Shape 5

We at Shape 5 want you to know that we go into great detail to make sure that our products are coded correctly and are cross-browser compatible. Internet Explorer 7 was released just a few months ago. This new release has many new features that Internet Explorer 6 did not have, particularly the support of png transparencies. We do not anticipate dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 anytime soon but we would still like your feedback on how much longer this version of the browser should be supported.

- Thank You!

Shape 5

when the number of Internet users using IE6 drops to a distinct minority.

What Stonelotus said, when the numbers drop significantly.
Meanwhile you can fix the IE 6 png transparency problem with a script you put on your website. You'll find a few solutions if you google for it.

countsilvio,

Thank you for your reply! We use several png fixer scripts, in fact we've used one in several of our templates. However, they don't always work perfectly. They can cause load problems, color problems and picture distortions if not used correctly. There is an inline filter for CSS as well that actually seems to work the best. We're not saying it can't be done, it's just one annoyance that take in to consideration when designing a template. Thank you for your input!

According to w3schools.com's browser stats, IE 6 is still sitting at 22.3% for September '08. This number is definitely too high to drop support for at the moment. I think that once the stats drop below the 8%-10% mark then there shouldn't be too much problem with dropping support. I think one of the big issues is to consider the templates use. If it's main function is for personal sites or for eye candy sites then dropping support would be less of an issue than if it's used for business purposes. If 10% of my potential customers can't effectively view my content, that could translate to a huge loss. In addition, large companies are usually slow to react to browser updates (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Just my opinion......

Hello tbezeau, very good thoughts. I agree the percentage of use needs to drop significantly before we banish IE6

 ;D ;D

On one of my websites, I sometimes get as high as 60,000 Live, Online visitors.
When I check AW Stats, It use to show that:
85 percent of the visitors were using Internet Explorer.

Not So Now.
Now, it shows:
85 Percent are using Firefox.

I use to tell everyone as long as the site looks good in Internet explorer, I am happy with what I designed for you.
Not so now.

Now, As long as it looks good in Firefox, I am somewhat content...
But, With huge visitor numbers daily, I lose a LOT of people who would look at my site who cannot view it using Internet Explorer.

While those using Firefox see it perfectly is a good thing, still, I would love to get to know what is screwed up with my site and making the text run off the page in ie.

I faced the same problem when designing my site.  But I found a clean, quick solution to the ie6 users. 

If they are using ie6, I have a javascript that redirects them to my old website that was compatible with ie6.

My new website was more experimental, and built for all browsers besides Internet Explorer.  So I redirected ie7 to even another version of my site.  Please let me know what you think of this method.  You can view an example of this at my site:  http://juglgraphics.com (http://juglgraphics.com)

Of course with Joomla, you don't want several sites to deal with, but if you just use a script and ask ie6 users to upgrade their browsers, you can cater to the more professional upbeat businesses.


Another great extension for Joomla has already been made for you- a script that detects ie6 and then tells them to upgrade for a better online experience.

Check it out here:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/style-&-design/browsers-&-web-standards/6835/details (http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/style-&-design/browsers-&-web-standards/6835/details)

I believe that all web developers should refuse to support the garbage that is IE6 and then that final 20% of people will start upgrading their browsers when their favorite websites don't work.

There are no hardware requirements stopping users from upgrading from IE6, it's just web developers bending over backwards and dragging out acceptance of problems.

I support the idea of a script that gives IE6 users a warning that the site may not work right and give them the option of upgrading to a browser that works. That just makes sense.

It's like getting HDTV service and then trying to watch it on a tube TV from the 70s, it's gonna work, but not very well. haha

When other search engines have the power that IE has, Firefox is more powerful but it is seen as far too geeky for the silver surfer, Chrome is faster but stripped down too much, Opera is fantastic but is seen as old hat in fact if you did a survey on the street, IE in it's various guises is seen as the only browser as it comes shipped on your PC, it is endorsed by Microsoft so it must be safe. I know that this thinking is wrong, it is far from safe, but the average surfer does not see it that way. Surfers are also lazy, how many out there are still using IE6 and previous, we have to be careful that by forcing the surfer to update for our site we are classed as too elitist and the surfer goes elsewhere. Yes, people should upgrade, but how many do.

I do agree, but who's stats do you trust?  W3schools are great, but I've heard other stats banded about from far and wide, and some of them claim to have a great deal of users.  Therefore, how do we know who's stats to listen to?  It is going to be based on your sites visitors of course, but in general, it's going to be so hard to tell.  For example the w3schools website will have users trying to gain knowledge of internet related things, which surely means that they will be more likely to update their browser (?).

How about following MS's lead?

IE works very slow and crashes a lot than any other browser.. It should be improved or should be scrappped totally and Microsoft must introduce new browser

It may be slow and in some opinions useless, but it is not our opinions that count, it's the people who are using it.  Regardless of what we think, we still need to ensure they have access to our websites. 

Very few people are using Internet Explorer nowadays. Firefox and Chrome seem to be the most popular browser these days so I think its ok to unsupport IE.  :)

-------

Agreed 100 percent.

Disagree 100%.  A company I work for is an absolutely huge global company.  It is in many countries, and is the leading brand in a few of them.  Due to the nature of the business the technical people are slow to respond to requests like these, as security is  higher priority as well as not replacing systems that currently work with this browser.

I only speak for the UK market, but I can categorically say that from about 7 or 8 in the morning, until about 6 or 7 in the evening, a 20k people or so have access to this appalling browser. 

Now if you imagine that others in my industry may be acting the same, and then imagine other huge organisations whom have a large IT overhead, and replacing computers, browsers, etc has a lot of man hour and hardware costs, then you may start to see the scale of the issue at hand. 

Albeit it would depend on your industry, the general browsing time of your users, and a variety of other things.  I certainly do NOT trust the stats that fly about on the internet.  The fact of the matter is, we browse less in that workplace environment because less sites work, and those that don't work, we do not use.  Hence some sites, we find easier to use, are more likely to be browsed.  Whether purchases take place during work hours is another thing.  And that my friends, is my 2 pence.  To put it bluntly, are you prepared to ignore a minimum of 20k people in the UK, with that figure rising to 50k quite easily including only those in the industry of this company?  You can talk about 0.1% or you can talk about 100k+

IE doesn't really work well for me. I think Chrome does all the amazing stuff while Mozilla and Safari are just mediocre.  :-\

You need to focus on your own user stats produced by a log analyzer.  Try Awstats or Google Analytics.