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Could We / Should We Drop IE6 Support?
03. Sep, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Development
A little while ago the guys over at RocketTheme – who initially served as a big source of inspiration for WooThemes (especially our club subscriptions) – announced that as of 1 January 2010, they will be dropping support for Internet Explorer 6.
Whilst we all know that IE6 is the bane of any web designer / developer’s existence, here’s an interesting look at why this move would be viable:
According to w3schools.com, from the high in November 2003 of 71.2%, IE6 usage had dropped to 32% in January of 2008, and 18.5% in January 2009. By January 2010, this percentage should be around 6-8%. With the introduction of Windows 7 this fall, this percentage could be even lower. (via IE6 End of Life at RocketTheme)
And this is something we’ve been contemplating for a while now as well… Why? Because IE6 really is an ancient browser; especially in terms of how fast technology generally changes. If we were to drop support for IE6, it would mean:
- All future themes would not be tested in IE6; and
- Existing themes would however continue to support IE6 and we will provide support to users of those themes via our forum
We can most definitely not take this decision alone, as ultimately we need to keep you & your website visitors happy. So do you think we can drop support IE6 in future themes? Let’s have a bit of a discussion in the comments and also cast your vote…
3 September 2009 at 5:26 am #
Definitely.
Set a date, like RocketTheme has and stick to it. I know Envato are allowing authors to drop IE6 support sometime in the next month or so.
And with you guys pretty-much being an industry leader in WP themes, once you drop support it’ll become even more viable for smaller groups to drop it also
3 September 2009 at 7:02 pm #
I agree with you Dan. I think that WooThemes dropping IE6 support will allow other smaller Wordpress Premium Theme websites to drop the IE6 support as well, with less hassle from their customers – because, well, hey – WooThemes did it
3 September 2009 at 5:28 am #
The problem I see with the IE6 usage issue is just letting the average Joe user know it’s old and there are better things out there.
Anyone who even takes a small interest in the web in it’s current state will release modern browsers = wai more fun, features etc etc.
If the average Joe users (your mum, your grandparents kind of thing) are being told by sites they need to upgrade to use it. They will. People upgrade flash player all the time after all, so what’s the difference?
I’m all for dropping IE6 as long as the user is told directly that if they want the best experience of the site then to upgrade.
3 September 2009 at 5:34 am #
That’s not entirely true. The reason we have to support IE6 still is because of all the businesses that still have to run on IE6 because all their other applications need it to work correctly… It’s an evil hell-hole they have dug for themselves.
Updating the applications they already have using IE6 is not a viable option, just so users can view normal web pages (that they probably aren’t supposed to be surfing on in the first place).
But I agree that we should add something to our framework, so that it outputs a message in IE6, saying you have an old browser, and you should upgrade to view this page correctly. At least we’ll help out those ignorant ones who don’t know any better (like my dad)
4 September 2009 at 1:41 am #
I like the idea of functionality to suggest an upgrade, as many sites are now doing.
5 September 2009 at 1:02 am #
A lot of people aren’t aware that they can have 2 browsers! Maybe some of those businesses can continue to use IE6 until they resolve application compatibility but also use Firefox.
Reminds me of back when InDesign started making more sense as a better layout program, but many businesses ran off Quark extensions that they couldn’t readily replace.
3 September 2009 at 5:28 am #
If it’s 6-8% only in Jan 2010, I don’t see any reason to support it anymore… especially not for niche themes, like my upcoming photo theme
3 September 2009 at 5:41 am #
You’re just making excuses for not fixing those IE6 bugs…
4 September 2009 at 1:45 am #
It’s hard to pick a theme and say “oh that one won’t need IE6″ because you never know how it will be used. I was thinking that in my reply below, like maybe you guys could just have IE6 support on the “business themes” and not so much on the social media or video blog themes. But then again, you don’t know who is going to take the Antisocial framework and make it into a serious business site, right? So then the line gets blurred.
3 September 2009 at 5:28 am #
While those industry numbers are useless, see: http://twitpic.com/7pnq8/full
I do still agree that this is an important issue for Woothemes. Personally I think you should spin it like this for the poll:
Woothemes customers, do you want:
A) More themes from us more often? We’ll have loads more spare time if we don’t support IE6
or
B) Less themes from us less often? We’ll put in the extra hours required to make sure our themes work in IE6
In which case – I pick ‘A’ every time
3 September 2009 at 5:42 am #
Fair suggestion, but there’s part of me that wants to be a role player with influence in banning IE6 to the far corners of the WWW. If more big players stop their support of the ancient browser, everyone using it will get the message (eventually).
3 September 2009 at 6:03 am #
I disagree – it’s not up to us to decide who does and who doesn’t use IE6. Almost no one us using IE6 by choice, they’re using it because they’re stuck in a corporation that purchased computer hardware with Windows2000 on it. The only way that they can get onto IE7/8 is if they have WindowsXP, and the only way they can run WindowsXP is if they upgrade the computer infrastructure for their entire company at a cost of millions (billions?) of dollars.
There’s no way that a dropping support for IE6 is going to influence corporations to upgrade their hardware. The only time that’ll happen is when “it doesn’t work anymore” and even then it’ll probably be a 2/3 years upgrade process.
Now if online banking and shipping services dropped support for IE6… then maybe it’d be a different story. But that won’t happen either, cause if UPS say “we won’t support IE6 anymore” – then DHL will say “Don’t worry, we still do, you can use us for all your business from now on”.
It’s a lose/lose
3 September 2009 at 6:17 am #
If your company makes you use IE6, then your are stuck with it. But why should our themes support IE6?
You should not be surfing a site which uses our theme when you are at work. You should be using those ancient billion dollar apps that rely on IE6.
Surf from home, and if you have to surf at work, you should have enough power over the sysadmin so he lets you install Firefox.
3 September 2009 at 7:01 am #
I agree – and this is a really good point. My point was in response to Adii that you shouldn’t be dropping IE6 in order to be an “influence in banning IE6 to the far corners of the WWW” – that’s not the right reason to be doing it.
The right reason (per my original comment) is to save yourselves time and headaches which will result in the Woothemes customer-base benefiting from more themes.
3 September 2009 at 10:54 am #
“But why should our themes support IE6?”
Because some of our readers use it. I don’t care if one of my readers SHOULD BE reading at work or not, all I care about is that they ARE reading.
3 September 2009 at 3:41 pm #
Although I agree with Matt about not caring whether users should be reading it, only that they are, I would like to remind you that not all blogs are LOLcats – some would absolutely qualify as work-related.
