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 We all know that IE6 is outdated and has horrible CSS rendering engine.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As mentioned early, IE6 is outdated and doesn't support PNG alpha transparency.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.
I agree. Why don’t we just trash IE altogether? It would make life so much easier.
Very impressed with the new site btw.
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 think, one shouldn’t consider always only the user. Microsoft now had about 6 years of time to fix the behaviour of IE6 and update it via Windows Update. And they just didn’t. And everytime I integrate IE hacks or just don’t use the full power of CSS, because IE won’t support it anyway I feel like I’m working for Microsoft. And this is one thing I absolutely don’t want to, at least as long they don’t pay me for doing so.
In the end, one should sue Microsoft because the economic losses caused by delivering non standard compliant software are probably enormous.
Just my 2 cents,
sbx
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.
I would love to stop having to use hacks to get sites to work in IE6. Usually I don’t have to, but the PNG example is a good one.
You can’t ignore IE6 yet though imo, too many people use it. How do you explain to a client thats paying thousands of pounds for their site that it won’t work for a high percentage of people because you can’t be bothered to use some work arounds….
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*
Coding for ie6 is a nightmare!
Please microsoft get rid of ie6.
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.
if(preg_match(‘#msie#i’, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) {
header(‘location: http://www.mozilla.com‘);
}
Haha sequinx I like that “high noob rate” line :)
If IE 6 was a person I would poke him in the eye and give him a wedgie.
Nice site indeed.
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.
I would love to trash them – sadly I’m not able to.
Trash the hacks!
On any personal site, such as a blog, of mine I would be willing to block all IE users. That option however is not available in a for-profit scenario, since so many people use old substandard browsers.
As an example,
Imagine if every mail server in the world would suddenly start dropping emails from any domains which did not carry a SPF record. That standard was published in 2004, it’s been over 3 years and i’d say at least 80% or more of (legitimate email, not including spam) the mail that is sent on the net does not carry with it an SPF record. I bet most of the people in here don’t know what an SPF record is, what it does, or even care. People would probably setup SPF records (which a lot of web based domain services still do not support) pretty quickly, but email would be useless for a week during the transition.
By the way, your domain (webdesignerwall.com) doesn’t have an SPF record. So quit preaching about standards.
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!
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/08/08/the-veterans-charge/
As much as I dislike trying to make things work in IE6, I also won’t get paid to make a site that only some people can access, of my choosing. It’s just tacky, imho. I’ll promote Firefox and Safari as much as I can in my spare time, but browser politics and web production mix poorly when it’s creation time.
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.
@Nick – nice man. Just added that to my blog. Thanks =P
As for trashing IE Hacks – I’m down.
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?