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 We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine.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As mentioned early, IE6 is outdated and doesn't support PNG alpha transparency.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.
hi,
your solution for the “PNG hack” is very nice, too bad it is not CSS valid…
to be specific: the img “behavior” property is not valid.
Accessibility, accessibility, accessibility…no excuses.
Stats for upgrades/switches from IE6 to IE7 and Firefox leveled off around the same time that toolbars and browser upgrades made popup-blocking and improved malware defense more ubiquitous. The lesson here is that people upgrade when they feel they are in danger from viruses, trojans and spam, not because of rendering issues, which “normal” users aren’t likely to notice and/or comprehend.
This is a web developer issue and web developers need to deal with it. Users don’t want to think about this and they shouldn’t have to.
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?
Bad idea. I’m pretty sure the 50% of users still using IE6 are doing so because they have no choice – namely they are using the web at work and cant update their browser, or they have an old rickety PC.
Also, from a professional point of view I cant think of any one reason why a client would want to exclude that 50% of users – it’s bloody daft. And if they are happy paying me to build a site with IE6 hacks then I’m happy to hack.
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.
Stop designing for other browsers…. IE is never going away and is the most widely used browser, oh and btw i know 6 is outdated and there are the lingering people who havent upgraded yet to 7 yet. But those people are not as computer saavy as everyone reading this blog. There are plenty of consumers that do not update there computer and thats just life. Without those consumers you would not be designing sites, because they make up a huge amount of the intenet users worldwide!
Unless your site doesnt want to make money, or doesnt want to have site visitors then go right ahead.
Also you customer is right. If you have to charge more then do so do. Anything over 50% is significant.
Just like browser size we all used to design sites for 800×600 screens, do you know what changed a lot of people to start using 1024×768 screen sizes, well it was the default setting for their new computer and/or monitor. IT wasn’t that they changed it manually.
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
I would love to say screw all IE Hacks but the market share is still in IEs favor. The average user doesn’t know about the web standards and better browsers. The real reason IE still controls the market because it is the default browser on many people’s computer. If windows came pre-installed with firefox it would be a better world but it’s not. We still have to hack for IE as much as I hate to say it. Darn IE users.
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.
trash trash trash! and…. trash it!
Everything what makes Microsoft with Internet isn’t useful and never works well. In fact, nothing of Microsoft make works well, it always needs upgrades…
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”.
I’m enough of a purist to WANT to ignore IE6…but enough of a realist to point out the stupidity inherent in these discussions. If you want your personal site to look like crap, that’s your business. As a web professional, I have to say the obvious:
If you don’t know how to code for IE6, you don’t know how to code.
Yes, that’s right. I said it. If you’re unable to create a website that works properly in IE6 and IE7 and FF1 and FF2 and Camino and Safari, you have no business calling yourself a designer. Pretending that IE6 doesn’t exist is like flipping a coin and assuming that it will always come up tails. Nobody in their right mind is willing to bet their business (or their job income, or their freelance income) on such a ridiculous idea.
Get over the self-righteous indignation and look at your web stats. When the percentage of IE6 users is low enough for you to ignore, then ignore them. Until then, make the best websites you can make. Challenge yourself to make a great site for IE and an amazing site for everyone else. Instead of whining about the difficulty, try OVERCOMING it.
Just trash it!
I dont noe why to keep using IE, it sucks a lot :B
I’m glad you brought this up. Most people who are against IE are against it because it renders terribly.
But they don’t realise that trying to make your site look better on IE is not helping anybody make the switch to Firefox, Opera, or Safari.
So away with IE hacks, and BROWSE HAPPY.
Me personally, for client work, it has to be cross browser compliant but for personal projects I think IE6 should rot in hell.
As much as I hate IE, I can’t ignore those non-tech people who may even have no idea what browser they’re using, so how can they upgrade – all they do is click on the “e” icon that came with their Windows. Or, as others mentioned – some corporate and governments companies force their employees to use IE, because their sites don’t work in any other browser.
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.
yes, fuck IE6! to hell with IE6!
85% of my time for css is wasted with hacking it to work with ie6.. bastard ie6.. why the hell people dont want to switch to new browser? if you lazy enough to tryout the great firefox, at least you upgrade your browser to ie7.. it’s 2007 already, and you’re still using the browser that was created long time ago, which is already known to have many security hole..etc throw away your IE6 for god sake!
ive decided to stop tweaking for IE6 user, or IE5 on mac.. ill still give a chance to the ie6 user to browse any of my site, and let them experience all the ie6 buggy section.. ill give them time to ask themself ‘why’.. starting from 2008, ill put an agent-filter on all my site, whoever using ie6, ill redirect them to a download page asking them to use ff or any other modern browser out there..
we really-really-really have to do something to stop the usage of ie6.. peace!
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. =)