In my experience, the customers we have on IE6 are, as John pointed out, corporate monsters that have painted themselves into an IE6 corner. Two of these companies are large US banking/finance companies.
3 September 2009 at 11:13 pm #
I disagree. How do you know that people using your themes at work are being inappropriate. Your themes could be used for many purposes that IE6 corporate users need or could benefit by visiting a site built on woothemes ie commerce, industry news resources…
3 September 2009 at 11:15 pm #
And… I happen to be an IT Admin at a non-profit that is stuck using donated Win 2000 machines and a intranet that limit us to IE6. Unfortunately, there are many of us…
4 September 2009 at 1:48 am #
I was thinking about this in terms of mobile design as well … what if everyone on IE6 just got the content or the feed, or some version that looked like a mobile app? They could still read the text … just wouldn’t have display issues!
3 September 2009 at 6:40 am #
Yeah, I kinda disagree with this one… all the people I’ve encountered who use IE6 are doing it out of ignorance. They have no idea about upgrading browsers, because they aren’t that tech-savvy.
Having the IE6-warning-banner in place would do the trick, imho. It’s a way of showing them, as you put it, “it doesn’t work anymore.”
3 September 2009 at 6:41 am #
Whoops – that is to say, I’m with Magnus on this one. (Sorry if the ‘reply’ hierarchy is unclear, there.)
3 September 2009 at 10:57 am #
It may change some behaviors but it looks as professional as those old sites that said “Best if viewed by Internet Explorer 4 800×600 resolution”
4 September 2009 at 12:01 am #
Agree with Matt
This has been an issue for a long time and prob always will be. I’m all about moving forward and have stayed up many nights cussing IE and have made the same stand as many of you are, f IE and those who continue to use it. But… after having been at this awhile and have worked as an IT Admin stuck with IE6 and having to make the decision to stay with it, I have come to terms that us developers shouldn’t choose who can use the interenet and who can’t.
25 September 2009 at 11:27 am #
@John I agree fully with you.
Unfortunately, I can’t decide for my clients, especially for the biggest ones!
So, please continue to do the extra-work for IE6!
Otherwise, the pro-licences for woo-themes would be nearly usseless for me.
3 September 2009 at 5:29 am #
Are there any limitations to existing themes as a result of IE6 compatibility? Or is it just a drain on resources for testing, etc?
3 September 2009 at 5:44 am #
Yep, definitely a drain of our energy & resources. Plus – we’d love to start using CSS3 extensively, which means more time to degrade those features gracefully in IE6.
3 September 2009 at 5:30 am #
I’m a big fan of dropping support for IE6, but that doesn’t mean I don’t make sites “work” in the antiquated browser.
Instead the sites may be accessible/usable but they could lack some of the functionality or design elements you’d find if you visited the site using FF/IE7+/Safari
Maybe WooThemes could look at a standardised IE6 stylesheet and apply that in a blanket approach? Cut down, but still presentable.
3 September 2009 at 5:45 am #
That’s just so much extra work, for not much benefit imo. I’d rather then support IE6 full-out to be honest.
3 September 2009 at 12:38 pm #
Actually having a standard theme that will support IE6 built in to every WooTheme would be great.
Then people can still see the main content and read it – perhaps with basic image support like you would do now anyway.
New themes then don’t have to support IE6, but have a built in fall back theme on browser load.
That way you support the poor people who suffer (knowingly or not) with IE6 and keep us happy by saving you time to build lovely themes.
4 September 2009 at 1:50 am #
I love this idea … a generic boring theme built into the framework for anyone on a browser below the support level.
3 September 2009 at 5:33 am #
For me, please do!
Slight problem though, if I were to use a WooTheme for a client site and a majority of their visitors used IE6 then there would be a problem.
I’ve just finished an internal site for a company and all their staff are still stuck on IE6, the IT support department haven’t upgraded yet even though I pleaded on several occasions for them to upgrade to Firefox or at least to IE7
Unfortunately, there is still a need for IE6 support on a case by case basis.
3 September 2009 at 5:47 am #
And this is a prime example, why we haven’t dropped IE6 support until now. For us though, we can’t do IE6 on a case-by-case basis, since we sell to a lot of (different) people.
3 September 2009 at 5:57 am #
Fair point!
To be honest, fixing IE6 bugs isn’t that much of a problem if you know your way round CSS and including a conditional style sheet. Its not ideal, but then again neither is IE6.
Count me in, drop IE6!
4 September 2009 at 12:05 am #
But then again, (adding to my previous comments), the developers using your themes can always add IE6 support if needed
3 September 2009 at 5:34 am #
IE6 will surely die only if developers stop developing for it. Once the IE6 users realize that their favorite website is no longer working, they will switch to a good browser, and there is planty to choose from.
3 September 2009 at 5:34 am #
Hopefully the release of Windows 7 may be the catalyst that finally brings to an end the pain that is IE6. I’d imagine the majority of your customers who buy your themes for personal sites won’t be bothered if you drop support but those who buy your themes to build upon them for clients will probably not thank you for it. Like it or not IE6 is a browser that still needs catering for if you do web design/development for a living or at least it should be. The amount of schools/universities and councils in the UK at least that still use archaic PC’s using archaic OS’s is still too high to just stop it working.
Best solution would be to have some really good degradation of functionality for IE6 but let those who use decent browsers have a better experience using more up to date technologies.
3 September 2009 at 5:42 am #
Droppping support for IE 6 is not really an issue.
Just drop it. Mention in the Terms and Conditions that “as of [insert-date]” IE 6 is no longer supported.
Will that help? Well, many customers will complain, many will ask for a refund, because “the site doesn’t work, FIX IT!”. Point them to the TaC and be done with it.
IE 6 is holding all of us back. I noticed that I stopped considering transparent graphics as an option, just because I don’t want to use different hacks to make it work in IE 6. I bet i’m not the only one.
R.I.P. IE 6 (and IE in general).
3 September 2009 at 5:49 am #
MS should embed EOL code into their updates to kill old versions altogether when they know a replacement is imminent.
I completely feel your pain guys. I’d discontinue support, but maybe throw a browser sniffer in to display an alert box message when someone attempts to use IE6.
3 September 2009 at 5:54 am #
Let IE6 die!
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was released in late 2001. For its time, it was a decent browser, but in 2009, it is still in use by a significant portion of the web population, and its time is now up.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 was released in October 2006 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 was released in March 2009. Both were pushed as an automatic update, which most Windows users accepted and upgraded, improving their usability of websites.
