Who supports IE 6 these days?

[Pc_Madness]

Hey, I was working on a project recently and pretty much had to ditch IE 6 support as to make it work would be just to much effort, which of course made me jump up and down with glee, and got me wondering if anyone else is doing the same these days? I've never really got why people have insisted on developing websites that can support all the way back to IE 3 or whatever, and since IE 6 just fails so badly at everything. The number of users is still pretty high though I think? :\

Anyone know what the % of users are that use IE 6 these days?

* By where possible I mean you develop the site and make some changes so that it will work, but aren't bothered if some parts don't render 100% correctly. :)

[Calum Veteran]

It's horrible isn't it? :p

I think I read that 30% of Internet Explorer users still use Internet Explorer 6 :(

However, that was a few months ago and may be wrong.

[sundayx Veteran]

This is a tech forum. All of us (should) have moved on by now. But a proportion of the people out there are still on IE6 believe it or not.

[Calum Veteran]

By the way, does anybody know how you can block certain users, such as Internet Explorer 6 (and maybe even Internet Explorer 7) users. My university assignment requires me to develop it for Firefox and I do not have time to develop it for Internet Explorer 6 and 7. It works acceptably well in Internet Explorer 8 though.

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry to go slightly off-topic, I only need one helpful reply ;)

[redvamp128]

You know the sad thing is that we have to have a machine either running IE6 or Firefox in order to log into the Hurdle Point Software.(that is software that shows minimal costs of rooms sales in order to meet end year goals) Hotel Software- And before you say - yes we have tried IE7 but for some reason clicks inside that do not show up on the main site (changes are not permanent using IE7) not to mention it renders weird characters as well. Other than that one minor glitch I can't see why support should remain.

[Calum Veteran]

You know the sad thing is that we have to have a machine either running IE6 or Firefox in order to log into the Hurdle Point Software.(that is software that shows minimal costs of rooms sales in order to meet end year goals) Hotel Software- And before you say - yes we have tried IE7 but for some reason clicks inside that do not show up on the main site (changes are not permanent using IE7) not to mention it renders weird characters as well. Other than that one minor glitch I can't see why support should remain.

Is there a reason why you don't just use Firefox? Or do you?

[Pc_Madness]

It's horrible isn't it? :p

It really is. I'm quite tempted to just start blocking anything less than IE 8.

This is a tech forum. All of us (should) have moved on by now. But a proportion of the people out there are still on IE6 believe it or not.

Support != use.

By the way, does anybody know how you can block certain users, such as Internet Explorer 6 (and maybe even Internet Explorer 7) users.

This is how I'm doing it, seems to work ok,

		function IsBadBrowser()
		{
			$UserAgent = $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"];
			if((strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0;") !== false) || (strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0;") !== false) || (strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5;") !== false))
			{
				return true;
			} 
			return false;

		}

Blocks IE 5.5, 5 and 6. You just need to find the User Agent string for 7 on the net somewhere. :)

[Mike]

Seeing as it only takes a small number of changes for my sites to work in IE6 and practically no changes for IE7, I support it as it allows more people to see the site if need be. Conforming to standards is one thing, conforming to what's being used in the real world is another and if I wanted a site coding for me I'd request IE6 support and if they refused I'd look elsewhere.

[9UnknownMen]

I know that FF just recently finally beat it in marketshare. I was told its large footprint has to do with legacy computers and corporate intranet requirements.

[ZakO]

Good IE6 support is still essential IMO, unless it's just for a small personal website. I've only just stopped (within the last 6 months) supporting IE5 for commercially built websites.

[Jerry Grey Member]

I support IE6, for the simple fact that people still use it.

[redvamp128]

Is there a reason why you don't just use Firefox? Or do you?

It is 50-50 for the use of Firefox-- Personally when I have to sign into it I use Firefox -- the others choose to use IE (because that is what they are used to). I use Firefox mainly because it is what I use here at the house- Ubuntu and or Puppy Linux.

[ncc50446]

Blocks IE 5.5, 5 and 6. You just need to find the User Agent string for 7 on the net somewhere. :)

IE 7 user agent is

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

And I support IE6 for the most part just because its used so much. Though for the most part, my designs look the same in all browsers easy enough.

