Trash All IE Hacks 513
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 We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine.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As mentioned early, IE6 is outdated and doesn't support PNG alpha transparency.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.
I stopped checking IE6 renders from January 2007. I have been waiting for IE8, not that I like it. I only check renders on Safari 3, IE7, FireFox 2, Opera, Flock. If the users don’t even bother to upgrade a free software becuse we provide them the same pages. So why do they even care to upgrade when all pages look same, weather it’s IE6 or IE7. So please stop supporting ancient browser, it’ our fault not users’.
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…
“Works in any browser”. Remember, back in the day. These were Netscape and IE. Now, there are so many browsers, so many quirks. IE7 is an improvement but inherited some IE6 ‘bugs’. So the times I have to ‘hack’ for IE7 it almost always fixes the IE6 bugs.
To be honest, I don’t have to use hacks much. If you have to write a complete new stylesheet to get it right for IE6 you’re doing something wrong.
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! :(
How can we ethically not support a browser that still maintains a larger market share than firefox users? I’m sorry, but I’ll continue to make it work in IE6 and won’t be dropping it from my list of supported browsers until it hits rock bottom.
@Arjan: “To be honest, I don’t have to use hacks much. If you have to write a complete new stylesheet to get it right for IE6 you’re doing something wrong.”
Absolutely correct about that. Usually you can make it work simply by tweaking different attributes in your rules. I hardly ever resort to hacking up IE6 and usually only need to do so when I am forced into a corner and encounter one of the many known bugs. If someone has to resort to writing a whole separate stylesheet then that person is wasting a lot of time.
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.
I Don’t care about IE for a long time! I don’t even care about users who are using that sh*t! But, the 60% of internet and even computer users are TOTALY newbies so we still gotta think about them… The biggest problem is Windows and his WebBrowser. It does not have application updating… it has OS updating so there is a problem…
In order to tell the users what’s best for them just put a link of your beloved browser and that’s it. :)
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 like how you think.
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.
I agree that in a perfect world it would be ideal to flush IE hacks down the toilet (how about IE itself for that matter!). But unfortunately we are still a few years away from that. Sure, independent sites and those geared towards web designers/developers can turn their back on IE, but that’s because their audience knows enough to have switched to a different browser by now.
I have client sites who’s statistics prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are still plenty of IE users out there and worst yet the a majority still used IE6 instead of the somewhat improved IE7. It’s going to take time I”m afraid…
Definately going to pass this around! IE stinks!
Not hacking for IE6 isn’t going to make general users think, “omg I need a new browser”, instead they’ll think “the asshat who did this site didn’t do it right”.
Not everyone is in touch with FF evangelicals and their messiah.
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)
“I know this is difficult because about 37% (according to w3schools.com) of internet users are still using IE6.”
Take it with a grain of salt — those statistics only represent users visiting the W3C site, whose audience clearly constitutes a more web-savvy crowd. And even among them, 37% seems alot.
You have to figure, then, the public statistics for IE6 are more likely up around 50%+.
trash it! why stuck on old version for goodness sake technology is growing.
Continuing to use IE6 hacks is living in the past. We might as well go back to using that other Microsoft gem named Millenium. Why should we keep conforming to MS’s version of CSS when we should be pushing the technology forward?
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.
Agree with the commenters here, the global stats of IE6 users should be 52%, according to TheCounter.com (see update in the post). How sad is that, 52%… we definitely need to tell those 52% IE users that they should upgrade.
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.