but for personal projects I think IE6 should rot in hell.

As many have mentioned here, you can’t just ignore the most commonly used browser on the internet. I don’t know about any of you, but 99% of the websites I create are not create for myself, they are created for clients. And my clients aren’t going to be very happy or accepting if their website doesn’t render properly in their browser. And it’s not like I can tell them “just upgrade”. Although convincing clients that web standards can turn into a good ROI, ignoring IE6 doesn’t really have the same appeal.

i dont think we should stop using css hacks to fix ie 6 bugs, i know, its anoying, but, stop using it will make our sites looks ugly and bugged, i dont want this to happen with my sites, a combination of conditional comments with the png hack fix most of all the bugs and its not hard to do…….. lets just wait, i think that in 1 year, we could stop using it because firefox is getting very popular, and because ie 7 – and the next versions – dont have too much bug problems with css. =)

“Here’s a suggestion: How about educating visual designers so that they can design websites that don’t require web developers to create browser specific hacks?”

Terrific quote that I couldn’t agree with more. I haven’t used an IE hack in over 2 years and all sites I design and develop work. Bloated visual sites like this one is what really should be trashed.

First, sorry for my poor English.

I think that many users have illegal copy of windows and probably they don´t update their Windows. I use Firefox but i recognize i expend too many time fixing bugs with css. 50% of users use IE 6.0 :o(

I wonder if these people who complain that “85% of my time for css is wasted with hacking it to work with ie6” or “have had to spend the last two evenings filling out the CSS with useless work-arounds and extra containers to make it display the same as Firefox and Opera” are actually just bad coders? There’s NO WAY you should have to spend that much time correcting bugs in IE6! I’ve just finished a huge project with close to a thousand lines of CSS, and my IE6 stylesheet was 8 lines long.

I wonder if they’d like to post links so we can see these cutting-edge designs that they’re working on that require such herculean effort to make compatible.
Do they even consider for a second that the problem might not be with the browser?

I stopped using IE hacks a while ago and have yet to find it a problem. If I have a CSS property that requires a hack to render effectively in IE6, I find another solution. Now, that doesn’t mean I may never find myself in a bind and HAVE to resort to a hack in the future, but so far I’ve been pretty lucky.

First of all, you should not look at the w3c stats (30% or 50% using ie6), you should look at your own stats, then you see how many is using ie6 at YOUR site.
w3c stats doesn’t mean there are 50% ie6 users on your site.

But I totally agree with that we should trash ie6 hacks. Though imo, there are not that many hacks you need, but you will have to tweak your site alot to look good in ie6, i.e the margins and things. I spend alot of time (sorry, wasting my time) on making it look good in ie6 aswell. But I have to.. if I make a site for a client I just can’t say I’ve trashed the IE6 hacks so now it looks horrible for about 30% of your users.. I wish I could but I can’t. Maybe we should all add something that makes it impossible for IE6 users to even see the site :)

I’d second the notion of Christos.

However, too many potential customers in Malaysia (where I’m located) are still ‘caveman’ in terms of even knowing the difference of Internet Explorer and Firefox. Hence, the requirement to still even support IE6 over here. sigh…

web (post 53) said: “I know lots of huge companies who’s IT teams only support microsoft products and are still running windows 2000 so they CANNOT upgrade to IE7.”
I totally agree. W2k is till most used MS OS by big and middle size businesses, and their IT staff often supports IE only for maintenance and training reasons (to name couple).
W2k extended support ends 13/07/2010. Don’t expect big companies just to jump to XP or Vista – it is a huge operation, not just money, but making sure that the new environment is tested and secure, all apps are working correctly, staff is trained, etc..

So I would say that your call “Trash All IE Hacks” is rather silly (to name it nice). Do your designs carefully, so you use only absolutely needed IE hacks, and don’t need to apply some of them just because your markup forces it.

I vote: “No – because I have time to fix IE6 bugs”. Not the first time, not the last one.

Regards,
Peter

Not addressing IE 6 anymore is certainly “an idea” for personal sites, but not for commercial or organizational sites yet.

TRASH!!! I want to trash those hacks so badly!

must die, must die, IE6 must die..
:)

I think the article is pretty vague.
First you’re saying:
– Trash conditional comments and png hack.

What do conditional comments often do ? They might change some specific property like padding, width, height, or position an element accordingly.

What does the png hack do ? Makes images transparent.

Then you say
– Stop using IE hacks on your sites and let them see the ugly side of IE6.

So, what’s the attack *plan* here? Make the 52% of the browser users realize that something is wrong with their browser after seeing that there’s a nasty background in the logo? Or that an overlay that used to be transparent is not transparent anymore? And they would immediately head to http://www.firefox.com and upgrade their browsers?

Bad idea. Effective plans are those like Google’s.
Advertise firefox.
Highlight Internet Explorer problems that MATTER to people. Standards and png transparency do not fall into that category.

I have locked out IE users from my website blog.kreative-labs.com, I don’t want to waste so much time writing separate css for IE. If someone tries to visit my website with IE, a small javascript redirects the browser to a notification page to download a better browser :)

IE 7 is almost as bad, in my opinion.

While I am an avid open-source user, and use Firefox daily, I have to disagree completely.

Obviously, very few people here are PROFESSIONAL web designers, or you would realize that this article is complete and utter madness.

You design for the client. If 50% of their users are IE6, you need to support that. Technically, IE5.0 should still be anticipated, as it is still supported by Microsoft.

In addition, most people using IE6 don’t know what a browser is, so how could they possibly blame the site’s poor rendering on their browser? They would think it’s their computer, or the person who built the site.

Finally, at everyone saying “Why can’t IE departments upgrade?” IE7 was released in October of 2007. A good IT policy would allow two or three years from the release date to even consider upgrading. There is no point upgrading – and putting important business data on the line – just to have the “latest”. Wait till all the kinks are worked out. After this two-to-three-year period, if they choose to upgrade, many IT employees are facing hundreds, even thousands of computers to deploy to, which could take a year or more in itself.

So before you post and make yourself look like a childish fool, consider the facts.

-Chris

Unfortunately, those people who would “…see the ugly side of IE6” would have no idea it was IE’s fault. The people still using IE6 obviously are not too advanced in the computer/internet area or they’d be using something more recent. They would see (to them) a poorly made website that is broken.

I have tons of friends who don’t use Firefox or other standard-compliant browsers because stupid sites like MySpace don’t render correctly in them (because the asshat who designed the layout didn’t do it with standards in mind, or anything remotely close).

Until the majority of internet users shy away from the abomination that is IE6 (or IE at all) I personally will be hacking away so my sites look alright for everyone.

why just firefox? there is Opera too.
people talk like there was just one good web browser in the web

“Stop using IE hacks on your sites and let them see the ugly side of IE6”

Awesome attitude, I have never looked at it like that. Only problem though is the people who are using IE6 I find are the ones with the least knowledge of the technologies.

I say get a new web browser, they say, “there’s more?”

Also if you say, “hey check out my website,” and they check in IE6. Explaining to them that it’s the browser fault the page displays wrong is not always fun.

I see it the same way like you but can’t convince my customers who want their site looking also great in the m?$herf#§king IE6 -.-

Oh man, I remember when I did my first commercial webdesign by myself all alone in CSS and *had* to get rid of all these IE6 bugs. It drove me crazy and I lost all my enthusiasm for webdesign for about one and half a year. Damn you IE…

This article is no madness, the browser is only as strong as the amount of people using it. If these people would realize that the IE literally is an defect, they would probably switch to a different browser (hey browsers are for free!).
Firefox (and Opera?) is even available as portable version and doesn’t need to be installed by someone with Admin rights.

