Google Phases Out Support for IE6

[Matt]

In case you missed it earlier this week, . It was revealed that the recent hacker attacks on Google emanating from China were done through security loopholes in the browser, forcing MS to update a full 3 weeks earlier than scheduled.

The governments of France and Germany even advised their citizens to upgrade or use a different browser in light of the attacks.

So...if you are currently using the IE6 browser at TechWyse, you will need to update or switch as soon as possible. Most importantly because Google Docs will be one of the first web-=based apps from the company that will no longer "work properly" when using IE6.

[Prashant]

Now that someone has mentioned this. I think we should phase out testing for this in our company also... it's not easy getting all pages checked for IE6, IE7, IE8... and we are using many fixes to ensure pages are optimized for IE6. I just checked stats for 3 main clients in analytics for last 3 months and the stats all show that IE6 only enjoys 13-20% share on avg. wheras IE7 enjoys 33-40% and IE8 enjoys 42-46%. The fact taht IE8 ranks top is very satsifying and if i can make a prediction IE7 will come down to atleas 20-30% in 6 months or even less.

So what say guys! when can we stop supporting IE6. It's a big pain the ass, and the fact that 2 new versions have come out after it, makes supporting it meaningless. So who all will support me

[Patrick]

Although at some level I would agree that phasing out support for IE6 is great! Believe me, I wish I could do it for a project I am working on now! I don't think it is as easy as saying, just phase out support for the clients based on straight percentages. If 13% of visitors are using ie6 and that is 13% of 1000 users, then that is 130 potential customers that may not be supported from a web perspective. Now if this is a huge site with thousands of uniques a day then maybe those few users can afford to be weeded out.

You will also note that many corporations haven't fully upgraded to IE7, never mind 8. We have 220 users in my corporation where I am now and only 8 of us are on something other than ie6, and that's because we all work in web dev of some sort and I have them using multiple browsers and we keep a VM around to test in IE6.

What we have to look at is the cost of supporting, developing and testing in IE6, vs the cost of losing those potential customers for our clients and see if it is worth it, or explain this to the customers and let them make the decision, but for a premium?

Just my two cents.

[Prashant]

Good Notes... Its good to know that like me, there are other blokes who are stuck wth IE6 for testing purpose.... But still the same... i stick to my views of moving forward if not immediate at the earliest. I would just do it so that i can use PNG without applying fixes...

ummmm should we contribute to speed up the process. Here are some sites created by developers whose frustration point rose as high as ME (Not me, mount everest i meant )

- This one is quite Popular and has quite a fan following

[Patrick]

Ah, PNG... That was how we found the initial issue quite some time ago. My great transparent png work went to waste in ie6.

And yes, for the record I wish to get rid of it.

[douglas]

Most of the latest jQuery and Ajax modules have issues in IE6 and we need to have more research for fixing and customizing this. Completely stopping testing in IE6 won't be good I think. What my suggestion would be, we should optimize the home page and Quick Contact forms in all the browsers so that we can ensure that no conversion is getting lost.

[silvester]

is a plugin for wordpress. If the end user is on IE6, a discreet yellow warning message appears at the top of the screen advising them to upgrade. Links are provided to browser upgrades as well.

[Prashant]

Now heres a interesting site. It has an obituary notice put up in place and has the last rites laid out in a poem. Good use of creativity for a good cause. Must Watch!

[Patrick]

Ha! Love the site! Good find! I emailed it to a couple web dev friends of mine.