So, I had been toying with dumping IE6 at the beginning of 2009 but I was waiting for the perfect excuse - low use among web visitors being paramount. At the time, the %age was above 20%, 20% being my threshold. I also thought of all the cyber cafes that still have IE6 and wanted to serve them as well. I am the long suffering type and so though I bit my lip, I didn't mind spending the extra 2 or so hours testing my code in IE6+ and FF+. That changed after a project I finished 2 months ago.

It was a joomla! project, my first at that. It went well. I did everything right the first time then the client wanted something extra. I made the mistake of assuming that since IE6 displayed it well the first time that it would do so with the new changes. I confidently called the client who then calls me back 5 minutes later. I didn't figure him the type to check beyond IE7 but I was wrong. "Did you check this site in IE6? If not, you might want to". To my disbelief, the entire page was blank

I spent an hour or so trying to tinker with the CSS to no avail. Then I would get it to work in IE6 but not FF and vice-versa. I then decided to go the reverse engineering route - I took down everything and added things back module by module. After about 3 hours total, I got it to work but, to me, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

From that point on, I decided, no more IE6. I now tell my clients up front that I no longer do that. Don't get me wrong, I love challenges and it was a thing of beauty to hack for it but, at some point you have to weigh time vs cost. Besides, the client isn't paying me for that extra time and chances are, wouldn't if I presented him a resounding argument. Consequently, my life has been much happier since I made that decision, as tough as the decision-making was.

Okay, I am off my soapbox now. Are you all on the same page? It would be nice to hear from you

bye bye IE, but, getting it off the millions of Pcs worldwide is a big poser, especially the fact that most Cafes in nigeria still use it. so u just have to bother about it else the site is useless to the client. once i built a site and was happy with it, but when i went to a cafe to test and see what client actually see - different resolution, different browser etc. I was shocked, really felt like closing the cafe for not upgrading the software. anyway the real deal is someone should write a virus to remove IE from all PCs worldwide.

I once saw at the footer of a website "best viewed with firefox, please stop using IE", I and a friend laughed to tears. lets see how IE handles html5, am sure we would have more laughs

gdi:

I did say IE6 not IE as a whole. It would be impossible to dump IE as a whole as it is ingrained in our psyche

IE7 and IE8 are actually more web starndards/css compliant from my experience and haven't had to lose sleep trying to get something to work. Even when I do, I just use the CSS condiational statement as opposed to !important, etc.

I once saw at the footer of a website "best viewed with firefox, please stop using IE", I and a friend laughed to tears. lets see how IE handles html5, am sure we would have more laughs Smiley

LWKMD! Can I have the url. I will share with others

Like a ghostly zombie that will not die, this issue still plagues me. Clients want scripts and more "interactive bang" for their buck, but they're not even willing to upgrade their browsers from IE6. These days no one even develops a script with IE6 in mind, but with our nigerian counterparts, we're very far off.

I'm really up to the neck in this issue that I'm going redirect all "defaulters" to www[dot]whichbrowserforme[dot]org

When I stumbled on this site, I had a small grin on my face - perfect. Truth of the matter is, we've all got to push for more people to drop that cankerworm of a browser.

monk:

Nice site. Henceforth, I will make this site required reading for clients, regardless of whether or not they want me to code for IE6

I am afraid you can not run away from it cos its the default browser for our cafe guys who want to maximize profit and minimize expenses by putting up what i call mono-chrome computers for people to browsing with.
This is actual a test of how good you a developer or designer you are, the ability to port your design to all the major browsers both grade A and older browsers.
I build with the Fox browser and when i am done with the entire design i port to wired IE6 and IE7, cos both Fox and IE8 renders almost the same. My method is to create stylesheets from the master stylesheet,stripeout what is common in both and only tweak those elements that are having problem rendering well in IE6 and IE7 The browser war is a cold war that we developers can not avoid.

Thought i was the only one.When i start deploying sites.Mine will have a fake alert box.Your internet explorer 6 has been hacked.Pls switch to firefox.Cuz no one pays for extra effort.I did a fancy bar in jquery a menu that slides and fades in links when on main menu and tested with ie6 from aptana.I felt like dying.Ie7 is good but firefox is it.

I am afraid you can not run away from it cos its the default browser for our cafe guys who want to maximize profit and minimize expenses by putting up what i call mono-chrome computers for people to browsing with.

I respectfully disagree: It doesn't cost any money to upgrade to IE7.  Moreover, though generally speaking, we Nigerians like to suffer, at some point, ppl will start turning away from cafes with older browsers/get our own PCs and laptops thus leaving such cafes in the cold.  It is only a matter of time.  At that point, they either adapt to change or die a slow and painful death.

This is actual a test of how good you a developer or designer you are, the ability to port your design to all the major browsers both grade A and older browsers.

I respectfully disagree again.  A test of how good you are isn't in how much hair you pull out of your head so as to beat your chest saying you can code to 10 different browsers but on how you architect your sites such that a majority of users can get the best user experience while affording the minority a minimal but optimal experience (graceful degradation).  Based on your argument, then you should be coding for IE5 and below.  You might want to visit and bookmark http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ for the future.  Having said that, if your clients insist, then within reason, you have no choice. 

