I dropped IE6

[gaydemon_jr]

Thought I'd share this article (http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/home/calling-time-on-IE6) from .net magazine with fellow webmasters...

325

I've stopped bothering with it now.

Also, I'd have thought porn surfers have more recent browsers anyway... they want the latest plugins and such to watch videos, no?

[Squirt]

The only time I use IE at all is to check for browser compatibility.

"Lawson adds that for a large chunk of the market, even when someone wants to replace IE6, it isn’t always possible: “Lots of people using IE6 can’t choose an alternative, because they’re on corporate desktops or using older computers. Given the economic climate, few firms will feel like jettisoning a fleet of Windows 2000 desktops that can’t run IE7 or 8.”

shocking! looks like they need to download Chrome or FireFox :clown:

[HunkMoneyLuke]

according to this site http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp IE6 still accounts for 18.5% of all browsers used, which is almost as much as IE7 (25.7%) so dropping compatibility for it may not be a smart move yet!

[rawTOP]

My sites are about 8.7% IE6 (or less). The main mainstream site I run (for a client who still has IE6 as their corporate desktop standard) is at 17.8% IE6 (or less).

For mainstream projects we often add an additional 50% to the cost on some of the line items for IE6 compatibility...

[gaydemon_jr]

Aargh! 24.42% of my free site's visitors are using IE6.

[Badpuppy Lisa]

IE6 is sure still being used enough to not over look those users.

[RottenRay]

IE6 is sure still being used enough to not over look those users.


The only time I use IE at all is to check for browser
compatibility.

Lisa is right - lots of folks are still running IE 6.x

There are many reasons for this, especially when you get into small business environments.

Many people work at home, and rely on IE 6 as the interface to their "mothership" was written for IE 6 and doesn't work correctly under Mozilla or IE 7.

If you use IE 6 and nearly any Mozilla "v2" engine, you'll find most errors or incompatibilities.

IE 7 acts more like Mozilla 2 than anything else, and Mozilla 3 simply refines some off-screen compositing (composing parts of the page out of view in the browser window) as well as some obvious security holes.

Opera has never been 100% one or the other, and in some of the early releases (O.2) there were significant faults - such as "alert" boxes being sized 4X the amount of text in the "msg" part of the alertBox code.

Chrome is benign in most aspects, but suffers from the same surfer flaws which limit Mozilla's utility for business purposes:

1) Triple-clicking on a paragraph (and hence, a script which "selects all" to copy to the clipboard) doesn't work well depending upon line breaks as displayed in the *rendered* (page) version.

2) Persistent (form you fill out) data is almost always not stored in RAM, so even when you click the "back" button after the "persistent data" message, you'll most likely see a blank form or sometimes suffer a log-out if the webmaster who wrote the page included a check for "parasitic" info gathering.

3) Mozilla rendering engines will, occasionally, render text much thicker and wider than seen in IE, depending upon the called font; in some cases, this puts user choices "below the fold," or out of their sight unless they scroll.

By the same token, Mozilla's "scroll thumbs" are not as obvious and cannot be colored or adjusted by CSS.

And, web page designers cannot truly control the scroll thumbs. The scroll thumbs are automatic in Mozilla when the content gets within 3px of over-running the visible part of the displayed page; many users learn to ignore them.

A few rather unscrupulous billers have used this anomaly to place choices out of view for Mozilla-browser users when filling out forms.


IE 7 and IE 8 are absolutely horrible browsers, as they have many of the features which make IE 6 useful disabled. Context menus, the dreaded "yellow bar" if a page has a script which allows a user to resize their browser window to fit a site, et cetera.

Context menus, as in scrolling over text to select it and then right-clicking on it to copy it, are mostly useless; "vanilla" installations of IE 7 & IE 8 promptly tell the user that the action they've taken "could result in security compromises" and denies them the action.

I realize that most of these can be fixed by configuring the security settings, but this doesn't work for my approach of reinstalling a "vanilla" system every 90 days.


Following my regime, I've never had a site hacked, nor have I had my computer(s) hacked.



Ciao 4 Now,
Ray

[tigermom]

Didn't read the article, but let me tell you Firefox really sucks now. I just can't keep it running without it crashing at some point.I open it just to use some SEO add-ons and then I go back to Chrome.

[tim]

Didn't read the article, but let me tell you Firefox really sucks now. I just can't keep it running without it crashing at some point.I open it just to use some SEO add-ons and then I go back to Chrome.

Ahhh! Now only the second person I heard of with the same problem I have with FF now. "What's new" in FF updates recently does mention fixes for crashes. We shall see. Maybe it's just stupid Godaddy and not FF in my case. I don't know. Still most people seem to have no problems with FF when I ask. I still use FF mainly because otherwise I like it, and want to use a popular browser that shows me how others are seeing my sites.

[HunkMoneyLuke]

FF just updated this week to 3.5.5, maybe its fixed that issue?

[tim]

FF just updated this week to 3.5.5, maybe its fixed that issue?

That is what I am hoping, Luke.

[TropixxxMichael]

I did not even know IE was even still around. I only use Safari, and if the site does not work right or does not look right in it, I just close the window and surf somewhere else.

Life is way too short.

[RDude]

I was also having problems with the second latest version of FF. This new update seems to be more stable so far, but I guess we'll have to see. The previous version did crash on me a few times, but I just found it a real system hog on a whole. Download windows were slow to open and all kinds of crazy stuff. It's too bad, as it has been a very trusted browser for me for so long. Perhaps I should start using Chrome more on a regular basis. It's still foreign to me and has some rather odd features, but nothing I can't get used to I suppose.

From looking at my own stats, about 12% of my surfers on average still use IE6, and so I try my best to make my sites look decent in it. Personally, I just wish IE would be dropped altogether. I HATE it!

I agree that sometimes you just have to realize that if people aren't willing to upgrade, trying to cater to them will just drive you crazy. I mean, upgrading your browser doesn't take too much effort. LOL.

[tim]

Personally, I just wish IE would be dropped altogether. I HATE it!

Let's just say I feel your pain. Things look so ugly in it, too.

[deanb]

Didn't read the article, but let me tell you Firefox really sucks now. I just can't keep it running without it crashing at some point.I open it just to use some SEO add-ons and then I go back to Chrome.

I have this issue as well. Finally just gave up on Firefox all together. Using safari now with fewer problems and it requires much less of my system resources.

All browsers seem to have their perks. I personally won't touch chrome because of the amount of information google keeps on people that uses their products, just makes me feel creeped out.