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 We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine.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As mentioned early, IE6 is outdated and doesn't support PNG alpha transparency.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.
Things are just getting to the point where we can entertain giving IE6 users second class access.
A big project I’m working on at the moment will work in IE7+ for most features and snazzy looks, but there is a legacy access mode which keeps things as simple as possible for IE6 and mobile phone web browsers.
I’m trying to embrace the old and the new. IE6 is definitely in the old camp.
I’m waiting with Google Chrome Frame with excitement. I think it will be a game changer. (plug in for IE that gives it an up to date web kit rendering engine for opt in sites that are GCF aware)
fdsfs
very interesting read thanks for sharing!!!!!
You can try to convince your visitors to stop using IE6 with these 5 simple jQuery plugins
personally i’ve never used a hack for any browser, i just stick to using stuff that works in all browsers, they may not be pixel perfect, but they remain functional. if something is not supported in all the major browsers i just don’t use it or find a clean work around that doesn’t require complex hacks.
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 hate IE6 with every fiber of my being, but it’s still quite common in the corporate world, where upgrades are not common.
Furthermore, the idea that we shouldn’t target it, since only 10% use it also means we should stop supporting Safari, Chrome, Konqueror, etc. 10% is a lot, and when dealing with multimillion dollar sites, we’re talking hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars worth of clients you’re turning away.
Our own internal statistics at the corporation where I work show we have about 1/4 IE6 users, and for some products, that number is as high as 50%. You cannot justify cutting off such a huge section of your market simply because coding for IE6 sux.
Download (or link to) Dean Edwards IE9.js and stop whining.
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.
I am forced to use IE6 at school :(
interesting read. i like it :p
it’s great info…thanks for share..
I hate IE browsers, one of the ugliest things ever programmed ;-)
I blame corporate IT departments for not having the knowledge to upgrade from IE6 to IE8 or whatever. However, contrary to what some claim here, dropping support for IE6 in a commercial environment is stupid. Simply due to the market share it holds, you’d be doing an injustice to the company you work for (or freelance project you’re working on), by not supoorting IE6 and I’d question the sense of any designer who suggests so in such an environment. Having said that, I don’t support IE6 in my personal web design portfolio as I don’t need to. The sooner IE6 is dropped by companies the world over the better!
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 simply dispaly a yellow bar telling users to upgrade, and warn them I will make the site crash IE6 after a specific date, All of my users have since switched or updated (browser is displayed in their comment)
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.
With growing acceleration, IE6 is dying a fast death. I am sure there are some institutions and other spend-thrift businesses that think this is working out for them. However, I am sure if they looked at the total cost of ownershiip for IE6 quickly exceeds that of IE8 in regards to hours spent fixing vs. updating applications. As an individual, I was really hesitant to make the move too, however I got tired of the frequent problems. Actually, I am mostly moved over to Firefox, as IE8 has some issues too.
Nice article.
Kurt
7/24 San Diego Mobile Notary
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!!
My first client insisted on keeping her IE 7, saying that because HER clients still mostly use it, she wants to be able to see what they see. I can’t tell you how many frustrating hours I spent making everything look the way it’s supposed to in IE 7. Why doesn’t Microsoft discontinue that crap already?
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.