5 ms·

IE6 – The End is Near

21 points by anm8tr 16y ago

weego 16y ago
Govt site in the UK I deploy onto is still 18-13% depending on the area of the site. Education is a late bloomer.
lsb 16y ago
Not exactly. If you target designers and developers, you'll have much lower IE6 market share. If you target enterprise users trapped by a fearful and incompetent IT department, it'll be much higher.
- kgosser 16y ago
  We are stuck in an environment just like that. It's at least 5-10 years before all those are updated. The only hope is for the actual machines to fail and have to get replaced. What a short-sighted article. People forget about the B2B enterprise world and those who service it.
  - olliesaunders 16y ago
    People forget about the B2B enterprise world and those who service it. Bob Martin[1] claims that was one of the reasons Smalltalk died[2]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Bob http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Bob 2. http://blip.tv/file/2089545 http://blip.tv/file/2089545
- code_duck 16y ago
  I suppose, but the site I work with has a demographic of average women, hardly tech savvy, 25-65, and IE 6 users are only 5% or the 35% overall that use IE... under 2%. Even IE7 is at only 3% overall. I think the only people using it in large numbers are employees of corporations with braindead CTOs. Still, I'm not quite ready to ignore IE<8 altogether.
GiraffeNecktie 16y ago
IE6 usage is now below 5%? Wow, it's so cool to be part of such an exclusive club. Thanks Boss for keeping our organization on the bleeding (trailing) edge.
ugh 16y ago
Depending on the kind of website you are making, you could ditch Internet Explorer 6 a long time ago. Only three percent of all visitors used IE 6 when visiting a website for a academic conference (social science, German speaking countries) I made. Also, Firefox was nearly three times as popular as all versions of Internet Explorer combined. And that data is now already half a year old.
- pornel 16y ago
  It's not only kind of website. There are also huge geographical differences. I cringe whenever I hear "Opera has <1% market share (period)", because in my part of the world it has nearly 10%, and reaches 40% in some countries. http://people.opera.com/dstorey/images/OperaMarketShareEE.svg http://people.opera.com/dstorey/images/OperaMarketShareEE.sv...
alanh 16y ago
Wow, a site with “Ajax” in its name that, on load, presents the user with a confirm() dialog that redirects them to the Flash install page? — while there is an unpatched critical zero-day bug being exploited in the wild? There is a reason I have Flash disabled! (Also: My site, which is geared toward OS X users and web developers, has 2% IE6 traffic.)
Yaggo 16y ago
In near future, after IE9 has been launched, every major browser has (sort of) CSS3/HTML5 support. To prevent IE7 & IE8 becoming the new "IE6" for the next half decade, it's important to let them die. As a web developer, prefer graceful degration over pixel perfection. Let everybody access the content, but require a modern browser for eye-candy. People will upgrade (even corporations!), if they were not given another option.
wazoox 16y ago
My wife works at some huge company, and is so forced to use IE6. Apparently Google Maps and many other useful websites don't work anymore and crash the browser (No, I didn't care enough to check :). So yes, the end really is near.
- code_duck 16y ago
  I heard that some companies actually like the fact that mainstream sites don't work in IE6 now, as it reduces the time employees spend fribbling around on the internet. Of course, anywhere competent would find a better way to screen traffic.
tedshroyer 16y ago
On a commerce website I help with, 6% of the visits in the last 30 days are IE6, which is 7% of the revenue. Those numbers are about 50% of what they were during the same period last year. As an interesting note, the site still has a user on IE5.01 that orders every few months.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >the site still has a user on IE5.01 that orders every few months Are they ordering new valves for their computer?
dminor 16y ago
Wow, it's down to 5% for us. Just 6 months ago it was 10% or so. Revenue from IE6 is just under 5% as well.
swombat 16y ago
63% IE users on Woobius. about 11% of that (i.e. 6% of the total) are IE6 users. Die, IE, die!
ElbertF 16y ago
For those who miss IE6 there is always http://ie6ify.com http://ie6ify.com.