Why should I take care about the bugs other people are causing with their browsers when I take care about the right syntax and right semantic of the W3C? It’s not my fault…
This is like “DVD-Player-company” would be selling defect players and every Movie-company would have to tweak their DVDs to make them playabable on this one *defect* player, although their DVDs are just fine! Consider…

I support you too! ;) I’m loosing my nerves with fixing all problems that happen in IE6. I really hate it. :D

P.S. Great design of Web Designer Wall ;)

Pretty much. I’ve made it to where I just design using only one style sheet for all sites and avoid all ie6 hacks… either way.. who knows if those hacks are going to bite you back in friendly browsers.

The only downside is that it’s still a lot of testing and that it forces you to re-invent your already established methodologies in web design.

But, I think it’s a small price to pay to have a site look almost identically cross-brower.

I would love to just say “screw you” IE and all things non-standard compliant, but the unfortunate truth is that I still have clients that look at my work on IE6! And even if they didn’t, part of our job as developers is to work with what we’ve got and strive to have things display right despite the inconsistent browser issues that crop up. As time goes on, standards compliance is getting to become closer to being a reality, and our job is getting easier….but in the mean time, we owe it to our clients who are paying us because we know how to deal with not only making a website but making it cross browser compatible.

About 80% of internet customers use IE. Thats due to the high noob rate. They actually don’t know about other internet browsing applications, they don’t even know other ways of surfing the web other than over IE. That’s sad, and that’s why I suggest everyone who is sick of spending hours to debug CSS errors in IE to make a special note on your site:

*This site is optimized for Mozilla Firefox, download Firefox here. If you still try to view it in IE, you will not be impressed in any way, IE is outdated and doesn’t support many options*

Internet Explorer is an absolute nightmare. I spend countless hours fixing stupid bugs and at the end I scrap the idea all together due to so many issues. Why the hell won’t Microsoft make a simple update.

Haha sequinx I like that “high noob rate” line :)

It’s sad that IE 6 users don’t upgrade or, darn it, USE FIREFOX!!!
I think most IE6 users don’t know the difference between this and that, heck, they probably don’t even know what version their browser is.
I never bothered to fix those bugs. My site is always good for FF and IE 7. The rest. I wouldn’t careless.

Trash the hacks!

Ooh, this seems to have touched a nerve with a lot of people out there.

When I started out, only 15 months ago, these differences were quite a surprise to me. Both frustrating and perplexing.

I think though that where possible, we should play the game a la Andy Clarke. Go and visit http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk using IE5.5

Beat them at their own game!

It’s a real shame that so many ‘corporate’ users are locked in to using IE6, because I agree that we should stop making up for its shortcomings.

My personal method is to develop in Firefox, ensure that the layout/design is not broken in IE6, but not bother to make it identical. If there is a technique I can use to make the site better in modern browsers, then as long as it does not break the site in IE6, I won’t hold back from using it.

In no way should we trash IE hacks.

Job #1 for a web designer is to communicate. It does not matter one iota what steps we have to take to get the communications across, just that it’s done and is successful.

Why would anyone pay a web designer to design a website that didn’t work for a (very conservative) estimate of 50% of web viewers?

I charge by the hour for web development, and I sell browser compatibility as a service. I hate IE6, but I love the extra income.

I’m also guessing that most people here drive a car that runs on gasoline only, even though newer technology has been available for years. Your reason for switching might be personal preference, the expense involved, or maybe you don’t care about the environment, but I don’t think you’d like it if every gas station in your neighborhood forced your choice by no longer selling gasoline. Free choice is a God-given right.

I recently wrote about something similar on my blog – basically, that we as web designers should do something about all this continued IE 6 usage. My proposal was that there may be some role for web designers in at least telling people that they’re using an outdated browser. How are they supposed to know that they need to upgrade if nobody tells them? Sure, there may be reasons, but I’d guess the majority of those people don’t know that their browser is old. Awareness is the first step towards improvement ;)

(Not that we all need to put notices to IE 6 users on all our sites, but there may be cases where it is appropriate)

As far as removing IE hacks, I’m not ready to go that far for professional sites. The site I maintain at work gets about 39% of its visitors using IE 6. I don’t think my boss would approve if the site didn’t look good to them. However, I am doing a lot of progessive enhancement – that is, adding additional presentational CSS that works for new browsers but doesn’t make a difference in the old ones. I’m also letting go of the need to make everything look perfect in IE 6. If it requires a hack to look “right”, and it works fine as it is, then I often leave it.

PS: Microsoft… I HATE YOU!

For personal stuff, feel free to nix all IE hacks.
For client work, you have to try your best to make your work look great on every browser out there.

I always check all of my stuff on
– The latest Firefox
– IE 7
– Opera
– Safari for Windows

When something looks bad in one of the browsers, I see if there’s a simple fix (ex: IE’s double margin bug). If there isn’t a simple fix for the problem, I put a link to browsehappy.com on my website.

PS Microsoft, i like Windows Vista, but I HATE YOU FOR IE6!!!!

For my personal stuff, sure I usually just ignore IE. But much of corporate America has not yet embraced Vista (or IE7) yet for security reasons. So my boss insists that sites still work in IE6 and in fact that’s our corporate default platform. So if something looks “off” on her browser, it’s my job to fix it.

And since it’s an ecommerce site, every IE6 blemish could cost the company $$ in terms of lost sales.

It’s interesting to look at our logs, too. During the week we run at about 43% IE6 and 32% IE7, but on the weekends, IE7 nudges up past IE6 just a bit, proving that it’s corporate environments that generally are the holdouts. Personal users are more likely to just hit “update” when Microsoft bugs you than corporate IT departments are.

It’s nice to think of lofty ideals when it comes to CSS implementation, but it’s not always the reality. So we still need the hacks.

Some good points here, but I have found that just about all IE6 hacks are only needed while rendering a web page in quirks or transitional modes, rather then strict. I find a lot more of a problem with the under lying basic css of each browser having it own sizings and way of doing each style for the (x)html elements. Besides the improvements to css support in IE7 are only accessible in strict mode.

Also the non-support for the PNG file format is a half truth. IE6 does support some versions of PNG, but most designs and developers use Photoshop and there for know only of 32 bit PNGs. Before Photoshop CS3 this was the only version of PNG that could be produced by photoshop, but those who use Fireworks should know of the 8 bit PNG and its transparencies that are supported by IE6. Yes the transparence is not the same as and alpha channel, but it not to often a design calls for translucency.

This being said, I still fined just about all my debugging time is for IE6. I would even say more like 90% time of not more is taken up on this. So the sooner the most used browser is adhering to the W3C standers the better!

tsc, sinceraly: if you can’t make a full cross-browser website, then you’re not a good coder yet. I’ve NEVER found a problem I couldn’t fix using NORMAL CSS, no IE HACKS.

The decision to not support ie6 comes down to plain laziness. Part of being a proficient web designer is the ability to develop stylesheets that cater for a wide variety of browsers regardless of their rendering flaws.

Its not the best thing to stop supporting IE6, cause then everybody thinks you are a bad coder. Its better to know what the user is looking at to be a professional web designer. So, we still have to make sure that our sites are working in every browser on every platform.

Wow that comment came out messed up…

I agree with this idea…it would be great if there was a web button/banner we could all display against IE! It’s hard enough for designers to make sites look great without having to worry about IE destroying all the hard work.