Some users however, particularly in businesses strictly controlled by an IT department who have little understanding of the difficulties of creating a second version of the same website just for Internet Explorer 6, have disabled the option to upgrade for no good reason. Maybe their applications which ‘require’ IE6 to make them work should be reviewed?
Bottom line – the W3C set guidelines which web browsers should follow and websites / themes should be coded to follow those standards. The required ‘hacks’ for IE6 are against those standards.
Drop IE6 support and do the web a favour.
3 September 2009 at 6:44 am #
Hey there,
On w3schools.com it says that IE6 had 13.6% market share in August 2009…
I haven’t personally used IE6 in ages, except when checking sites to make sure they are working for the 13.6% of my customers whom I still want to buy my stuff!
What would be the advantage for me as a theme buyer to let down 13.6% of my visitors / customers?
Are you seriously thinking about this as a “feature” as in “New! No more IE6 Support!”?
I fully understand that supporting IE6 is a nightmare (as it is for everybody designing sites), but who am I to decide what browser people should be using? If my dad feels comfortable using IE6 I’m not going to suggest he uses Firefox just because I think it’s cool
I think that discussion has to happen elsewhere. I don’t expect a customer on IE6 who looks at my broken site to think “Oh, there must be something wrong with my browser. Maybe I should upgrade…” But I expect many of them to go elsewhere because they think my site is broken.
And again, why would I want that to happen? To change the world? Hmm I don’t think so.
In my opinion, the web is not only for people like us who use it every day, but also for 55 year old occasional users who don’t care about browsers.
I want to get as close to reaching 100% of my audience as I can get.
Regardless, a warning that they are using an out-of-date browser is probably a good idea to save the world. There are various ways of implementing this, and apparently YouTube is doing it as well (even though nobody here noticed because we’ve all been using Firefox 3.5.2 from the very second it’s been released)
3 September 2009 at 6:58 am #
This is not about preaching about the supposed best browser, but it is about taking a standard approach to rendering HTML & CSS. IE6 doesn’t do that. End of story.
3 September 2009 at 7:02 am #
I get your point, and I really appreciate this post. I am just contemplating whether this would be a good decision for me as a theme buyer… and if I take that into consideration the story kinda continues, doesn’t it? Just my 2 cents… I hate the monster as much as you do, believe me
3 September 2009 at 7:00 am #
I say it’s up to you – but make it really clear on the theme! Maybe themes that are IE6 capable should cost a touch more. “Pain Tax” you could call it.
I just built a Realty site. My client herself uses IE6 at a resolution of 800 x 600. They are out there.
3 September 2009 at 7:00 am #
Alright so reading all the answers took a while but lets face it, its not time to drop IE6 even if there is campaign to do so by microsoft. I personaly have decided to drop the support for ie6 because only 3% of my visitors use this browser and i cant be bothered to spend hours fixing the little bugs and stuff. But for you guys i have to agree with Dan Harper, pick a date to drop the IE6 support and stick to it, theres nothing else you can do about it.
3 September 2009 at 7:02 am #
You (and ourselves) will probably be able to drop IE6 when the current recession is just an old memory. Until then a lot of firms are holding back on upgrades, and it’s the corporates that are the biggest source of IE6 users.
Similarly, we’ve built themes which are primarily viewed by corporate users because they’re very industry specific – sites like http://www.telecoms.com and they’ll generally get around 20% of visitors using IE6.
So although IE6 users in general have dropped very low, in some sectors they’re too important to lose. Consequently the number of people who can use your themes as a basis for their sites will be cut right back. As one of your competitors (albeit a small one) I’d recommend you to drop IE6 support ASAP, but as an honest man I’d suggest that you should continue with it for at least another year. Painful, I know, but necessary.
3 September 2009 at 7:05 am #
IE6 is definitely turning into the everlasting pain in every web developers @ss, however, our statistics at World Wide Creative show that over 40% of our clients visitors are still using the dilapidated old browser.
My only thought on the matter is that South Africans are behind the curve on upgrading our software since the international figures on IE6 usage show far less users still stuck on IE6.
Maybe mass action from developers and web companies can force more people to upgrade but until that 40%+ figure comes down drastically, we are doomed to keep on supporting the old-timer.
3 September 2009 at 7:13 am #
Difficult question. As theme designers you should make it possible for everybody to access your clients websites. This is something I would expect from you when I buy a theme. On the other hand I get your point. IE6 is indeed a villain among all browsers and should be banished out of the www.
Personally I use the Wordpress plugin “Internet Explorer 6 Upgrade” which puts a pop-up before my website for each IE6 user. It provides usefull links to the newest versions of Firefox, Chrom, IE, Opera and Safari. If they still want to see my BusyBee-Website with no support for IE6 from my side (except the Woo-Update for images), they can. But in that case they must be pretty stubborn or simply extremly unexperienced with the web.
Long speech short: You have my blessings to kill it.
P.S. You could put this in your feature list: “We don’t support IE6 – and are proud about it!”
3 September 2009 at 7:14 am #
Personally I think you should support IE6. It still has a bigger marketshare than most other browsers out there. But that’s your business decision to make really.
If you choose to drop it, then you should make it clear on your site that your themes are IE6 incompatible and you will not support IE6 released issues.
I definitely wouldn’t buy a theme that breaks in IE6. And if you kept that information hidden from me, I’d never buy from you again.
3 September 2009 at 8:08 am #
I run a big site (120k visits a day) and the users are mainly not computer experts. I checked the statistics and only 11 % of these users still browse with IE6.
So I agree to Dan Harper, set a date and forget IE6 !
3 September 2009 at 8:11 am #
I think you should select a target of say 5%, and when IE6 usage goes below that number your support of IE6 is triggered to stop.
I recognize the desire to “encourage” people to stop using IE6 and to upgrade and/or switch browsers, but many of us are running businesses and not trying to change the world, and it’s a tough business argument to say: “Even though 15% of your visitors use this browser, I’m not going to support it due to being a conscientious objector to IE6.”
It’s a tough decision, if you support IE6, you’re part of the problem, not the solution. As a stop-gap between full support and zero support, how about add a checkbox in the admin area of the themes that allows us to choose to alert people use IE6 that they need to upgrade. When selected it could just display a with a customizable message encouraging them to upgrade and with links to FF, IE8, Safari, Chrome, etc. as desired. This way users of your themes could proactively encourage visitors to upgrade.
It could even be a fun little contest to have Woo Customers send you screenshots of their google analytics reports and whoever can prove they lowered their IE6 visitor rate the most during the contest wins some sort of prize!
