Jul 03 2008
For Those Using Internet Explorer 6: Please Stop
In response to 37Signals announcing that they will stop supporting IE 6, I checked my Google Analytics and discovered something surprising: 7% of EnfranchisedMind readers still use IE 6.
To them, I say — PLEASE UPGRADE. And let me know why you’re still using it — I’m really, genuinely curious.
So, why should you upgrade? I’ll quote 37 Signals:
The Internet Explorer 6 browser was released back in 2001, and Internet Explorer 7, the replacement, was released nearly two years ago in 2006. Modern web browsers such as IE 7, Firefox, and Safari provide significantly better online experiences. Since IE 6 usage has finally dipped below a small minority threshold of our customers, it’s time to finally move beyond IE 6.
[...]
IE 6 is a last-generation browser. This means that IE 6 can’t provide the same web experience that modern browsers can. Continued support of IE 6 means that we can’t optimize our interfaces or provide an enhanced customer experience in our apps. Supporting IE 6 means slower progress, less progress, and, in some places, no progress. We want to make sure the experience is the best it can be for the vast majority of our customers, and continuing to support IE 6 holds us back.
More information can be found at the Stop IE6 Campaign. Specifically, see the Top 10 Reasons (there are actually 12 of them…).
As Internet Explorer 8 cruises into being, can we please agree to put to death this ancient, buggy, insecure piece of code?
Popularity: 4% [?]
My God, yes. Stop using IE6. Think of the web developers!
It actually surprises me that anybody reading this blog would still be using it, I’d guess it’s mostly likely people who search for something on Google and find this page, which isn’t what they were looking for. Or some kind of bot that uses an IE6 User Agent.
7% is actually a lower approximation of the actual deal. I’ve been working on a high traffic website which, over the last month, got several _million_ IE6 hits. About 20% of people on the site are still using IE6!
I work on a fairly high traffic site, and I took a look at the June numbers.
IE7: 50%
IE6: 22%
FFX: 16%
Safari: 4%
We have a non-technical userbase, so I’m not terribly surprised, but it does illustrate how long some of us have to support older browsers.
For the fun of it, we have 2% of our users on Win2k, .63% on Win98, and 309 visitors from Win95 computers. We even got 6 visitors with Win3.x boxen!
If I’m at work, I’m on IE6. We’re locked down. It’s not by choice, let me assure you.
@Lucas
Why are you locked down? What’s the reluctance to make the switch to IE 7?
They’re probably not allowed to install stuff on their machines.
@IllegalCharacter
But why hasn’t the IT staff upgraded their computers? Why didn’t they upgrade their computers, say, a year ago, when IE 7 had been out for a year and was proven stable and more secure than IE 6?
My company, a very large “tech” company, has no corporate plans to move off IE6. Too many corporate systems, payroll, etc., require IE6. Many of us tech users run FireFox (against the company rules), but use the IE plugin, to access these pesky corporate sites. IE7 will never happen in this company. We are also sitting on XP SP2 with no plans on moving to SP3 nor to Vista.
I wonder to what extent the IE6 users are home users, who upgrade their base software (OS/Browser) when they update their hardware. Brutally, unless you’re a gamer (or a nut), the computers of 4-5 years ago aren’t that far off the curve.
Reinstalling and upgrading the OS isn’t a big deal to the likes of you and me- but it is a big deal to a lot of people.
Well, my dad doesn’t use a program when he is on Internet ( at least that’s what he thinks). He just confuses the internet with internet explorer and dosen’t care about browsers, software and all things related to the internet , and i bet my dad is not the only one.
Except that Microsoft pimped IE7 a long while back through their auto-update feature. So you’d have to be a home user on a Windows box without auto-update on — which makes you basically a zombie in a dozen+ bot networks, which makes your computer barely functional. So you’d hope those people would have upgraded or reinstalled their OS or something. :P
@Lucas Sneak the portable apps version of firefox into work on a flash drive! It doesn’t need to install, it just runs. I think you can even run it off of the flash drive without copying it to your local hdd.
All in the name of progress….
@Dandapani
What does it mean for something to “require” IE6?
IE7 requires validation so if you’ve got a shady copy of Windows you would be prevented from upgrading without getting a shady copy of IE as well.
That says to me that my IE6 users are all filthy pirates and not only should we deny them access, we should find some nasty exploit and install Gator on their machine :)
Seriously though, if it works then people will continue to use it. The populace in general knows nothing about web standards or all the time developers spend writing IE specific stylesheets. Tabs and an unfamiliar interface don’t seem like a compelling reason to upgrade alone. It’s developers that benefit the most from the newer browsers and it’s time to start telling our bosses that we can save them cash by not supporting IE6. Lets marginalise the few remaining users until they go upgrade.
Hi there,
I just banned IE6 from my site - without much impact on page hits. Much of the IE6 traffic comes from captured, remote controlled Windows machines that are part of bot nets.
Here is more:
http://vale.homelinux.net/wordpress/2008/07/20/stopping-blog-spam-or-why-i-started-to-block-internet-explorer-6/
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