I made a little banner for people to put on their sites if they wish: you can get it from this link:

IE hacks should be trashed. Ya ya maybe I’m a lazy or a horrible coder but the fact is if these people are using IE6 then most likely they don’t have very secure PCs either. They need to keep up on the times. Staying up to date with technology/patches/software is hard if it costs money but seeing how you have tons of free browsers out there to choose from that fix major security flaws and issues then it’s about time to upgrade. Corporate or not. I think some IT guys are just to lazy to roll out an IE7 update which can easily be done seeing how it is accessible via their windows update site. And no I’m not a lazy coder I just feel it’s necessary in order to evolve to a higher state of web developing/web experience.

oh you are very much correct. I spent so much time with cross browser compatibility and IE6. It is a hard work and sometimes very frustrating to the point I want to throw my computer at someone. :P
The only hack I use really is html>body and its not hard to add so I don’t mind ti as much doing it. However I just finished doing a site for a client, for internal use and they use an older version of IE6, that was no fun at all. Good thing they just upgrated to IE7., but not fast enough before I finished adding IE6 CSS hacks.

I just realized how much of a pain IE is… I’m working on a web design tutorial site, and stupid internet explorer isn’t rendering the navigation… AT ALL! But lovely FireFox renders it perfectly, so I need to change 1/2 of my CSS code just for IE to display it correctly, and now it gets messed up when you change text size in FF GRRRR

my god, the ignorance of people…

honestly, without being rude, this article is ill-informed and a complete waste of time for anyone trying to learn css. Granted, the quirks of browsers can be very frustrating, but don’t think eliminating ie6 will the end of your troubles. In my experience as a professional css developer the quirks exist in many different browsers. Firefox’s rendering of css is usually spot on, Internet explorer 5, 5.5, 6 and 7 all usually have slight differences – (all of which can be fixed by adding simple styles to your css and becoming educated in the common rendering inconsistencies.)

Simply assuming that users will see a gif banner and upgrade their browsers is ridiculous.

This entire website (in my opinion) has lost any credibility it may of had as a result of this article.

It’s a bit irresponsible to demand that people change their browser. In my experience, those who run IE6 aren’t the most web-savvy of people and may not actually realise that there are other browsers out there… or may have ancient machines that don’t run anything better.

Like other posters have said, if you try this sort of thing with a corporate website you’ll been out on your backside sharpish. As responsible designers, we have to find a way to communicate our message to as many people as possible whilst keeping it legible. If that means we have to invest part of our time in ‘hacking’ IE to get it to display properly, then so be it. It’s part and parcel of the job.

Most of the IE problems disappear when you use a ‘levelling’ stylesheet and INCLUDE A DOCTYPE. Seriously. That’s not to say that everything magically sorts itself out – it doesn’t – but the problems you’ll face are far fewer. Since I started doing this, the only issue that gives me any real grief is IE doubling margins on floated elements, and a external stylesheet tends to sort that out.

The wording on the poll is rather biased, as well. You shouldn’t treat those who actually want to do their job right with derision.

You know… I’m not going to bother reading all the comments, I’ll just toss in my two cents that I’m sure have already been said.

As exalted as you may find yourselves to be, you are a designer (whether it be on the visual or programming end) and are therefore there to ensure that the users needs are met. This includes making sure that your visuals and your code work in harmony on any medium that the user chooses to use.

If you’re too lazy to go through the necessary steps to create a website that functions and looks good in all commonly used browsers, no matter their version, whether you would use them, or whether you think their worth while – find a different profession or hobby. Or hell, since you’re so darn lazy you’d rather ask the world to not use something just to accommodate your laziness, why don’t you just put a big sign on your website that says “Use only if you use browser A, B, or C and only current versions! Thanks!”

I think that we should just not test in IE. Just add a conditional comment linking to the firefox/opera web site. Through this, the following can happen:

a.) IE dies out because everyone is using opera or Firefox.
b.) Microsoft improves IE and uses the gecko engine.
c.) Nothing happens.

haha!aLL what you said is true!KiLL iE!!PeopLe who use iE usuaLLy dont mind about the website,(they even dont know what is cookie),or..can I said they are..s^&&!d
Dont angry with me..I just tension with aLL iE hacks..
(damn iE, damn pC)
daa

I think a majority of the votes towards trashing IE6 hacks are largely contributed to people who are frustrated with such fixes. Yes it might be our designer/developer duty to fix such problems and I agree the lack of user knowledge/experience to upgrade/fix their browsers is going to be around no matter what we do but that still doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck fixing it. Of course I’d rather build the boat the first time with boat building standards then sail out to sea fixing the holes later on when I’m taking on water. Oh and then you throw in mobile browsing and you have a whole new arena to play with ;)

Disclaimer: no pun intended. I use both browsers for testing.

Why don’t we all include a page that comes up if the user uses IE6 and just say’s: “It’s time to update your browser” or something.. Most people will update I think..

You need to organise something like http://www.gophp5.org so the masses will move.

Christopher Wrote – “The only time a site can be said to not ‘work’ due to a misaligned element, which is what most IE6 hacks fix, is when the site is for pure marketing hype or design. In which case, you are already throwing text-browsers and screen readers under the bus, so I don’t want to hear you complain either.”

well sorry but that’s just complete bullshit, do you even understand what correct use of css is intended for? done correctly, css sites (regardless of design) will work perfectly for screen and text-browsers.

I fully agree with you, just 3 days ago I finished a personal project. IE6 is viewing a ‘Please update your browser to a more recent version or use FireFox’-Message.

I don’t care what ppl think, IE7 has been out there for over almost a year now… Get a licensed version of windows and upgrade your browsers.

I’ve seen some majour forums close down to IE6 too. Pretty good moves!

I’m with you :-)

And while we’re at it – it’s time to demand that the tools we use, and those our teammates use, generate standards-complaint code. If we don’t, they won’t.

I do a switch on the index-pages of my projects. IE6-Users will see very simple structure. All others will have state-of-the-art navigation etc. I also thought of linking to a kind of a 404-Message-page. But unfortunally my costumers won´t like it.

Henning

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Trash ’em all!

IE6 was a requirement for the last job I did. It sucked to write all those extra lines of CSS specifically for IE6 as if IE7 wasn’t enough.

IE sucks hell! I just recently got back to webdesign and still struggle with all this CSS stuff. Lot to learn and a lot to hack. In the end it turns out very frustrating, when working with Safari and Firefox and than you just fire up a PC and watch all your efforts trashed by that bastard sh*ty piece of soft, that deserves nothing else than being wiped from you desktop right after a clean install.

I knew that those guys at M$ screw up a lot, when they released Windows (I come from AmigaOS which had more unixresq System already back in 84 than the first releases of OSX seemed to, althoug released twentysomething years later), but what was going on in their heads when they kicked out this buggy thing. The hardest thing about it is, that all users seem to be on the same level of ignorance. I guess it goes with the saying: “Eat more sh*t! Millions of flies can’t be wrong”…

I say trash it, althoug I won’t do it for my site right now, as I am just strating out and so I kinda need those IEusers – sad but true; but I am with you, with heart and soul.

No.

Frankly, if you can’t hack it, you suck. Use conditional comments and a style sheet for each version of IE. It’s standards compliant, and bloody works. What the hell is so wrong with that?

Attention to detail is one of the hallmarks of quality design, and IE6 is a big bloody detail. Get over it and do your job.

I don’t like/use I.E. (except for testing purposes), but I don’t believe annoying a large section of your audience is productive. People want to see content, not a debate about which is the better web browser to use.