Remember, you have to weigh time vs cost.  In other words, if you are paid say N60K for a site and you spend say, 30 hours on it, that means you made N2000/hour.  Now, if cos of IE6 you spend an additional say, 10 hours, that means you are earning N1500/hr.  Eventually, if you spend too much time, even if you earned N1million, the time vs cost (net profit) will no longer work in your favor.

I build with the Fox browser and when i am done with the entire design i port to wired IE6 and IE7, cos both Fox and IE8 renders almost the same. My method is to create stylesheets from the master stylesheet,stripeout what is common in both and only tweak those elements that are having problem rendering well in IE6 and IE7

I think this is a bad way to approach coding.  What you should do is practice incremental coding.  So for example, you code the header portion, you check all browsers you are working with, you code the navigation, do same thing, etc.  Why? Cos this way, you know where a problem is coming from upfront.  This is as opposed to coding everything then scratching your head trying to narrow down the problem.  Your way is more prone, IMHO to adding unnecessary hacks all of which combine to make code harder to read and harder to maintain.  Give incremental coding a try.  You won't be sorry you did

The browser war is a cold war that we developers can not avoid.

I totally agree.  While the backend guys just have to deal with business logic, we bear the brunt in the web wars by dealing with multiple browsers 

cdeveloper:

This is actual a test of how good you a developer or designer you are, the ability to port your design to all the major browsers both grade A and older browsers.

If making your designs compatible with all major browsers, how many people that proclaim they are web designers or developers would have failed the test? There are many people that do not even waste their time to support IE6 or let alone IE.

A major website sorry I have to reference China but take for instance there are many websites in China that will require you to use IE. Imagine going on facebook or myspace and you see a message that you are only allowed to use IE. How would you feel as a user? There are major social networking sites that have features that only work with IE. www.qq.com is a popular one. Going through the social network section of qq user profile page, gallery of users would not render in firefox. But works in IE. the default homepage and some features work in firefox.

There are major american bank websites that will only allow for IE.

How many people do you want to make happy?
How long will you keep hacking to make all these people happy?
What is the pay-off of hacking and slashing codes?

It is not a test of your developmental skill it is just quirks with the engines used by various browsers. cocoa, gecko etc But that is life what can we all do?

IE6 is a hog. It uses 3 times the RAM of Chrome, and it sucks at rendering pages.

Here, I got an option. it is possible to block out users from your site using this simple PHP code:

<?php

// IE6 string from user_agent
$ie6 = "MSIE 6.0";

// detect browser
$browser = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

// yank the version from the string
$browser = substr("$browser", 25, ;

// if IE6 set the $alert
if($browser == $ie6){

$error = '
Hello!
<br>
oops!! sorry, this Site is not compatable with Internet Explorer 6.
<br>
Try upgrading or Using Firefox or Google Chrome!
<br> Sorry for the inconvenience!';


print "$error";

exit();
}

?>

kok:

Weeeell, this isn't a good idea. As much as IE6 sucks, you still want ppl with it to have some sort of experience, especially if it is an ecommerce site. If one must use your approach, I would rather maybe you have a popup, modal window or whatever that gives the warning as opposed to presenting a blank screen.

If not already, read up on progressive enhancement and graceful degradation.

Honestly, IE6 should have been phased out but as Microsoft has decided to inflict pain on developers and designers alike, it is the default browser on Windows XP upon which 60% of computers in Nigeria still run (especially cybercafes).

So, blocking your website totally for IE6 users is tantamount to suicide.

You can just post an upgrade message as the top of your content like facebook and youtube does and all will be well.

I still maintain that Microsoft should be sued for the depression they have visited on designers around the world due to IE6 wahala.

Biodun,
Chief of Support, Hostmot (www.hostmot.com)

Thanks alot people for the comments, what i mean by porting to other browsers is not in a sense recoding the entire site again to display as it should on them what i mean is this. I do the site layout in the Fox and style it in such a away that both the beloved IE8 and Fox family renders almost the same and every other styling is done at the same time. When i am done with that, I just make i copy of the master css and then delete every thing else but the layout css, those are the one i tweek to get he same layout other browsers. Its is painless for me.

Again i am wating for that moment when the cafes will upgrade their systems for people to enjoy their the browsing.It is the Nigerian bug i should say
Make money at the expense of others. I remember a cafe i went to with my laptop to upload some files i, i spent 20 minutes just waiting to read my company mail, i got frustrated and left that place even though i paid for an hour. That is an experiences, Perhaps there should be regulations or some kind of standard that cafe operators must maintain in other to run a cafe.

Best solution will be duplicate your css.Then have one for firefox and other then create specifically for ie.I remember trying to fade a menu bar to make it translucent.Background:rgba(0,0,0,.7) works for firefox and doesn't for ie.Had to substitute for transparent PNG.also ie6 don't like fixed positioning.But use these.
<! [if IE]>
IE.Css file
< [!end if]>

yep and u can even go a step further:
<! [if IE7]>
IE.Css file
< [!end if7]>

OR

<! [if gte IE6]>
IE.Css file
< [!end if6]>

You should get the drill by now. Google for CSS conditionals