As of the date/time of this blog post I am no longer supporting Internet Explorer 6. That's right, I've joined the IE6 No More campaign. If you're reading this blog post because you accessed my blog and were redirected here, then you are using an ancient, ancient Web browser and you need an intervention. A nice one. =)
It's time to upgrade. It's time to see the light. It's time to get into the modern age of browsers. So please, take a moment right now to click one of the logos below and download one of the fine browsers out there. If you don't, a litter of puppies will die, a thousand fairies will have their wings pulled off, and a hundred unicorns will perish of african sickness. You don't want all that on you do you?
Update: Over the last several weeks other organizations and countries have announced their lack of support of Internet Explorer 6. All of this is further reason to get a better browser:
- The French government joins Germany in recommending its citizens use something other than Internet Explorer. http://bit.ly/7Bap4c
- Google to end support of IE6 on March 1, 2010. http://bit.ly/an3z93
- From TechCrunch, a funeral is being held for IE6 on March 4. Browser to be buried without the body.
- From Ars Technica, YouTube to kill IE6 support on March 13, 2010
About this post:
This entry was posted by Aaron West on January 17, 2010 at 6:25 PM. It was filed in the following categories: ColdFusion, Web Standards, Personal, Site News. It has been viewed 2037 times and has 15 comments.
Yay good to hear
I think by now most people who are still using IE6 are not doing so by choice, they are locked into it by a corporate standard or government security restrictions.
How about just using a stripped-down style sheet for IE6 like Andy Clarke's universal IE6 style sheet? http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/universal_i...
@Rachel - The IE6NoMore site actually has a section addressing corporate users. http://www.ie6nomore.com/corporate-users.html. I agree with the last paragraph on that page, that the ie6nomore campaign is targeted squarely at corporations (more specifically sys admins at these corporations) who choose not to upgrade.
While a stylesheet specifically for IE6 would certainly work, I'd rather craft a specific message for IE6 users and know that they'll see the message when visiting my blog.
I prefer the approach of degrading the experience (ex: turn off style sheets) and/or an annoying warning instead of essentially blocking IE6 users from accessing a site entirely.
@Dan - Yea, you could degrade the experience by removing stylesheets or placing a notification message on the screen like IE6NoMore does. I just decided to take it a step further. If folks want to read my content they'll have to use something other than IE6. That said, there's only a very small percentage of users coming to my site from IE6, so this change doesn't have a huge affect.
The French government joins Germany in recommending its citizens use something other than Internet Explorer. http://bit.ly/7Bap4c
MS asks users to abandon IE6, XP. http://bit.ly/6Fi3Mx
@Aaron, fair enough! Believe me, I hate IE6 with a passion and pity anyone who's stuck with it, I would just rather give those poor folks some type of workaround than block their access altogether. But the important thing is that you know from your stats that few users will be affected.
Where's the Opera logo?
http://www.opera.com/download/
@Chris - I didn't think there was reason to include it to be honest. Sure there are folks who use Opera (not sure of the % market share), but I'm not sure any IE6 users reading this blog need to know about it. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE8 should be enough.
Google to end support of IE6 on March 1, 2010. http://bit.ly/an3z93
Just a quick note to let subscribed commenters know I've updated this post with a list of other organizations and countries that have decided to stop supporting IE6. Instead of posting each of these updates as a new comment I will add them into the body of the post itself. Check it out. Today I added information about an IE6 funeral taking place in March.
I'm one of those unfortunate that is stuck with IE6 at a large corporation. It can certainly be a sucky situation for some sites that don't render correctly, but for the most part, they're still readable and I can get the information I need.
With that being said, I can tell you, as I'm sure you already know, sites and blogs such as this have zero impact on the decision makers here, or at other large corporations, as to when (or if) to upgrade. Heck, they'd probably tell me that I should not be reading your blog while on the clock anyway.
In anycase, although I've encountered many sites suggesting I upgrade, this is the first site I've come to (when searching for information) that has completely blocked me out. I guess that's the benefit of the web, there's more than one place to get the information you're looking for.
I agree with Devin. Your restriction on your website only means that I have to go elsewhere for the information I wanted from you and has zero impact on a corporations decision to move away from IE6. You are only punishing us peons. Thanks, we need more punishment.
@Devin/Tommy - I get what you're saying and I wish you weren't being forced to use IE6 by your company. Your organization does have options they're probably just ignoring them. The more times you get involved and complain about being forced into IE6 (and have experiences like you've had on my blog) the more compelled they will be to upgrade. Maybe it's a long shot, but it's where things must begin. I believe my choice to not support IE6 - like many that did so before me - does indeed have an impact on organizations. If you remain silent and passively continue to use IE6 you may never help move your company forward in the browser world.
Lastly, can you not install Firefox, Chrome, or one of the other browsers on your own? I know in some organizations they completely lock down the computers where users can't install anything. I personally think that is ridiculous and is an action that only indicates companies don't trust their employees.