Aqua Bird Consulting » Should I Support Internet Explorer 6?

As a web developer, I am constantly concerned about the consistency of web sites across all browsers, that is why I have most of the major browser’s pinned to my Windows 7 taskbar. My current development path is to usually start by designing and confirming in Google Chrome followed by getting my sites to look similar in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Apple Safari. But recently I looked at a site I was developing in a little tool called IE Tester, which allows a developer to view their webpage in Internet Explorer 5.5 up to Internet Explorer 8. Now I don’t assume anyone is still using version 5.5, it’s just so old; internet explorer 5.5 released in March of 1999 and worked on Windows version 3.1 to Windows 2000. Most CSS and JavaScript techniques used today probably wouldn’t even work in IE 5.5, but what about the predecessor of 5.5, Internet Explorer 6.0? I decided to look up some information on who is still using IE6. This is what I found.

W3 Schools is a website dedicated to teaching web developers about the basics of HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, and Server-Side Languages. Their statistics as of October 2009 states that 10.6% of all their visitors still use the IE6 browsers. The interesting thing is that 47.5% of their users visit through the Mozilla Firefox browser. I would take this statistic with a grain of salt. I realize that most of the users visiting the W3 Schools site are web developers, and over the last several years there has been a movement on the web to stop supporting IE6. Some have even gone as far as trying to block IE6 users from viewing their site. So do I believe that 10.6% of all internet users are IE6 users? No, I believe it is much higher, but I don’t believe it is more than 25%. How can I say that?

Most new PCs today are being sold with Windows Vista or Windows 7? These machines don’t have IE6 and a user would have to go through major hoops to install it. To those still running Windows XP, they probably have upgraded to IE7 or IE8 without even realizing; Windows Update probably suggested that they install IE7 and a click later it’s there. The user audience that concerns me are those business folks. Business users are usually under the reign of a tyrannical IT staff, with locked down machines. Upgrading isn’t really an option. Digg breaks it down here.

To support or not support IE6 users? That is the question. Well I think if you are a web developer you should think about IE6 but not very long. If it looks right in all the latest browsers mentioned above then you should be happy and continue. If you can support IE6 with minimal effort then you should try to do so, but if it is going to take thousands of lines of CSS and code to make it work then you should probably use that time more wisely. For my site it was as simple as changing a couple CSS definitions and changing some PNG images to GIFs. Total effort was less than 10 minutes.

As web developers we want to deliver a consistent experience to all users, but sometimes that is an unrealistic reality. We either have to choose to support a subset of users or compromise the experience. There is no right answer, the only approach is consider your audience and what you want to deliver to them. Hopefully this won’t be an issue 2 years from now.

Mark

You could also use Expression Web SuperPreview http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565874.aspx

I always found dealing with IE6 to be a pain, however it ends up being a necessary evil until IE6 is put out to pasture.

I think it is even worse that IE8 even allows the multiple rendering modes to emulate some of the older engines so who knows how long some of those other engines will remain around.
http://www.aquabirdconsulting.com Khalid

Yeah that’s true, I just rarely use Expression Web for anything other than viewing CSS files. Even then it takes forever to load sometimes. Visual Studio is just becoming better and better as a Web IDE tool.
Mark

Khalid:

Yeah that’s true, I just rarely use Expression Web for anything other than viewing CSS files. Even then it takes forever to load sometimes. Visual Studio is just becoming better and better as a Web IDE tool.

Yeah I tend to migrate to VS fairly early in the web development process, it has been ages since I used Dreamweaver or similar for web design.

I really need to get a good book/training on utilizing the CS collection effectively I am frustrated that I just know it enough to get by, i want to get awesome at it. You have any recommendations?
http://www.aquabirdconsulting.com Khalid

The trick isn’t being awesome at Adobe Photoshop, remember it is just a tool (a great one, but still a tool). If you want to get really good at web design, then I suggest you surf the internet and look at other sites you like. Then right click and view source. You’ll be surprised what people are using and it will give you ideas on how to think about pages. Currently I am using CSS frameworks to streamline the design workflow.