Trash All IE Hacks 517
Let's admit it, we all hate Internet Explorer 6. About 80% of our CSS debug time are spend on IE6. We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine. However, most average Internet users haven't realized that yet. Why? Because we put our hard work on it and patch the bugs by various IE hacks. Well, it is time to do something...
Common IE hacks
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CSS Conditional comments
In order for our sites to work on specific verson of IE (due to improper CSS rendering), CSS conditional comments are used to apply special CSS specifications to fix it. If you haven't realized this yet, read the IE bug articles on positioniseverything.net (warning: you might hate IE more after you read them). -
PNG hack
As mentioned early, IE6 is outdated and doesn't support PNG alpha transparency. In order to display PNG (with alpha transparency) properly in IE6 or older version, we use this hack.Aleksey asked on "Simple Double Quotes":
"Hello Nick. I see some bug.
The Close button ( X ) don’t transparent. Test on IE6 and MyIE."My response:
"Yes, I know the PNGs don't display probably in IE6. But guess what, I'm not going to bother to fix it. I'm sick of hacking IE6 bugs. You should upgrade your browser anyway. Why are you still using the outdated browser?"
Why trash IE6 hacks?
I know this is difficult because about 37% (according to w3schools.com) of internet users are still using IE6. But, together we can make a different. Stop using IE hacks on your sites and let them see the ugly side of IE6. Eventually, they will find a better browser (ie. Firefox) or at least upgrade to newer version of IE.
Update:
Agree with the comments below, the statistic from W3schools does not reflect the entire internet. According to TheCounter.com, the global browser stats of IE6 users is 52% in July 2007.
Support me
If you agree with me, please support Web Designer Wall by making a vote and spreading out the word. Let's trash all IE hacks and code happily ever after...
Loading ...Conclusion
85% voted yes
15% voted no
Here are what people have said:
- "My boss will fire me if my sites don't work in IE6" because 52% of internet users are still using IE6.
- Display a message (in yellow bar), "You are using an outdated browser, please upgrade your browser" to IE6 users.
- If it is a personal project, you can ignore all the IE6 users. But for professional or commercial projects, you can't live without them.
- Avoid using any features (ie. PNG, CSS selectors) that are not supported by IE6.
As much as I hate developing for IE6 and such older browsers, I have to. I work for a big company and when you’re not the boss you have to comply to where the money is. Personal pages are a different matter, you probably can’t say you get 30 million hits a month so you’re not worried about your audience nearly as much.
My company can’t just deal away with old browsers like IE6 when more than 30% of the audience is still using it. That is 30% of the income. My job is to develop for the company and audience, where the money is, otherwise I’d be out of a job. The only way that will change is when the IE6 audience is low enough, say 5%, that I can do away with hacks and conditional statements.
for ever firefox :)
I would upgrade my frigin browser if I was not useing a school computer with internet exploer 4!!!! Trust me i checked i use a java script to detect it and it realy makes me mad that i cant fully see the site even if i don’t know how to use alfa transparncy on photoshop
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
Yeah…
Try to explain this to your clients… and boss :) Altough, WE could do something, with synergy. Newsletters, articles so on so on… What we need to do is start writing, and ask informational services to publish it. If it will be readable, they will take it – everybody will be happy :)
cheers.let’s kill it!
designer
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!
We have just spent a year and a half developing a world first for a commercial website. http://www.myglengarry.com allows visitors to fly over a Glen in Scotland and buy a plot of land. The technical challenge was great but made much more difficult by IE6. In the end we display a note whenever IE6 is detected advising that the site won’t work on the browser and asking them to upgrade. IE6 has done more to kill creative development than just about anything else I can think of. It should carry a health warning.
please remove all hacks from this site
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“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.
We decided not to support IE6 for our blog but we still have to deal with it when it comes to doing a project for a client. They always ask for IE6 support god that makes us mad.
Anyway we did a website maybe you wanna check it http://crashie.ajaxmasters.comit crashes your browser if you are using IE6, just for fun.
Also we use a CSS reset when doing stuff for IE6 it’s quite easy when you do that because you start with 0 margin and padding, i wanna recommend http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/, it’s quite good.
Muy util estos hack para que IE 6 acepte los estandares basicos
Y te quiero felicitar por el diseño del blog, verdaderamente unico!
IE6 are very difficult to solve and sometimes frustrating. If i ignore IE6, i will loos
my job. And off course people can not still afford IE7 so mostly they use IE6
browser for their windows.
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
What is Microsoft doing about this problem? To me it should be their responsibility to ensure their clients are using the right version of IE and make upgrading compulsory – for free.
I am new to this so I am grateful I have missed the worst of it. Thank you to all those who have fought this battle before me :)
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…
This comment is concerning those who say “you can’t ignore IE6 users,” and “if I ignore IE6 users, I’ll lose business.” The problem with most web designers out there is that they are supporting old versions of IE for free. Want to see a change, tell your clients that you’ll support old IE versions, but it will cost extra. When they ask why, explain it to them. You can’t keep supporting old browsers forever, even if users keep using them. Notify the users there are options available to upgrade (even if it’s switching to a new browser). I know my personal web efforts are as follows. 15% of time designing a site (usually in my favorite image editor). 10% actually coding the site design, 70% of time fixing it for IE (the versions I’m willing to support) 3% fixing the problems in other browser caused by the IE hacks, 2% for an overall tweak to the site to make it look just right. Although 70% of that time is billable, it’s billed as regular hours. Start by upping the price for old versions of browsers to be supported.
But what do I know, I still support Netscape Navigator Gold. j/k
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) …
It’s not that it’s hard to upgrade or we don’t know about other browsers, it’s that our employers will not allow us to upgrade the browser. If you are even able to download FireFox, you will find out that it has been blocked from the Internet by the IT team. I don’t see this changing soon, if ever.
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!