@import “css/ie6.css”;

usually does the trick, although I would like to see IE banned until they follow the standards, but why should my mum give a monkeys what broswer she has, it came with her computer, and she cant (is scared to) download a new one. So hey ho, just make sure the site works in it – if not for me , for my mum :)

I -hate- IE because of these reasons. i know you will all say ( and have said ) the same things about it…

When i build websites, i normally have to show my teachers in order to get marked. but i will do that.. and because the school is to lazy to update. everything looks dog shit and i lost 7 marks for it.

thanks for posting this. its a good idea. it’s about time something was done

Not necessarily… not with it being in chic black, whole screen, with a nice h1 in yellow saying “YOU ARE USING AN OUTDATED BROWSER”

XD

Something like this:

http://browsershots.org/png/original/30/30c97023f56ce1841d88b474b73aadf0.png

It’s a difficult issue to deal with, but there are two main problems I see with getting users to upgrade:
1. The average joe computer user doesn’t feel comfortable with this whole upgrading/replacing the Internet thing. As someone mentioned, for a lot of people, IE is the Internet!
2. IE7 is not going to be installed by those with pirated Windows. It requires validation to install and I know there are a lot of pirated version still around.

I personally hate IE7 more than IE6. Hacks and standards asside I think IE7 has a horrible UI and is very unstable.

Bogle makes perfect sense with the statement that to most people, there is no separation between internet and browser. However, that shouldn’t stop you, or I, or anyone from our industry in informing more people about browsers.

Most people who use IE are those who use the internet casually, over the age of 27, and do not really know anyone who works in the industry. More and more younger people are using FF and standards-based browsers because of their friends and peers who are into/work in the web industry. Those people don’t need convincing, the former do. Ignoring the chance to do so is, IMO, rather irresponsible on our part, and reeks of the same attitude Microsoft has towards standards compliance (just fuddedabowdit).

@Freddy – Anyone who works in the web industry knows how rubbish IE is. It has nothing to do with popularity. IE costs money. When you develop for a standards-based browser (FF is the best to develop on, because among all the browsers, it breaks the least rules with regards to W3C compliance), 90% of the time, what shows up on FF is exactly what you get on Safari, Opera, and Netscape. AFTER that, you spend time making your website render properly on IE, because of IE’s poor implementation of web standards. The extra development time always costs web developers money, due to the amount of extra time spent on hacking away at IE to make your website render uniformly across browsers, across platforms.

This is the one of the reasons our team has dropped IE6 development time. We would rather spend those extra hours finishing up other projects, giving us a faster project turnover ratio, aside from properly educating the public why IE is such a poor browser (poor box model rendering, active x exploits, microsoft-only properties, etc.) Which is why we either (a) give them a link to better browsers, or (b) send them to the page we reserve for our (non-opera) mobile phone web surfers.

Well, I dunno why, but I decided to send Microsoft a general email: (hehe)…
BTW, I’m not a new Web Developer….

Well, I’m a new Web Developer. What can I say, I don’t understand Internet Explorers issues with my web design (CSS-wise). I tried to make a centered layout with navigation on the left and content on the right, and IE drops the content below the navigation. A lot of other people seem to have problems with CSS support in Internet Explorer, but I don’t know…
Another example: I made a little website that relies on the color: inherit property, and Internet Explorer does not seem to support it, and that made me sad.

Well, I hope Internet Explorer 8 comes out soon, because you guys have a lot to work on.
Hoping that your next browser doesn’t suck as much,
Pipenpadelopoeous.

man! my hate toward IE6 is increasing day after day.. i suggest we make a standard icon appears when users open our pages and when they using IE6 to tell them that they have to upgrade their browser. designers can send u suggestions for the icon’s design.

Agreeing with some of the comments about people who don’t understand what a browser even is, I was behind the bar at work yesterday and I heard a group of men chatting about the internet and one was wrongly informing the others that you have to have internet explorer to go on the internet. I was very close to going over and correcting them but had people to serve, lol

i agree about it, BTW i hate IE browser, but it’s necessary for our job and our client. Half of them still use it for surfing. actually they complain about IE bug specially about design like border, pixel etc. Unfortunatly that is our mistake (programmer and designer web) not IE bug. So who’s wrong here?

IE has its drawbacks but its not that bad. If you know how to go around the corner you can write up a w3c valid yet IE compatible code…

Altough they really should do something about them PNG’s.

What a totally ridiculous article. IE6 is the most widely used browser. Why one earth would you boycott it and make yourself look totally incompetent at the expense of a few png hacks. If you code properly and know what you’re doing then IE6 is not a problem.

It boils down to your intended audience and how willing you are to risk losing them. About 48% use IE6 on our site and as its an eCommerce site we don’t want to lose them so we add additional resource to cater for them. Its not difficult, its just time consuming.

If you’re running a site that you don’t mind potentially losing half your audience then there is no need!

Many people don’t care or know what browser they are using they just want to look at websites

It is up to us web developers to give momentum to this revolution and it not just IE6 that should be included but indeed any version of IE. Some layouts are impossible to achieved in IE and I’m talking about simple CSS1 standards that IE fails to render properly. Here is a test case showing a complete mess in any version of IE.

IE Float model and the reality

It would be a decent gesture on M$ behalf if they were to inform users of their operating systems that IE isn’t the only browser available and that IE is a potentially dangerous browser to use.

The common argument (supporting IE) is that internet users have a choice about what browsers they use, and indeed yes it should be their choice, but in other industries like the automobile industry, if a product has a fault in it, it is recalled and repaired or removed from availability altogether. Imagine automobile part makers having to hack there components to work in all cars and knowing full well that their parts are going into potentially dangerous cars that can crash.

Well i agree with the trashing of IE6 hacks for personal websites. By the way this site has a problem with IE7 when you use the zooming option. Just change the zoom for other than 100% at the bottom right corner of the IE7 browser and you’ll see what i mean.

how i wish i can just heck care about IE 6 .. but most ppl are still using that crappy old browser. MS should do seriously do something about the png transparency though, I dont mind those IE hacks, I can get my site to work on at least.

BUT I WANT my transparency bg .. arghhhhhhhh …

Er… hate IE6… Why!? There are no perfect browsers in the world. Same as no perfect web designer or developer. I agree with James Filtness. What James point out was right! It is the most used browser in the world… You should properly think as a web designer and act like an user. Even JavaScript for FireFox!!! Many of use this know extension call NoScript. I mean there is just so many of us who will turn this thing off when we are testing our scripts. The rest of the times we’ll keep it on. Your users who doesn’t like your scripts has a problem or your script has a problem? I think both… Either he or she is disable person, whom with scripts and effects would make them hard to fallow the document else they are people like us who just don’t trust scripts(I mean from some web sites of course). What if they can’t benefit from your hard work? You have to find a two even three or four way solution. I know it sounds crazy but it will sound more crazy one day you can’t see anymore and you think why nobody builds sites for people who can’t see… even without scripts!?

Are much of a designer or an user? If you consider your self as a designer. I would say you are properly right about IE6. After all what all this money need for? To build something like IE6. They could do better! If you consider your self as an user who as well is a designer. Guess what, learn from IE6 and you will be stronger! Solving problems isn’t a easy task. I don’t know if James could solve the compatible and standard problem but if he could you should much wast time writing article. Besides, I test my site using IE5. Some grand pa and grand ma might still use it too. Well, if they only know to get FireFox hehe…

Our job as a web designer is to make web pages that are good looking and ===functional===! If your web page isn’t functional in the world’s most popular web browser, you’ve failed to do your job!