I think education rather than brute force is the way to create change and kill IE6! (Despite how much fun it would be to block all traffic to a site for IE6 users until they upgrade!)
But for now, (sadly and against every self-respecting bone in my body), I must say that we need IE6 support until IE6 usage has dropped to a level that makes it an easy business argument to not support it for our clients anymore. 10-15% usage is just too high a group of users to ignore.
3 September 2009 at 8:19 am #
I’ve been campaigning for this for about a year now. Yes. The people that are still using IE6 are not representing a significant portion of the site visitors and probably aren’t representing a significant potion of the revenue for commerce sites either.
3 September 2009 at 8:20 am #
Personally, on my site, I chose to not go to great lengths to support IE6 and provided a message to those users to let them know.
However, in this situation, I have mixed feelings. I guess as long as you make sure your customers realize that their theme will not support IE6, I’d start phasing out support.
3 September 2009 at 8:59 am #
Why not do it on a theme by theme basis? Which you can decided based on the effort level for that theme.
Leave it up to the people buying/using the themes to decide if they must have IE6 support, and if they do, they can skip that theme.
After a couple of releases you can see if from a sales side if it affects your revenue to bring back IE6 support, and if not say good bye to IE6 for good.
3 September 2009 at 11:40 am #
Based on many of the comments, it seems like it might make sense to continue to support IE6 for the “business-y” themes, and drop it on more “artsy” or “personal” themes.
3 September 2009 at 2:31 pm #
That is what I was thinking with my new photo blog theme… Does it really need IE6 support? Making our business themes IE6 compatible is important I think.
3 September 2009 at 9:24 am #
I think, its brilliant, you stop supporting IE6.
My Reasons:
1. IE6 is over 8 years old, what means lightyears in computer time.
2. You give smaller designers a sign, that the time for IE6 is over.
3. You can change the usage of IE6 only by no more supporting it. Let the IE6-users only have broken websites. Thats the first time they think about changing to a modern, fast and secure browser! And then they tell their IT at work as well.
But why should you tell them, that they have to upgrade? They shall wonder and self experience. The hard way will work. If you tell them to upgrade, they will ask: “For which company are they working now? Microsoft or Mozilla?”
3 September 2009 at 10:09 am #
Its way past its sell-by and beginning to stink, please bang it in the trash!
Viva La Revolution – Good bye IE6!!
3 September 2009 at 10:18 am #
Thing is, it is now not worth your time testing in IE6 as it’s usage is so little. I just don’t think it’s worth it anymore.
3 September 2009 at 10:23 am #
We too will be doing the same. We currently do not support it in our admin panel and will be phasing out support for it in all SocialGO networks. It is a nightmare….insecure, slow and limiting.
3 September 2009 at 10:24 am #
I hear your pain. Really, I’ve been dealing with IE6 for way too long.
I’d be extremely careful with letting support go. In theory it makes sense, the industry is slowly grinding in that direction however there are still large amounts of users stuck with IE6. Anyone using your themes to develop business sites targeted at anyone but designers are going to have complications with 0 IE6 support.
I’ve been writing CSS/XHTML for 6+ years and have very few issues with ensuring proper render in IE6. There are some issues with JS .. but really if you are writing lean / mean CSS .. what’s the big deal?
Maybe you can offer an “upgrade or extra support package (extra 20$ per theme)” for those wanting IE6 support. Ensuring your time is compensated for when it’s required.
Whatever you do I’d think twice before just dropping it completely. It could hurt your sales down the line.
3 September 2009 at 10:29 am #
Not to mention you’ll open up a pretty sick niche for a theme company who does support it.
I know I won’t be able to purchase themes if they render like hell in IE 6.0
3 September 2009 at 10:25 am #
Well, I particularly **HATE** IE… I don’t use it anyways.
If it was for me, I’d be happy to see it vanish.
However, “phasing it out” would probably be the best…
But, definitely, get get rid of it… eventually.
That’s my opinion…
3 September 2009 at 10:32 am #
I don’t like IE6. Site does not look the same on it. But as of now, about 23% of the visitors to my site (according to Google Analytics) still use IE6. I’ve added the ie6nomore.com code so they get the message and the percentage is down from 40% at the beginning of the year, but the reality is 23% is too large a percentage to just ignore. Perhaps give it 6 months more.
3 September 2009 at 10:45 am #
Yes. Drop it.
3 September 2009 at 10:51 am #
Unfortunately dropping IE6 is not really an option. Ask any web developer and of course they will say yes drop it (present company included)… ask any client of theirs and they’ll say “My site needs to work on all browsers or I’m not paying you.”
Our Woothemes site is in the same boat as Mike above, 18% of visitors are on IE6, so dropping support will basically mean we’ll have to purchase the Theme, then hire another developer to get it to work in IE6.
3 September 2009 at 10:54 am #
Drop it… Consider building in a plugin to allow your customers to display a warning to IE6 users..
3 September 2009 at 10:58 am #
I personally can’t believe you haven’t already made this decision, but it’s better late than never I suppose…
DEATH TO IE6, THE BANE OF THE INTERWEBS!
3 September 2009 at 11:09 am #
I fully support dropping support for IE6. It’s a terrible web browser, with no standards support.
3 September 2009 at 11:16 am #
Dropping IE6 is like segregation against users who don’t have choice or don’t know that they have.
An economic fact is that IE6 is a (bad) reality.
3 September 2009 at 11:20 am #
Axe it.
3 September 2009 at 11:25 am #
Wow, hot topic. Personally, I dropped IE6 support when IE8 was released. Not that IE6 was dead or anything but the demographic our company sells to is quite young and tech savvy. According to our website stats, less than 1% of our users are using IE6.
Microsoft know IE6 was a failure. If your computer is set to auto update you will not be running IE6 anymore, as IE is a mandatory upgrade with service packs.
Microsoft has even created a social justice campaign to help feed the hungry if you upgrade your browser. ( http://www.browserforthebetter.com ) Targeted at the death of IE6.
Truth be told, a site that is not designed to work with IE6 is still usable in IE6, and users of the archaic browser are used to compromising.
3 September 2009 at 11:27 am #
Having a look at global stats on browser usage:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Looks like it will only affect a handful of people. Plus we need to consider Microsoft’s push to upgrade.
So IE6 be gone!
3 September 2009 at 11:30 am #
Anything to expedite the demise of IE has my full support. I think providing a phase out date for support is a responsible approach. I’d love a pop-up window for the themes
that visitor users that use if IE us unwelcome and to get Firefox.