Edited January 24, 2009 by ncc50446

[Calum Veteran]

This is how I'm doing it, seems to work ok,

Blocks IE 5.5, 5 and 6. You just need to find the User Agent string for 7 on the net somewhere. :)

IE 7 user agent is

[code snipped]

Thank you both :)

I don't intend to block users from my website who are using those browsers, I just intend to display a notice that they should upgrade thier browser or use another one, etc, until I have time to implement support for Internet Explorer 7-

I'm sure I would be able to take that code and apply my knowledge now I have the user agents, so thank you :)

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I've never supported it*, there's no reason to use it when there are much better browsers available. I just don't really care about browser bugs and such, at the moment my site doesn't render properly in Firefox 3 due to an invalidation issue it has, it's fixed in 3.1 so I see no reason to try to change it.

* Of course if I was doing something for a company, it'd be different.

[DreadBoat89]

layout-wise, i still support 5.5...

javascript-wise, i could care less for those old browsers

[DrJohnSmitherson]

I kind of do. I get my layout and everything to look right, but I use a lot of transparent pngs so it looks weird in IE6 lol.

[.tony]

Schools still use it :no:

[Argi]

I don't explicitly block it but I can't say I have any computers at home with IE6 to test stuff I design on - just IE7, Firefox, Opera[primary], Chrome and Safari. :)

[alisalem]

Blocking IE6 users is a bit harsh. I'd say display a nice message telling them that your website is not optimized for their browser and that funny things may happen.

I myself am urged to optimize websites for IE6 because clients demand that.

[primexx]

It really is. I'm quite tempted to just start blocking anything less than IE 8.

Support != use.

This is how I'm doing it, seems to work ok,

		function IsBadBrowser()
		{
			$UserAgent = $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"];
			if((strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0;") !== false) || (strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0;") !== false) || (strstr($UserAgent, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5;") !== false))
			{
				return true;
			} 
			return false;

		}

Blocks IE 5.5, 5 and 6. You just need to find the User Agent string for 7 on the net somewhere. :)

UA sniffing, especially with a JS function, is about as unreliable as it gets.

If you're using one of the XHTML versions, IE6 (actually, IE any version so far) is automatically blocked if you just send your pages as XHTML like you're supposed to.

here's the snipped that I'm using right now:

// Send document as XHTML
$httpaccept = isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'] : NULL;
if (stristr($httpaccept,'application/xhtml+xml')) {
 header('Content-type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8');
}
else {
 header('Content-type: application/xml; charset=utf-8');
}

sends the page as XHTML to everyone who claims to support it, otherwise sends it as XML to give the client another chance at rendering it. This also has the added bonus that in MSIE instead of a download dialogue (if you send only as XHTML) you get an XML error page. At least this way idiots don't mistake your website as propagating malware.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Primexx

[Dick Montage]

We still support it, because turning away 30% of visitors is plain stupid (for a company that sells online).

[Tantawi]

At my company we're required to support IE6 in the sites we develop, because "the majority" of internet users in Egypt, which is the main target, is still running Windows XP with SP2 or even no service packs installed :s it's a pain in the ass.

[Jerry Grey Member]

...

You know IE7 or IE8 doesn't support XHTML, so you are blocking out around 70-80% of internet users plus search engines can't read XHTML and XML either. So do NOT use this code!

Although you should be sending XHTML as "application/xhtml+xml" anyway to have valid XHTML website, but for the last option send the website as "text/html", so IE users and search engines can see it.

I don't believe "blocking" a browser from accessing your website is the right move, although a small "please update your browser" message at the top of your website is not going to hurt.

[rson451]

I didn't read the whole thread so this has probably been said. Those of us writing applications used by any kind of large company must support IE6. Our company just pushed out IE7 to all the machines supported by our IT department so we actually have to run windows in a VM so we can make sure our code works properly in IE6 before we release it.

[gigapixels Veteran]

Always, though I chose where possible, as some of my designs may use CSS that simply isn't possible to replicate in IE6. I sometimes have to adapt these to something close for IE6, but I make sure it still looks right even with the alternate style. Nothing should look wrong, but if it has to look slightly different then so be it. As much as I love standards and developing with them in mind, you can't just ignore a segment of users, especially one so large.