Hello all,
I’m adding to this discussion by informing you of a campaign that I started in order to stop IE6.
Please, read the full story at http://www.stopie6.org

I think it’s high time now to stop supporting this old browser, and educating people to switch to either IE7 or another browser.

Please have a look at my site and feel free to leave a comment.
Don’t forget also to spread the voice, if you agree with me!

Thanks in advance,
Matteo – Stop IE6 Campaign
http://www.stopie6.org

@Monsta
>Isn’t there a script that can show a message (image + link somewhere in the >layout), only if your on an outdated browser?

Yes there is! Go and check http://www.stopie6.org -> how
You’ll find the script you’re looking for, with all the details.

Let me know what you think!
We all have to work together to make IE6 just a long gone memory

That .png hack is too complicated I’m sure there should be something simpler

Good review, but i don’t like IE :P !

I have a religious hate against IE. I have actually made money linking people to mozilla ad’s on my website(s), explaining why they should use it and the reasons why it is better.
I am doing a project in school that is required to graduate and it is about web standards and I am going to try to convince students, the teachers, and even the school (who is still using IE 6), to understand why we shouldn’t use IE and should really upgrade to Mozilla.

IE 7 is not much of an improvement. They need to give up and buy Firefox or make a deal with Mozilla.

Im sick of the extra work and sick of that stupid click… click … click

This site is beautifully rendered in IE. I see no apparent IE bug here (except some bold fonts) . What an irony.
However, I think it’s a good idea to make people dump an outdated, buggy browser and adopt modern browsers (perferably Opera :) but Firefox would be also nice)

I agree with you, too. Though I don’t program nearly as much as all of you, I often do make CSS templates for various forum softwares, and I am sick and tired of IE. Also, a few simple (less than 30 lines) codes javascript codes I have made don’t work in IE, which, to me, further proves IE’s “lame-ity”. Before reading this, I went on an “IE strike”, and so, I TOTALLY agree with this.
I do know, however, that by doing this, I lessen the traffic on my site, but that is something I’m willing to take. As my site is a personal one, if I do this, I am indirectly being nice and helping those friends who are still in the browser stone-age. : )

-Thanks

I usually write: “If you are using IE, and the page isn’t looking nice, it is your fault” on the bottom of the page. I just don’t understand why don’t people take their time to download Firefox/Opera/Safari, and enjoy in web…

I wish sometimes that I could give up on IE, but for now I still have to support IE back to version 6 SP2.

If my boss gave me permission to drop it tomorrow, I would in a heartbeat!

It would save me from the pain I suffer daily, much of which is logged here:
http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/search/label/DOM%20Methods

Instead of dropping support for a vast amount of user, why not serve up one hack that make IE standard compliance?

IE7.js by Dean Edward

http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/

This work great for user and save you time.
You can even hotlink the javascript directly from the google host.

I’m a web developer for a company that’s been around for a long time. I’ve just started here recently, and we use a CMS to make our sites. The most frustrating and time-consuming process of my job, is making IE6 hacks. Hours, even days are wasted (which the client pays for) trying to make our websites work in IE6. My boss says that it’s a must that we comply with IE6 hacks and fixes, as most of our clients are still using it. I can’t understand why people just don’t update, or if we make a website for them, install a new version of MSIE, or Firefox / Opera.

*sigh* Maybe someday.

All the time I work with Firefox and then I see on IE and my design sucks! ¬¬
I don’t have too much time to fix for IE so… x(
And for me it’s so bored to fix the css or the png for the IE 6 (that some people use anyway)

I support you! x)

You guys whine about IE6 so much yet you can put a conditional statement to single out the style sheet..
What the hell is the issue?
Benchmark for IE6 and then add more features for the better browsers.
Just because you cannot write proper CSS does not mean you can bash the browser.
Maybe stick to design.

Quote: Eventually, they will find a better browser (ie. Firefox) or at least upgrade to newer version of IE.

Sadly in my experience they won’t. People never like thinking the problem is with THEM, not something or someone else. This applies doubly to IE users who are generally not browser-literate anyway (or they would have migrated to Firefox or Opera).

So what happens is not that people start migrating en-masse to better browsers – instead they give up on your site because they think the site is broken, find what they’re looking for elsewhere, and you’ve lost a customer/user/subscriber.

Let´s make IE unusable… it sucks!!!

I’ve seen a one solution for getting rid of ie6 that I quite liked. At rockettheme latest joomla theme there comes a notification if you’re using ie6 which explains why you should upgrade to newer browser.

demo.rockettheme.com

To bug IE6 users try this…

<style>*{position:relative}</style><table><input></table>

IE6 will crash….

hi friends actually
i m facing a problem in IE 6 by using iepngfix.htc , Actually this fix brings transparency in my png images but these images are not clickable due to this fix. whenever i remove this fix from my css the images become clickable but their transparency disappears. If anyones knows any solution of this problem plz mail me.

Im just wondering what % of the 37% of IE users defined by W3 are dev machines?

you’re site is even bugged on Mozilla when you resize the browser.

In grade school, was there ever a time when a classmate would tell everyone not to do a certain assignment with the thought that if no one did it, then the teacher couldn’t give all zeros and no one would have to do the work? Why did that never work? Because there was always that one person that would do it anyways and that person would receive a grade while the rest of the class suffered a zero. Same principle. The idea would work if the majority of websites refuse to code for IE6, but they more than likely will continue to, and those that do not will be at a comparative disadvantage.

Hello guys, nice discussion. I have to amdit IE6 bores me, too. But think of the old days, when we had to struggle with IE5.X this was really a sad time.

I think the problems with IE have become a lot better. IE7 is a really nice Browser and Microsoft did its homework. So its only a matter of time, when webdesigners have a more easy job (withs CSS 2). The next step will be CSS 3 and the new compliant browsers.

There is ‘Cause’ in Facebook which you may be a member of..

“Stop using Internet Explorer”
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/42734

Try not to judge here, but I still use IE6 by preference. I dislike IE7, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, and I realize that IE6 is harder to design for, but the alternative choices simply cannot match the simplicity and famliarity of the browser I have been using for over 7 years. To answer your question, you should most definitely continue to cater to IE6 users as long as they make up a significant percentage of the market share. This is capitalism we are talking about, mind you, and the market decides. IE6 will not simply go away because you tell users on your site to upgrade, this will only alienate clients and potential customers. To expect everyone to change browsers just so your jobs are slightly easier is arrogant, lazy, and somewhat absurd. It is out of your control. Choose to ignore and alienate a third of the internet’s users if you choose to, but you will only be hurting yourself in the end.

Yea,
you’re right, man !

The best is to show a two-color theme site for outdated browser. And a message “Please Update Your Browser (you will see a better Web)” !

Maz!

Look at this site using the ie6 – and its crap. Look at it using a regular browser and it fits. I really didn’t have time to adapt to this bastard to standards. By the way – still the majority of users is non ie users (accumulated). Tell me something about the design, okay – I can’t compete with this site e. g..
Christoph

Yes, I vote for.
IE6 is really a piece of crap and should be ignored.
I don’t get, why everybody (who still uses IE6) would not simply upgrade their browser. Microsoft should make a force global update of IE on all PC. At least they’re waiting for IE8 release and will force upgrade then. That would be an easy clever step to make the internet better.