3 September 2009 at 11:45 am #
The majority of your customers are going to point out that 20 some odd percent of their users are still on IE6 which is too much to simply ignore. Four years ago, I would tend to agree, but today… not only do I disagree, but I would say that if you are still supporting IE6, you are helping to hold back the natural evolution of the internet.
IE6 was released on August 27, 2001 which was 8 YEARS AGO people. Do you remember what websites looked like 8 years ago? Here in 2009, most developers are still spending, no, wasting precious hours to make sites and themes compatible with IE6 because of the need to support that 20%. You might say that these users have no choice, that they are being forced to use IE6 by their corporations or their lack of knowledge. Even so… how long to we tend to these corporations/people? Another 2 years, 4, 6, 10? No seriously… I want to know?
The fact is that as long as we continue to support IE6, that “20%” of users will continue to have an excuse not upgrade. Everyone has heard the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or “let well alone”. Until IE6 begins to break for these people, why would they upgrade? It is our responsibility to everything that is good about the internet to break IE6 for these people. I guarantee that the more and more we end support for IE6, that 20% will decline very fast. If the world comes to an end because of it, I will personally take the blame.
Last I heard, Microsoft officially ends support for IE6 in July of 2010. So what happens then? Can you really expect developers to support a 9 year old browser that the creator does not even support anymore?
3 September 2009 at 11:47 am #
I voted heck yeah but I am quite surprised that 15% said “Nope, it’s part of our life.”
IE6 is a security risk and if Microsoft stopped supporting it so should we.
WooThemes just stick to pleasing the large majority of users and don’t worry about the 5%. I am sick of the minority making decisions for the majority.
3 September 2009 at 11:55 am #
Absolutely, be a part of the movement. It’s the right things to do. Drop it.
3 September 2009 at 12:05 pm #
Get rid of that garbage ASAP! I’m sick and tired of all IE products…and IE6 has to be dropped like a bad habit.
3 September 2009 at 12:11 pm #
Yes.
3 September 2009 at 12:27 pm #
The real question is, how many of YOUR buyers are still using IE 6. I mean, ultimately that’s going to be the most important consideration. Yeah, our end clients, our readers, etc. might matter some — but what are your metrics telling you about who visits your sites?
Frankly, I only see IE 6 in the business space now. And even some of those places are finally starting to switch because the app developers are tried of it. You’ve got to cut the cord.
Calculate how much of your time is spent fixing IE 6 problems and compatibility tweaks and workarounds (I’m sure sometimes at the expense of really cool features you can’t implement because it’ll break stuff) and divide it by the percentage of IE 6 customers you have. If the figure is worth it, keep it around. If not, time to phase out on all new themes.
3 September 2009 at 12:49 pm #
A couple of other items to add to this – a summary of some of the above.
Microsoft have said that they’ll keep IE6 support going until 2014.
EOL was planned for July 4, 2010, but independence day is going to be another 4 years. Even then, big corporations and government may still want to keep it going.
You may say that 10% isn’t a big deal. Consider that the US economy is in recession rather than growth. How big a recession? Less than 5% per year – that’s for sure.
If you get rid of 5% of your users – let alone 10% – you have a web-based recession.
As pointed out above, if your competitor (or your client’s competitor) still supports IE6 – people will go there.
It is up to the guys at WooThemes what they do. I’d support having themes that have an IE6 option where everything still works in a standard way, but isn’t at all fancy with all new features checked for IE6.
I know this undermines some of what I’ve said above. The key thing is ensuring we don’t force a decrease in business on our clients for the sake of what’s easy, cool or what looks good.
So on our own, we need to either make a stand or grit our teeth and continue making a living – and help our clients do the same.
3 September 2009 at 12:53 pm #
As a developer of a massive multi-user educational system I had this same issue and the company agreed we could drop IE6 at the beginning of this year. Even though at the time of the decision we had no issues with IE6, the future time savings of not testing new code against IE6 were obvious to management. While I have added far more client-side code and ever-complicated CSS rules, thanks to jQuery we still are IE6 compliant at the moment, testing just out of curiosity last month. It has been nice to not think about t, though. We’re down to 1% IE6 usage out of over 100,000 active accounts, and hopefully those last few will be gone soon. As Christina mentioned above, it’s mostly corporate environments with thousands of machines to upgrade that stick with IE6 for business app compatibility or labor cost to upgrade. I feared the same could be said of public school systems but am happy that hasn’t been the case.
IE6 is long dead, time to stop spraying perfume on the corpse and bury the thing.
3 September 2009 at 1:03 pm #
I need IE6 Support.
My site attracts the real world and not a batch of Internet Savvy types. I still more than 15% or my traffic from IE. My users still have to file their TPS reports (office space) and it only works with IE6. They can’t go to there boss and say gee I have trouble visiting my favorite site while I should be filling out my TPS report online (intranet) could you please spend a ton of money and upgrade our whole TPS system so I can have a better experience wasting my time at work. Most people do browse from work. At least the people who buy things. Browsing time at home is usually used for more social things.
3 September 2009 at 1:34 pm #
IE6 is died.
Longer life to Firefox!
3 September 2009 at 2:04 pm #
I think when running of W3Schools stats their disclaimer needs to be taken into account.
“W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies….These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.”
I have several sites that have IE6 at more than 30%. I expect most sites to differ a little based simply on their target audience. And, as you can imagine, explaining to the average 50+ yr old that they cannot get the information they need because their browser is old….good luck!
IE 6 – old yes, dead no. Microsoft, got to love them, they made a browser that will not die
3 September 2009 at 2:44 pm #
If we keep supporting it, we’re keeping it alive. Now, just let it die.
3 September 2009 at 3:13 pm #
Kill it. And put an obnoxious banner on every website that views it in IE6 “YOUR BROWSER IS OUT OF DATE, DOWNLOAD ONE OF THE FOLLOWING NOW:”
IE6 is on life support, time to forcefully pull the plug!
3 September 2009 at 3:57 pm #
My personal opinion is to drop IE6. However, Joe Botha has a point too. Adii & Mark, something more closer to you, have a look at the browser stats of afrigator.com & you might find your answer.
At the end of the day, this is how the chain looks like;
Theme designers > WebMasters > Corporate website owners > End users
So, Theme designers indirectly design for End users, ie Joe Smith. Now if you look at an average Joe Smith from a global perspective, they only know that there is a Blue Icon ‘e’, which needs to be pressed to browse the internet.
