Help me kill IE 6…
December 6th, 2008
That’s it I have had enough, IE 6 needs to die. People need to be educated! It does not take much to download a browser; you can even get them off magazine cover disks! IE 6, I’m calling time on you!
I bet most time spent by developers and designers on a project is making IE 6 work. Why? Why do we do it to ourselves…? Sure there used to be a huge base of IE 6 users around the world, people stuck with IE 6 because Microsoft had not released it as an automatic update, or because their workplace needed 400 pages of validation signatures by people less experienced in computer updates than a forest floor mushroom, before they could roll out an update. (Takes a breath…)
IE6 has lasted this long, because we the designers have kept it alive. It’s like the disgusting house plant your great auntie Mildred bought for you 6 years ago. It’s not green anymore, it doesn’t smell nice and it’s a pain to water and you just wish it would die. The only reason you keep it alive is because you mum might come round and ask about it. Its time to let go…
So I have made a script, that is controversial, I have already been challenged on it being that my website is where I get my business from, so why block people. If you can visit this site with IE6 and you will see. It is a small bit of jQuery which I hope will catch most IE6 users; it blocks them from using the site with a pretty pop up lightbox style window. In this window I have explained my position and given links to browsers that are useful. My aim is to educate people and if I loose a job because of it then that is a sacrifice I am willing to take, but hopefully people will get either Firefox, IE7 or whatever they want and discover a better world of web browsing and most importantly design!
While starting to write this rant of a blog I decided to see what other website type people are saying about it, I was surprised at how many people had already taken action!
This is an excellent site, one I will be linking from my site! They even have a little line of script that you can add to your site header which will do what I have done in mine, linking back to the end6.org website.
Limesharp have done an excellent study, pulling out stats from popular websites showing that IE 6 isn’t as big as people think anymore…
Also importantly we can see here at w3schools that the browser share for November was given to Firefox at 44.2% and IE7 at 26.6%. It’s also shows a decline in users each month.
Nick at Web Designer Wall also crafted a blog article to stop hacking IE6 so people can see how bad IE6 actually is…
Chris at CSS Tricks has also created a small bit of code to help people upgrade…
With the approch of IE8, I say we make a stand. Do you still support Firefox 2.0? (still works better than IE6 though…) No more IE6. I vote for education and a better browsing experiance for all!
Tags: blocker, browsers, die, firefox, IE6, not supported, scripts
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Personal Blog, The Thoughts of SVG. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