I’ve tried IE8 and I can say it’s not a bad browser – except those few bugs.
It doesn’t ignore the PNG transparency, so we don’t need to use any filters and such ;)

I agree with the sentiments but I can’t comply. Many people out there who use computers don’t know the subtle difference in meaning between “upload” and “download” and don’t know HOW to upgrade to IE7, let alone what that means. The people I work for cater to the general public so the sites have to work in IE 6. We aren’t all geeks. When you buy a washing machine you don’t expect to have to download and install patches, do you? Non-geeks feel the same way about computers: they cost a lot so they should just work.

For those of you who don’t see a problem with IE6, it is because people like me spend hours tearing our hair out over it. GZ

I hate IE6!! I created a horizontal menu. its working on all browsers even on IE 5.5 but on IE6 it doesnt work. It tooks lot of time for me to make it work on IE6. Microsoft should Force Upgrade all IE6 browsers to IE7 whether user like it or not to make it more better.

I will agree 100% that it is a pain to sit for hours tweaking designs to work in both FF & IE6 – but I don’t agree with ignoring users in hopes they will change browsers. Many people just don’t know any better and will assume your site isn’t designed properly. A large majority are stuck on corporate PC’s that don’t use FF or haven’t even upgraded to IE7. It’s a harsh reality and no doubt there is a lot of time wasted by designers trying to accomodate everyone.

Personal sites, sure – do what you like. But I wouldn’t dare ignore IE6 at this point when designing a corporate website.

Hello Nick

I can’t believe this blog post is still going strong after 10 months. This post inspired me to abandon full support for IE6 period and somewhat IE7. Amazing the IE hacks are still working in IE8.

http://css-class.com/test/bugs/ie/ie-hacks.htm

Even more amazing is that IE8 still has trouble rendering my valid CSS and XHTML correctly.

http://css-class.com/test/bugs/ie/ie-chaos1.htm

But better still IE8 still has many CSS bugs and is struggling to be CSS 2.1 standard compliant.

http://css-class.com/test/bugs/ie/ie-bugs.htm

I guest that IE will continue to be a joy in the future for all web designers and developers who use CSS. I can’t currently test with IE8b since it made my Laptop unstable and it’s my only working computer.

Internet Explorer sucks!

well nice to see this article.. but i am from india.. where people still use IE6.. even more over that.. most of the people does not know about the FF or opera.. from them like… its time to browse or check mail.. they proceed with IE.. what ever version installed in their system. Even more over i meet some client.. who don’t even wanna upgrade their browser and their browser’s utility, when i told them to installed flash player9.
In india it will take time….

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Its a great idea in principle but ignoring a potential 52% of users for any of my clients sites is not justifiable. IE 6 is still used in a lot of workplaces and internet cafe’s which leaves the user no choice but to use the abomination.

I have to say, I hardly ever get cross browser inconsistencies anymore. I know what the problems are going to be so I fix them before they happen. As long as you use a decent reset CSS and you have a good understanding of the potential IE issues then designing for all browsers is pretty simple.

Whilst something clearly needs to be done, I don’t particularly think alienating a potential 52% of users is the right strategy.

According to thecounter.com IE6 has only 36% users in August 2008 as compared to 52% last year… I think you should update your stats :)

Btw, it also depends on what kind of website you have.. At a level where I work I don’t even have to bother about IE6 as most of my seniors have MAC :D
Also because we sell stuff we know the potential buyers won’t be using IE6 if they are serious buyers… So think that whoever is using IE6 is probably using a PIRATED copy of XP, believe me! And don’t think you are turning down potential customers as most of the IE 6 users are newbies on the internet and don’t have anything else to do than checking their mail and few news sites… So I guess websites like gmail.com and nytimes should worry about IE6! Not the people who have a Designing Blog ;)

IE6 we hate you!

I’m happy to say that the site I made for my employer looks bad in IE6, and I don’t care. I spent so much time working on IE6 hacks in the beginning, and when I explained how much time/money it cost, I was told to stick an “upgrade to Firefox or IE7” banner and forget about it. Let that be a lesson: if your boss is hesitant, just explain how much money they’re wasting. Since then, I’ve had more time to work on projects that actually contribute to the company’s bottom line. Also, since then, our IE6 share has shrunk to almost nothing, despite the number of visitors increasing.

Nice idea, I will definitely inform my visitors on some hobbystic sites that they need upgrade (check by user agent) & I’ll remove ie hacks.

I totally agree with you about ending support for IE… However, I do think that maybe you should think about incorporating something that sniffs the user’s browser, then if applicable, tells the user that the reason the site is inevitably going to look horrible is because they are using an outdated browser. Then maybe list a few of the most common things which the user is bound to see “wrong” with the site.

The only reason I say this, is because most people who are browsing have no idea what’s “behind the scenes” as far as websites go. So if they look at a site that doesn’t support IE, then they are probably going to think that the site was designed horribly and move on to another site.

If you make it VERY CLEAR to them however, that the reason the site is screwed is because they’re using a browser which had one foot in the grave from the get-go, then maybe they’d be more willing/apt to upgrade/switch browsers.

yep most of the viewers still using IE6.
Maybe a year or two from now ie6 will be obsolete

Shouldn’t we have a banner or something for that?
Join us – TRASH IE6!!! (;

Or something like that…

very good… Thanks you very much !

I’ve decided to ditch worrying about how my sites look in IE6 a few months ago. It’s too much of a bother to worry how my sites look on an outdated browser that doesn’t follow standards. Now I make it my point to just force all my customers to upgrade to IE7 of Firefox. When they tell me things don’t look right I just tell them they need to upgrade and as of now I haven’t had any problems. It certainly makes my life a lot easier!

Well, I have to nuance my “yes” a bit. The current site still is cluttered with IE6 hacks, and will stay that way since 26,99% of our visitors are IE6 users. The new version of the site will be strictly CSS and XHTML compliant. No more special treatments for IE6.
In the mean time, I’ve placed a friendly warning to IE6 users (and below!), stating their browser is outdated and they should get a new version of IE. I’m not even trying to convince them into installing Firefox or any other decent browser. IE7 would be nice…

I agree with you about this. Unfortunately a lot of people doesn’t care that because they don’t know about it. They think is just the way it should look or that it’s something that will not occur next time.

Maybe we don’t need to let them see how ugly it looks only, but also show them with a screen shot or any tool you like, how it look with some other browser in order to compare.

Most people needs something to compare with before making a move, and more if it concerns to technology.

Cheers!

@Max: You’re a retard. Try learning English.

The problem with ignoring hacks to “let them see the ugly side of IE6” is that someone who is still using IE6 won’t see an improperly rendered site & think, Oh, guess I should update my browser because it isn’t rendering the CSS correctly. Obviously, they are not too computer savvy and are far more likely to think, What the hell is wrong with this website? Ask that same individual, “What version of Internet Explorer are you using?” & I promise you the response will be something like “I dunno,” or “what’s that?” or “I just click on the little ‘e'”. So really, your plan won’t work. The true answer is that Microsoft should have a Windows Update that forces an upgrade to at least IE7. After all, a large portion of IE’s files are in the Windows folder.

I’ve recently made one site and had some problems with guess whom? IE6 :)! But I’ve fixed it and now even my mom with her damn IE6 can browse this site and it looks like it has to be.
As a developer, I think, you have to make your site look normally (or as close as it’s possible) even in the retard browsers. Otherwise, if you can get all people to use FF/Opera or other normal browser – I’m with you!
You can’t blame users for using IE instead of , for example, FF – it’s the matter of taste. But you can blame them for using browser older version (IE6 instead of IE7)! Otherwise, it’s their problem.

for ever firefox :)

deffinatly trash ie6 and prob trash ie all together :D, ive stoped using hacks for ie6 if my site looks rubish with it, i dont care had enough designing for the rubish browser

I completely agree with you, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple. We can’t just ignore an entire population of users. If I were to start ignoring IE, my sites’ users would greatly decrease. I’m a die hard Firefox user, and if I visit a site that doesn’t work in FF I leave and don’t come back. I won’t bother to use IE, because to me all sites should function on a relatively similar level.