21 points by anm8tr 16y ago

weego 16y ago

Govt site in the UK I deploy onto is still 18-13% depending on the area of the site. Education is a late bloomer.

lsb 16y ago

Not exactly. If you target designers and developers, you'll have much lower IE6 market share. If you target enterprise users trapped by a fearful and incompetent IT department, it'll be much higher.

kgosser 16y ago
We are stuck in an environment just like that. It's at least 5-10 years before all those are updated. The only hope is for the actual machines to fail and have to get replaced. What a short-sighted article. People forget about the B2B enterprise world and those who service it.
- olliesaunders 16y ago
  People forget about the B2B enterprise world and those who service it. Bob Martin[1] claims that was one of the reasons Smalltalk died[2]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Bob http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Bob 2. http://blip.tv/file/2089545 http://blip.tv/file/2089545
code_duck 16y ago
I suppose, but the site I work with has a demographic of average women, hardly tech savvy, 25-65, and IE 6 users are only 5% or the 35% overall that use IE... under 2%. Even IE7 is at only 3% overall. I think the only people using it in large numbers are employees of corporations with braindead CTOs. Still, I'm not quite ready to ignore IE<8 altogether.

GiraffeNecktie 16y ago

IE6 usage is now below 5%? Wow, it's so cool to be part of such an exclusive club. Thanks Boss for keeping our organization on the bleeding (trailing) edge.

ugh 16y ago

Depending on the kind of website you are making, you could ditch Internet Explorer 6 a long time ago. Only three percent of all visitors used IE 6 when visiting a website for a academic conference (social science, German speaking countries) I made. Also, Firefox was nearly three times as popular as all versions of Internet Explorer combined. And that data is now already half a year old.

pornel 16y ago
It's not only kind of website. There are also huge geographical differences. I cringe whenever I hear "Opera has <1% market share (period)", because in my part of the world it has nearly 10%, and reaches 40% in some countries. http://people.opera.com/dstorey/images/OperaMarketShareEE.svg http://people.opera.com/dstorey/images/OperaMarketShareEE.sv...

alanh 16y ago

Wow, a site with “Ajax” in its name that, on load, presents the user with a confirm() dialog that redirects them to the Flash install page? — while there is an unpatched critical zero-day bug being exploited in the wild? There is a reason I have Flash disabled! (Also: My site, which is geared toward OS X users and web developers, has 2% IE6 traffic.)

Yaggo 16y ago

In near future, after IE9 has been launched, every major browser has (sort of) CSS3/HTML5 support. To prevent IE7 & IE8 becoming the new "IE6" for the next half decade, it's important to let them die. As a web developer, prefer graceful degration over pixel perfection. Let everybody access the content, but require a modern browser for eye-candy. People will upgrade (even corporations!), if they were not given another option.

wazoox 16y ago

My wife works at some huge company, and is so forced to use IE6. Apparently Google Maps and many other useful websites don't work anymore and crash the browser (No, I didn't care enough to check :). So yes, the end really is near.

code_duck 16y ago
I heard that some companies actually like the fact that mainstream sites don't work in IE6 now, as it reduces the time employees spend fribbling around on the internet. Of course, anywhere competent would find a better way to screen traffic.

tedshroyer 16y ago

On a commerce website I help with, 6% of the visits in the last 30 days are IE6, which is 7% of the revenue. Those numbers are about 50% of what they were during the same period last year. As an interesting note, the site still has a user on IE5.01 that orders every few months.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>the site still has a user on IE5.01 that orders every few months Are they ordering new valves for their computer?

dminor 16y ago

Wow, it's down to 5% for us. Just 6 months ago it was 10% or so. Revenue from IE6 is just under 5% as well.

swombat 16y ago

63% IE users on Woobius. about 11% of that (i.e. 6% of the total) are IE6 users. Die, IE, die!

ElbertF 16y ago

For those who miss IE6 there is always http://ie6ify.com http://ie6ify.com.