My personal take is to go for a compromise solution, for example, themes which would seen by more net friendly users, say Option can drop IE6. However, themes like Station, Vibrant, Suit and Tie, Productum, whose majority end users might still be on IE6, would need support for IE6
3 September 2009 at 7:44 pm #
The good news:
People who use IE6 usually don’t know when something is broken. I have a site that has 12.5% of the people using IE6. Not one has complained or asked if anything is wrong with the site. Everything looks fine except for the PNGs, and no one cares.
The bad news:
You feel guilty.
4 September 2009 at 1:56 am #
That is a good question … if they are used to seeing every site with issues, do they actually care?
And why don’t these big companies that require IE6 for their software just go and install ANOTHER browser alongside it? You can have more than one, you know … one to run your software and another for the user to do any other web-related activities.
3 September 2009 at 9:03 pm #
I’ve already ignored coding separately for IE6.
Showing message: please download firefox or latest version of IE to view the site properly.
It’s really a bad tiresome experience coding for IE6. It must die.
3 September 2009 at 10:52 pm #
Dropping IE6 support means WooThemes users that are businesses will lose business from (insert percentage here)% of their users that use IE6.
If IE6 use was 2 percent, there may be an argument for dropping support, but 5 to 15% (based on whose data you trust) means dropping support is unconscionable in my opinion. Your business will lose credibility and revenue if it serves up pages that are broken to potential customers. More importantly, your competitors are going to support IE6, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t.
IE6 sucks, but the percentage of users still using it make maintaining support a no brainer.
Is losing potentially 5 to 15% of your revenue acceptable? Exactly.
7 September 2009 at 1:03 am #
You have a point, but your percentages probably aren’t very accurate… I’d venture to say that since only about 1.5% of visitors to woothemes.com uses IE6, that the percentage of our actual customers using IE6 is even lower.
And then it’s a case of only a percentage of those customers using our themes on websites that still depend on a high percentage of IE6 visits.
So ultimately it’s definitely a bit of speculation to determine how many Woo users will be affected by our decision to possibly drop IE6, but from comments & votes on here, everyone seems to think that it’d be the right move.
3 September 2009 at 11:17 pm #
It is not my choice but many of my users and customers still use IE6 so we have to cater for them. You cannot drop support for a browser that Microsoft hasn’t forced users to upgrade. It was released with XP and many people are still running XP with it.
7 September 2009 at 12:56 am #
So the rest of the world should “suffer” simply because Microsoft didn’t give XP users an auto-upgrade function? Don’t think that is fair; especially because I think that most people aren’t uneducated, but simply ignorant when it comes to using out-of-date software, because they tend to stick to the convenient option.
A tech person that still recommends IE6 to a company, is not doing so because he / she doesn’t know about the disadvantages of the browser, but because it’s the easiest path. So why should the rest of us spend time to mop up that mess?
7 September 2009 at 12:57 am #
BTW… That was me playing devil’s advocate!
3 September 2009 at 11:38 pm #
We def. need more pressure from the developer side. If Woo would set a sign here, i’m sure many would follow. Why always take only the crap presure from the corporate side? i know many devs don’t have no option from their customer side than to make it crap compatible to IE6. but there are lots who got the freedom.
time to burn this motherf***er.
4 September 2009 at 12:06 am #
I voted the first!
4 September 2009 at 12:25 am #
I think not only does the responsibility of killing IE6 lie with us as developers but also those in charge of office networks.
A friend of mine has just completed updating his network and is running Win XP and IE6. I asked why he opted to upgrade to imo an outdate system and he said that the company they employed (quite a large and well respected company) said this was the best system to go on.
I know since they are on XP they can upgrade to IE7 or FF but what are the chances of that?
Shouldn’t someone ask the tech’s why they aren’t mentioning the benefits of new browsers?
Anyway drop IE6!
4 September 2009 at 1:37 am #
It’s hard .. on one hand, you want to get as much business as possible. On the other, you really want to force an outdated product out. I have given up on IE in places where I wanted to use PNGs … it just wasn’t worth it anymore. But in the case of PNGs, the whole site isn’t destroyed … just a few graphics look funny.
I think the w3schools stats are misleading though. Are those for all of the internet, or just people who are visiting a site to learn HTML? You’d think people learning HTML would be higher on the tech curve. That being said, I’m pretty sure Facebook forced a friend of mine to upgrade from 6 to 7 … and if that’s the case, I think that is a large enough site to say go for it. I think as long as the content will still show up on IE6, I don’t mind them getting a worse looking site haha.
I just checked in with the analytics on 3 of my biggest traffic sites … on one, Firefox actually wins! IE gets 39% of the traffic with 48% of those on 7, 30% of those on 8, and 21% of those on 6. (Who on earth keeps visiting with 5.5???) On another, IE was at 42% (Firefox at 41%) with 43% using 7, 39% using 8, and 18% using 6. Another was 67% IE users with 36% using 6. On another, Firefox and Safari beat out IE (11% of visits with only 12% of those coming from IE6). Another with IE being 49% of the visits, IE6 being 20% of that.
So really it depends highly on the site. The sites more suited for business and healthcare seem to get much more IE and IE6 users, while sites geared towards more tech-oriented or younger audiences tend to use something else. In all I’d like to say drop support BUT I know that some of my clients wouldn’t want to let go of potential business.
4 September 2009 at 1:39 am #
I guess that was 5 sites, not 3.
4 September 2009 at 7:24 am #
IE = Idiot Experiment, i think no one will miss it, just drop the support for the worst crap app on entire webb ever and keep up your excelent work that you do here at woothemes.
4 September 2009 at 8:16 am #
If you want to stay on the cutting edge of theme design, you will eventually have to leave IE6 in the dust. (CSS3 waves “hi”)
1. Drop IE6 support.
2. Add a javacript IE6 visitor warning (as a woothemes admin option for your customers that “have” to have IE6 compatibility)
3. ???
4. Profit more?
By the way, if a user is on IE6 they statistically likely to have a smaller browser window that cannot support the 900px plus width themes. You woothemers want to wait for everyone to get a larger monitor too?
No?
Then don’t wait for everyone to upgrade IE6 either. You gotta leave some people behind to keep moving forward with good design… Good luck! You guys are industry leaders, if you drop IE6 support you would be a huge positive influence on the web.
4 September 2009 at 8:51 am #
What they need to at least have is a functional website. IE6 users will not upgrade because your site is “broken”. They will simple move on to another site that “works”. Unless you’re the only site catering to that product or service on the whole web – there goes your sales, there goes your profit.