I think a lot of people just need to be educated about the other options out there. Most people purchase computers and IE is already installed, so they don’t know any better. I think the best way would be to try and educate our audience. We can add FF buttons to our homepages. We can write content on our site that explains why users should upgrade or choose a different browser. We can’t, however, chase visitors out just because they’re IE users.

I totally understand your frustration, though. I once spent hours designing a fancy new menu from scratch and then received messages from some of the site’s users saying they couldn’t see the navigation. They were using old — version 4 and up — versions of IE and I ended up having to change the menu back. I know we can’t accommodate each and every user, but we have to try.

Let’s try to educate our users!

please remove all hacks from this site

“But, together we can make a different…” Haha, we can make a different. In all seriousness I have never attempted to accommodate IE users. You might call it bull-headed you might call it exclusive, but honestly there needs to be a web standard, and Microsoft clearly is too posh to listen to anyone. If people want to see how the web is supposed to look they might consider using a sensible browser like Firefox. I think tough love on the part of web developers and designers is way overdue.

Muy util estos hack para que IE 6 acepte los estandares basicos
Y te quiero felicitar por el diseño del blog, verdaderamente unico!

Well.. whats so difficult for internet users to either install the new IE or Mozilla browser? .. anyways, those who still cant do this simple thing, are those ones who i really dont give a dime if they dont watch my site.. they are simply not the ones of my target-population… i will try to make things the easiest for the poor IE 6 browser to digest.. but wont bother if some results come out a little bit IE 6-abused…
greetz and keep on the good work!
swissdesigner

Has anyone ever sent Microsoft an invoice for the extra time spent working around IE6? Just a pleasant thought as I struggle late at night to make a page render properly…

yes … all web designers + developers know IE6 sux.. but thats not the point here. A website is like a book or a library… with information… which is accessed all around the world…

I can’t help but think about the ppl in Nepal (where I’m from) when I design.. because… I have to make it right for them too.. Yes.. Firefox is great… but IE6 still has a majority users… and not all of them care to update… infact approximately 50% don’t .. bcoz they don’t care.. they don’t spend 10hrs a day surfing internet (we only have 8 hrs of electricity per day) …

I’m very surprised to discover this page, as a few days I was exactly saying that to my designer friends.

I definitely agree, we should stop giving a fuck about this shite IE6. If we just leave the website with a bad or worse layout, disclaiming that people should use a new or better browser (FF?), they will understand, or at least get bored of surfing such a bad version of the internet.

I believe we have the power to do such things, because we are the one making these websites work. And if the clients complain, well, he can just try to do it himself.

But the idea of the extra charge for the IE6 package seduces me.

Keep it on lads, we shall make it!

Hmm.. not sure I agree on this.. IE 6.0 is not that bad as people are trying to say it is (as long as we don’t talking about IE 5.5). If you know how all major browsers work and how to handle the CSS properly for them there is no need for hacks. Problems that often occur in IE 6.0 is mainly caused by padding or floats that don’t work properly, but this is easy avoided by adding a fixed height, width or inline on those elements.

There is no need for PNG hacks either, the IE 6.0 supports the 8 bit transparent PNG quite good and if people save their PNG in the 8 bit format instead they save both Kilobyte and they all can delete their PNG hacks. Sadly it is not possible to save transparent 8 bit PNG in Adobe Photoshop so people have to use Adobe Fireworks in that case.

Things that can be more frustrating is the form handling in the different browsers, this is a part that have to be fixed and they should be rendered with the same margin, padding, border, background properties.

Hi there, great idea to count extra bill for fixing bugs of IE6. As you can see my actual site, I missed out to fix it up there, cause it disturbing me too much. I’m using the google fix js for IE – makes transparent png, float, margins paddings and other shit stuff in IE. but not fixing all of them, you must still change some margins and so.
I think, We have to push Microsoft, maybe via court, to make new compilation of IE6 with fixed all bugs against standart compilant browsers and with automatical install in clients computer and replace the old version of IE6.
But it’s just an idea :)

keep smiling and still working on good mood projects

Absolutely! Trash all things Microsoft that are purposefully generated the way they are because Microsoft ‘thinks’ they know what is best for the PC world… However, for the time being, I have to agree with Scott. Personally, I build for more capable browsers first then open it in IE6 & 7 to see what broke…
Love the site, you will be seeing a lot more of me on here, trust me.

I don’t complete ignore IE6 but i don’t care mucht about him, if something don’t work 100% on IE6 (ie. a margin displaying wrong on a blockquote) i just live, anyway, the yellow bar (Active X Install style) displaying on top of the page if detect a super idiot user (IE6 users) sound great.

Hi, i work as IE Engineer at Microsoft. We internally fix a lot of bugs regarding CSS in IE6. We all are very aware that IE6 is outdated. Problem is: Lotsa high cost (read Millions $ for one SAP R3) business applications are written for IE6 and they dont can upgrade so easily. Therefore lotsa big business customers (whole governments) use IE6. Those customers are prio one and nobody literally absolutely nobody at MS cares for some Youtube user writing, hey i like Firefox better. But if a Billion Dollar Company says hey we will use Firefox, then we fix the bugs. There is no way to rewrite IE6 engine. So as a result even internal people are starting to advertising abandoning IE&. E.g. with that yellow color bar you mentioned. I am myself a webdesigner of course and i know that every browser behaves in a different way. You can even go one step further: Tried to view my webpage in KDE/Linux: doh.. everything was off. Especially Typefonts Positions and Positioning of DIVs. So even if IE6 is abandoned there will still be a lot of testing for designers for different platforms in the years to come.

WS2000 ist out of support, even out of extended support. Xp will probably be supported some several more years, but no more SPs as afaik. Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the server equivalent to Windows 7, which is 5 ! versions newer than Windows 2000. I suggest you aks the vendor of that ancient application to update its software to latest Windows Versions.

@Gattler: No.

Back to the article, I think that IE should die. Not just IE 6, but ALL OF IE.

@Texasguy01 :
why don’t you use IEtab?

For many people upgrading IE6 to IE7 is not an option, because IE7’s user interface is completely different from IE6. (For example one does not have the normal control over all the toolbars in IE7).

IE7 looks and feels like a completely different browser instead of an upgrade.

So IE6 hacks should be used, and thought of as supporting a completely different browser.

The best solution would be for Microsoft to just stop making an internet browser altogether, just stop, you can’t do it right, don’t do it. Ship your crappy operating systems with another browser.

I think microsoft should be held accountable and actually fix ie6. There are large number of users out there who will never upgrade to ie7 or above because they are using old machines and/or they don’t want to use the tabs and newer features. Honestly, with three versions of ie to deal with now, they just keep making my life difficult. Their product really doesn’t get better and I try to tell everyone I know to switch to foxfire, but as long as I’m doing this as a business I can’t not make the sites work. But it definitely makes me hesitate on using anything to terribly creative if I know I’m going to have to hack the project to death!

I think we have to put “best view with all the other browsers…” and some link to firefox, opera etc…

what a fantasy….

