[kyme]

Im confuse on how many web designers are still bother w/ IE6?
Seems IE's are all now free to download.

I need feedbacks about web designers and developers if they are stil bother to ie6.
If you develop a website. Do you still check or cross browsing check with Ei6?
Or do you still bother with ie6? How many numbers of users of IE6 worldwide anyway?

[blueocto]

kyme, on Apr 26 2009, 00:56, said:

Im confuse on how many web designers are still bother w/ IE6?
Seems IE's are all now free to download.

I need feedbacks about web designers and developers if they are stil bother to ie6.
If you develop a website. Do you still check or cross browsing check with Ei6?
Or do you still bother with ie6? How many numbers of users of IE6 worldwide anyway?

A large section of Internet users still use IE6, for example, libraries, government departments and community centres, or those who for whatever reason, haven't updated.

I would still definately check designs in IE6 to ensure consistency. I did have a link of the amonut of IE users, but it appears to be broken at this time :-( But it was still more than Firefox and Safari.

[bocaj]

blueocto, on Apr 26 2009, 02:30, said:

A large section of Internet users still use IE6, for example, libraries, government departments and community centres, or those who for whatever reason, haven't updated.

I would still definately check designs in IE6 to ensure consistency. I did have a link of the amonut of IE users, but it appears to be broken at this time :-( But it was still more than Firefox and Safari.

Yup, alot of large corporations still use w2k because of the Microsoft maintenance etc. and w2k can't support anything higher than ie6 ):

It should phase out a little more within the next two years, as people are forced to upgrade both OS and Browser. But it's always worth checking. IE6 support generally* isn't that much more difficult, just a few conditional hacks.

*8 times out of 10, the other two your screwed

[caraewilton]

I third what has already been said. The fact is there are still a lot of users out there using IE6 for a variety of reasons which have been discussed in many a post on this forum. I was asked to design a small sight recently. I am really pleased I ensured the layout works in IE6, as subsequent to uploading a demo of the design I discovered that the client still uses IE6!

[M8 INTERNET]

I've tried upgrading from IE6 to I7 three times now
I much prefer the fonts in IE6, which I have set to Verdana
In IE7 they just look blurred and out of focus!

[Scott S]

Our very own Madam Moderator, Eris, posted an interesting blog about this on her website recently. It may well be worth your reading...

Down with IE6? Tell it to Microsoft

[Deaf Raiders]

I don't really think you need to bother with IE6. I have seen 85% of the people in companies use IE7. Most of the companies update their windows System with the Service Packs. I haven't seen a IE6 anywhere since June last year. IE 8 is coming.

[ErisDS]

Thanks for the plug Scott! Saves me a job!!!

The answer to the question is a simple "Yes". You should still ensure your websites at least WORK in IE6. That is they should have basic functionality.
It is up to you how far you go with the level of experience you offer to your IE6 viewers, if you have some fancy functionality which you choose to make degrade gracefully because IE6 is not your target market of course that is fine. But the average business site will still have IE6 making up a large proportion of it's target market and so it may be necessary to take extra special care to make sure there is no degradation.

This is a project-by-project decision that needs to be carefully considered.

[kyme]

So i better still check it in IE6. seems still have numbers of users of ie6 exist.

[M8 INTERNET]

Stats from my websites show that IE still account for between 40% and 50% of visitors (excluding my own visits, on either Win Mobile, IE6, IE7, or FF3)

[ErisDS]

Deaf Raiders, on Apr 26 2009, 13:35, said:

I don't really think you need to bother with IE6. I have seen 85% of the people in companies use IE7. Most of the companies update their windows System with the Service Packs. I haven't seen a IE6 anywhere since June last year. IE 8 is coming.

I'm sorry but I don't know where you got that idea from!! Sure many corporates have upgraded, but not in the public sector. Pretty much the entirety of the NHS runs Windows 2000 meaning they can only have IE6, and it's the same across much of the public sector.

People often quote the W3C browser stats but these are not a true reflection as they measure usage of the w3c sites, and because of the target audience these people are more likely to have upgraded or switched browser.

The Browser News site is quite good, although lacks rigour as there is little detail about when or how the statistics are collected. They say "About 32% use IE6, with its percentage decreasing slowly as users switch to IE 7-8 and other browsers."

That slowly decreasing percentage is stuck because of Win2k and a lack of general understanding amongst the computer illiterate MS using general populous who don't even know to click on the little yellow automatic updates shield or say yes to updates. How many people here have attempted to resolve some extended family members computer problem only to discover they have a 5 year old XP machine that has never had a single update? How many people do each of you know who refer to the little blue 'e' as "The Internet".

And even if 85% of your target audience is using IE7 do you really want to exclude 15% of your potential market (assuming none of them use alternate browsers)? That's an awful lot of lost revenue for you/your clients.

I strongly support the graceful degradation of IE6 sites, and once W2k becomes obsolete (read my afore mentioned blog post) perhaps the time might even come to start placing upgrade messages on sites for IE6 (perhaps, I really don't like this strategy it is very unprofessional). However for the time being the the target market of most websites will include a large percentage of IE6 users and not even considering to support IE6 is bordering on negligence.

[ZigPress]

http://en.wikipedia....wser_statistics gives a pretty realistic picture of overall browser usage by browser name.

http://en.wikipedia....ternet_Explorer splits IE into version share.

Current situation (March 2009) is that IE6 has about 18% share of the entire browser market. Way too much to write off entirely (though as earlier posters have said, you may well choose not to make things pixel perfect in IE6).

[JimmyB]

Large numbers of people still use it unfortunately. I work for a large UK online publication and we still have about 25% of users on IE6. As already said, this is mainly going to be corporates. Our own company still has IE6 as the standard install for PCs.

That said, the figures are dropping by around 1%/month. Which, depressingly enough, gives it another 2 years

[traxor]

Yes.

[yukisong]

Yes,i agree with it!

[ali7766]

unfortunately you still need to check it in IE6 for basic functions and any modern styleing is backed up as much as possible.

Heres a little tip. Don't know how may other people do it but I check ie6 by createing a Virtual PC and installing win98 on it. It's a little fiddley but gives you a good idea!

[cocoonfx]

A lot of large blue organisations still use IE6 as it tried and tested particularly if you have large numbers of staff on terminal servers. You also need to consider quite a few people do not download the latest updates from MS simple as they don't know how. I always consider IE6,IE7,FF and Safari.

ali7766, on May 18 2009, 17:27, said:

unfortunately you still need to check it in IE6 for basic functions and any modern styleing is backed up as much as possible.

Heres a little tip. Don't know how may other people do it but I check ie6 by createing a Virtual PC and installing win98 on it. It's a little fiddley but gives you a good idea!