Let me ask this question.
What would WooThemes say they spend the most time on as far as catering for IE6? Surely it is not transparent .png functionality.
Is it menu functionality?
Layout/floating/alignment etc.?
7 September 2009 at 12:53 am #
It’s none of those… It’s the simple fact that IE6 has random bugs relating to all of those. So trying to fix those is more often than not a case of trial-and-error, instead of a supposed semi-exact science.
We’ve also found now that with the jQuery we love to integrate in our themes, IE6 simply does not want to play ball on so many occasions.
4 September 2009 at 11:09 am #
IE6 is already dead for me. My way to stop IE6 is to include a browser support list in the contract and insert the “IE6 support” at the exclude features. In that way, there is no hassle.
4 September 2009 at 12:06 pm #
Here is what I would do if I had the skills to do it.
Create a simple javascript include that allows you and everyone else to utilize CSS3 in all it’s glory to all non-webkit browsers out of the box. It would simply parse all CSS files and would make all the nifty css3 webkit and moz functions simply work for browsers that do not support it throught he use of JS.
Why no one has done this yet is beyond me but it seems like the most elegant solution to provide legacy support to browsers that will never have it and at the same time would allow web developers to use the latest and greatest without having to mess with JS themselves.
I think this is already done with html5 so it does not seem like much of a stretch.
7 September 2009 at 12:47 am #
This still means that there’s an extra responsibility and requirement on our resources (time & energy). PLUS, we need to bug-fix IE6 (as well as the other IE’s), even though the JS hack should work. But we all know how fickle the IE browsers can be…
And this is not even to consider the cross-browser compatibility of such hacks…
5 September 2009 at 10:53 am #
I sometimes use professional themes as the basis for paid website development contracts. As part of the research that I perform before starting development I examine the Google Analytics data for the client’s existing website and, in many cases, still find that a large percentage (often close to 50%) of users are still running IE6. When they hear these statistics my clients, understandably, won’t even consider a theme that doesn’t support IE6. They can’t force their customers to upgrade browsers and not having an IE6 supported site could potentially result in disgruntled customers and lost business.
I think the use of IE6 will diminish over time and when the percentage of users is low enough it will be appropriate to drop support all together. In some sectors, where users are likely to be tech-saavy and have a modern web browser (e.g. people using this website), IE6 support may already be a non issue. In other, more conservative and less tech-saavy sectors the unfortunate reality is that IE6 is still in everyday use.
My two cents…
7 September 2009 at 12:44 am #
We agree 100% with that statement and that’s why we have supported IE6 until now. But ultimately we think (and from the comments & votes on this post), it seems that most websites don’t have a big IE6 usage percentage anymore. And that obviously means that we could probably make the decision to drop the support of IE6 in future themes.
6 September 2009 at 2:46 am #
Drop it when the percentage is next to 0.
7 September 2009 at 12:42 am #
That’s probably gonna be a while yet…
And fact of the matter is, that some sites will always have a higher IE6 percentage due to the demographic of the readers / visitors.
6 September 2009 at 3:14 pm #
I thing that stats are shouting loud: “Drop IE6 support”:
Net Applications (retrospective analysis)
jan 2008 - 48.33 %apr 2008 - 44.31 %
jul 2008 - 40.61 %
oct 2008 - 37.01 %
jan 2009 - 32.71 %
apr 2009 - 30.22 %
jul 2009 - 27.21 %
W3Counter
jan 2008 - 40.12 %apr 2008 - 37.52 %
jul 2008 - 34.62 %
oct 2008 - 29.34 %
jan 2009 - 26.78 %
apr 2009 - 25.12 %
jul 2009 - 15.21 %
Stat Counter (non-retrospective analysis)
jan 2008 - no dataapr 2008 - no data
jul 2008 - 28.36 %
oct 2008 - 27.38 %
jan 2009 - 23.11 %
apr 2009 - 21.40 %
jul 2009 - 19.82 %
6 September 2009 at 3:15 pm #
(sry, of course that I THINK
)
6 September 2009 at 8:38 pm #
@ Mijk, are you serious?
I want to be there when you tell a prospective client that 15-30% of their visitors will see a “broken” website.
I think the only thing that the stats are saying is people are in serious denial about IE6 numbers when it comes to general websites with general internet users
7 September 2009 at 6:04 am #
=D
Real issue is, that almost half of webbots, spiders etc. are stating that they are IE6 (check out your logs…) and that is really high percentage.
IRL there is about 8 per cent of real IE users around the web, mostly in China, because they are running about 80% of stolen OS’s, which they can’t update – so they can’t install newer IE.
Secondary: You don’t need to tell a prospective client anything about this issue, until you are asked, or the issue is being solved – and I am sure that prospective clients won’t focus on Chinese markets.
Btw: There is very easy way to solve the issue: Install secondary browser next to IE6. When is site broken in IE6, you can use second browser.
7 September 2009 at 8:05 am #
I’d have to see some real stats to support this. My one site with almost 30% has virtually 0 traffic from China…in fact almost 0 traffic from anywhere outside the USA.
8 September 2009 at 2:34 am #
Read it again, you didn’t get it!
8 September 2009 at 2:37 am #
Btw: Almost half of inet is banned in China, so they need to proxify!
7 September 2009 at 6:15 am #
Give it another 12 months I reckon, then drop IE6 support all together.
7 September 2009 at 6:45 am #
That sounds like such a long time to continue to support the Satan browser… :/
7 September 2009 at 6:39 am #
Given most of these sites would be used in a client context, you can’t yet rule it out, particularly if you have corporate workers as potential targets. I’d dearly love to drop support, but for some project it’s simply not feasible.
7 September 2009 at 8:37 am #
If you dropped IE6, how many more cool themes would be get per month/year
7 September 2009 at 9:25 am #
We need to keep supporting IE 6!
21% of all visitors at a commercial website I master are EI 6 users.
28% use IE 8
51% use IE 7
8 September 2009 at 4:07 pm #
I would love to say drop support for IE, but that would lessen you product as it wouldn’t support that 6% of visitors. Even a 6% loss in traffic can effect client sales, so support is unfortunately mandatory.
Maybe a compromise, add a lovely jQuery notice that pops up at the top warning the user that their browser is out of date and is a security risk then provide links to the current browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera) I’ve done this on some personal sites and I’m glad to say I get some traffic on those links.
I say fight the good fight by working towards phasing out IE6, but in the end sales conquers all.