Most office here on my location don’t give a heck to firefox or even upgrade, IE6 is the default browser on the windows xp they purchased. We can’t force them to upgrade or change their browsers, we still have to develop web apps that are compatible to IE6. It’s still our responsibility to provide accessible websites for now.

-google chrome user

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Maybe we should start charging Microsoft for our time spent fixing their mistakes. Currently I am fixing a site now, taking longer then it did to style it :(. I think i have spent 24 hours this year fixing IE not only in CSS but Javascript too (javascript is even worse in IE). I just can’t understand why they can’t follow the w3c standard. So this year IE has cost me $1,440.00 and they also now have IE8 that still has more issues.

@tobias brilliant idea! i would sponser that

voted yes. to hell with bad browser, imo.

Thank =)=)=) you http://www.cennet.gen.tr webdesignerwall Thanks

voted yes. to hell with bad browser, imo.

My clients want the work I do to work across all browsers, I’d like to charge them for this, but they don’t like that idea much.

ie6 is bad nightmare.

i want to show up the message if there is someone using IE6. MESSAGE LIKE ” OOFF YOU ARE USING INTERNET EXPLORER 6 OR LESS ,PLEASE UPGRADE TO IE7 OR IE8 ,OR USE FIREFOX ,OPERA, SAFARI CROME”. my wordpress theme works better in all browser except STUPID IE6. and want to give download link to all browser. how can i do this. explain step by step

Great , Trash All IE Hacks
Great article. CSS saved web design
Cyrus
Visit http://www.psdtoxhtmlcoder.com

You shouldn’t just let them see the ugly site, instead, redirect IE6 to a page stating why they can’t see the page and give them recommendations on an alternative. Something like this (from a project I’ve been working on): http://10.uppcon.se/ie6.html

hey guys I would like to make a page on my own website (so not commercial, I wouldn’t dare to do it then my boss would kill me) saying “get a fucking decent browser” when people get on it using IE6 (or 7 even)… How can I make such a page in CSS? Is it with conditional comments? Well I totally conquer with the view in this article, hope someone can help me with this problem…

Thx a lot in advance!

Just wanted to chime in that i found out recently from someone who works there that Shmershmizon (can you hear me now?) corporate systems and all employees have ie6. wow i said. for corporations like this, their own website doesn’t work in ie6, why are you still using it in your company!?!?!?

I hate IE hacks too, but the majority of people still using IE6 are at work and are not allowed to upgrade their browser because of corporate policies. They are stuck with IE6 because of legacy intranet applications that don’t work in newer browsers. This is common in large organizations (especially government).

I support IE6 (within reason) because I don’t want to lose out on potential corporate consulting contracts.

A pox on you IE6 – a pox I say! :P

Trash All IE Hacks, Visit on http://ie6update.com/

I find it amazing, that in a world where people always “need” the latest.. design, gadget, TV.. so many still insist on using a buggy browser. If we all designed solely for IE6.. no PNGs, no great effects.. that is very much holding back progress in my view.

I rather liken it to “I like riding horses, so why do we need gas stations all over the place.. why not horse troughs?”

Completely agree with your reasoning behind stopping supporting IE6.

I think the main restricting factor to its death is that schools ond buisness have it as their browser – what do they care if their pupils or employees go on sites which don’t render correctly? There is no incentive to spend money to get admin upgrade all the workstation’s browsers.

My visitors are mainly from non personal machines of which 25% are using IE6!

Why not just place a Bad Browser script :
http://think2loud.com/build-an-unsupported-browser-warning-with-jquery/

I am doing just that for all projects. You can do a redirect to a page which enlists various browsers or even place a full screen div which doesnt allow you to navigate the site if its IE6 (LOL… if you use that stuff, you do NOT deserve to browse the WWW).

Moreover most users who are still using IE6, are generally users who arent aware of the newer browsers… In that case place a security message stating the facts relating to security flaws and so on.

Well youtube is stopping support for IE6, hopefully this moves people onto newer browsers. I agree with what’s been previously mentioned tho, if folk are still on IE6, either they’re lazy suckers who deserve a screwed up website; or are full-on computer illiterate, and don’t even know what a web browser is!

Trashing IE6 hacks would be great but I don’t really think it’s a realistic option. Bottom line is, your client won’t notice an IE6 hack, but they will notice if their website doesn’t display properly when they view it on their dads old computer.

On a project I am working on I am not fixing IE6 for now… BUT, I think I have to after the project is done for all major browsers. This pisses me off already :-(

We still have about 15% of our clients that access with IE6… what a pity.

fdsfs

You can try to convince your visitors to stop using IE6 with these 5 simple jQuery plugins

This article is from 2007. Now it’s 2010 and there is less than 10% of IE6 users (accorting to w3schools). The case is closed. The E6 is out of use already or will be in next 1-2 years. The users browser consciousness is rising, the problem is solved the votes are not important anymore. IE6 is getting out of use (or is out of use already) and nothing’s going to stop it. The opinion of your boss doesn’t matter anymore. Who works at IE6 bugs is loosing time and the economy will get a revenge on him. The case is closed, IE6 is trashed and all hacks are also trashed with it. So we (the web designers) are free and the era of simplicity has started. And the XHTML5 is awaiting in the near future, so in next 1-2 years noone will remember that such thing like IE6 ever existed.

I can’t agree with you more. Microsoft never took it serious to develop a good web browser. They just wanted to kick Netscape Navigator out of the market, because they had the power to do it, and and thats what they did. I hope people will eventually stop using Internet Explorer, so web developers could focus on making good websites instead of wasting time on fixing IE bugs.

interesting read. i like it :p

I hate IE browsers, one of the ugliest things ever programmed ;-)

Yeh I strongly agree with the idea of not supporting IE6 anymore but it is true that the % of people using it is still “relatively” high. However, at the end of the day if your client wants their website to support for IE for either pure ignorance or that their target market includes a large % of IE6 users then stop moaning about doing it and just start charging them for it as a feature of the website.

However, I reckon the sooner everyone stops supporting for IE6 the quicker that these technophobes will upgrade!

I agree with Peter above… I just wrote an article in my blog that shows less than 7% usage for IE6. I couldn’t be happier with that percentage! I don’t know many hours I’ve wasted on IE hacks just to make my websites look uniform. As for supporting it for clients – sure, I’ll code it if they *really* want me to.

I wholeheartedly agree with your article… but the reality is otherwise. In my case, almost 50 percent of the readers to my website are from Central and South America and IE6 represents 20 percent of my browser share and I have no choice but to implement hacks that won’t invalidate my css. I hate (and I think this a too lenient word to use), I HATE IE 6 and 7!!! Since I lived (for a few months) in Mexico and Brazil (recently) and got see a lot of folks with old PCs still running IE6, I understand why IE6 won’t go away!!

Check the W3C browser stats, Chrome gained on IE big time. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp

I don’t even care about designing for IE.

http://ie6nomore.com – Give this site a visit :)

IE6 is such crap. It harkens back to the arrogant dominating era of Microsoft, which is hopefully waning.

I say, offer clients an “IE6/7 compatibility package”. Make it worth your while quote-wise. The global stats trend down every month, and we’re gettin’ into single digits with these dogs.

I had an educational services site project, and they bucked the global trend very much. Their audience was comprised of teachers/education administrators. This group (still) has a very high IE6/7 rate, which is certainly due to terrible school budgets and lack of technical literacy amongst educators (I’ve experienced this directly). I was caught off guard by the amount of complaints they had about the site, since they passed on my IE6 package. Bummer for them, but also a bummer for me.

Let IE6 die soon. It was created by Satan.

forever firefox & opera :)

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hey shut up

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