8 September 2009 at 4:10 pm #
Unfortunately I think you’ve got this spot on. :/
8 September 2009 at 4:29 pm #
I think the most important thing is that the layout looks fine in IE6 and the site is useable. As http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/ tells us, websites DON’T have to look the same everywhere. For the most part, things look fine in IE6 after a few tweaks. I usually don’t even bother with a PNG fix, IE6 users don’t care.
As long as people can get their content and purchase things (if required), you are good.
8 September 2009 at 4:45 pm #
In all fairness, text shadow does not show up in IE unfortunately which takes away from the ‘pop’ of NO!
9 September 2009 at 12:17 am #
LOL – That’s probably the best response on here!
9 September 2009 at 6:03 am #
and that is fine, because do IE6 users care?
8 September 2009 at 5:38 pm #
I don’t like IE6 anymore than anyone else here. But my Web metrics indicate that a full 30% of visitors to my own Web site are on IE 6. It doesn’t matter why – I can’t afford to alienate that many potential customers.
You need to make sure that all themes are completely functional and, visually, at least gracefully degrade in a browser still being used by over 30% of the population.
9 September 2009 at 12:22 am #
This seems to be our feeling as well… Gracefully degrade a design in IE6, without trying to make it look / function the same in every browser, and we’re also considering adding an optional IE6 upgrade notice, suggesting to users that they upgrade their browsers.
8 September 2009 at 9:40 pm #
Please drop support to IE6 and use this time to work on new themes
Even with some people using IE6, sooner or later they will stop using it: because “the new computer came with a new browser” or because new sites stopped working suddenly.
10 September 2009 at 6:34 am #
Hell yeah! It’s time for IE6 to die right now
R.I.P IE6 > always living in Our heart
because Sometime Removing IE6 Bug takes more time than creating wp theme
10 September 2009 at 2:51 pm #
The 40% number used above is not a lie. I worked at a company where 42-45% of our site visitors came in using IE6. We HAD to support it. We HAD to debug it. We HAD to explain to the business why we had to spend two weeks debugging stuff that looked great in IE7 and FF. The numbers didn’t lie.
The other post that represented reality are the ones talking about budgets and upgrading to WindowsXP. You can’t say “well no one should be surfing at work” because there are plenty of work-related, professional sites that use WP and your themes.
Frankly, as much as a PITA as it is, continuing to support IE6 and make sure that it works to your very exacting standards will be an enormous differentiator for you. It means that you understand that your themes are being used by everyone, and not just LOL Cats. It means that you support the enterprise.
I really do get how much time it takes and how impossible it is. I have sat up until 3am during a production release because of a last minute IE6 bug a dev had to fix. I get it. But you need to listen to people who are in the trenches and not just geeks who hate Microsoft.
10 September 2009 at 3:25 pm #
Hehe… The last line in your comment really makes an impact:
And that’s probably the most true observation that anyone here has made. I take myself – I’d LOVE to drop IE6 and haven’t supported it for ages on adii.co.za, but yes; some of the Woo users do want to support it and to an extent it’s smart business doing just that.
12 September 2009 at 3:37 am #
Sure… its time for IE6 to die, but unfortunately, not all users know to upgrade (somehow). As much as I’d love to, market share on IE6 is not low enough yet to drop support… and when paying for a theme, IE6 support is something I would expect.
14 September 2009 at 3:39 pm #
As much as coding should be smooth enough to (almost) work in IE, I still think that everyone should stop paying attention to making sure everything works perfect in IE.
Since the big sites (ex. facebook) aren’t up for the job, it’s up for the slightly smaller websites (like woothemes) to do the job of ridding IE.
If enough of us do it, then eventually IE just has to die.
15 September 2009 at 1:31 am #
Unfortunately we are in the minority (even in the comments on this post) and the corporates using IE6 far exceed the designers / developers / internet-savvy people that want IE6 to die. That’s almost basic democracy for you just there… Unfortunately though…
14 September 2009 at 3:48 pm #
As pro designers and developers, you guys have to show the right way to the dummy user.
When people using IE6 will see 50% of screwed up websites, they’ll understand that a browser from 2001 HAVE to be upgraded.
IE6 have to die. Period.
15 September 2009 at 1:30 am #
I totally agree, but unfortunately IE6 is still a massive cog in the corporate machine. So for the time being, we’ll settle down a little and we’ll continue to support IE6. We have however decided to phase this out, but am yet to decide a final date to stop IE6 support by.
22 September 2009 at 7:41 pm #
Saw this today: http://blog.chromium.org/2009/09/introducing-google-chrome-frame.html
Might be a reasonable cure/bandaid to the IE6 problem.
23 September 2009 at 12:40 am #
It sounds great… But… The IE users would still need to install it to be effective.
23 September 2009 at 3:31 pm #
IE6.. humm didn’t realize that thing still exists! I develop themes on a regular basis but this is definitely time IE6 did with dignity.
So, yeaH …pull the plug
9 October 2009 at 2:25 am #
I’d love to have you drop it BUT I’m currently installing thestation on a site specifically because another theme I am using does NOT provide IE6 support and its not working out for my client, who is getting a lot of calls…. IF you were to pull the plug, could you indicate in the spexs for themes if they do/do not support IE6 (or create “archival” versions)…..
9 October 2009 at 2:30 am #
Don’t worry… It doesn’t seem like we’ll be dropping IE6 support in the near future…
10 October 2009 at 2:04 pm #
I recently created a form on a site that had some non-ie6 areas. I assumed I was in the clear but the main audience of the form was elementary school librarians or principles. We’ve had so many complaints that seem to be IE6 related. I’m assuming that audience just doesn’t have the IT resources to upgrade often. I wish we could leave IE6 behind, it’s a ridiculous waste of resources for web developers but it seems some areas are still not ready for that.
11 October 2009 at 3:28 am #
Wishful thinking… Unfortunately (and I think the comments above prove this) web developers will need to support IE6 for at least another year or two, because those companies & organizations just aren’t upgrading. #sadface
13 October 2009 at 3:29 pm #
Here’s an idea for when it is phased out (apologies if this has already been mentioned). I know you would have a message for users along the lines of “You’re using an old browser, please upgrade to view this website properly”, but how about having an option in your themes that allows us (implementers of your themes) to then redirect the user to a HTML/PHP file or whatever of our choosing? That way, if we decide a particular customer really needs to have a page come up displaying at least their contact details/ opening hours etc, then we can do that of our own backs?
)
Just a thought
23 October 2009 at 2:07 pm #
i stopped supporting IE6 spring 2009, its time. concentrate on bigger better and badder themes.