Stop IE6 campaign - A campaign devoted to wiping IE6 off the web

http://www.stopie6.org/

by peter123 • 18 years ago

45 50 18 years ago

stopie6.org

mstefff• 18 years ago

Well you can consider Streetread ( http://www.streetread.com ) a member. Try accessing the homepage w/ IE 6...

Big supporter of this..

Jem3• 18 years ago

And how is a page like that any different to the hundreds of websites that used to display "sorry, your browser is incompatible" to Firefox/Opera users?

I thought we'd moved away from this blind alienation years ago.

Zak• 18 years ago

Using this thing in tolerant mode just displays a note for the user. I think it's perfectly reasonable to not test with IE6 and to display a warning to the effect of "Your browser is very old and known to be buggy. This website might not work right.".

jmah• 18 years ago

And how is a page like that any different to the hundreds of websites that used to display "sorry, your browser is incompatible" to Firefox/Opera users?

That was a pessimistic approach --- those sites were assuming that the page wouldn't act properly in anything other than (say) IE --- whereas this script is optimistic, assuming it will work, except in this specific case (IE6).

litewulf2• 18 years ago

Unfortunately, 25% of the users of my site use IE of some kind, and about half that is IE6. These are people who will either ignore me if I ask them to get a new browser or will never come back.

Look guys, there are reasons that people don't upgrade, some good some bad. The other day a friend's 386 died, and with it all these Lotus 123 documents, now, do I berate them for using obsolete software or attempt to get them back on their feet?

(And yes, it is annoying to support IE6 and I have burned development time doing so. Mostly its "kind of okay" though, since I haven't run into anything too serious.)

bdfh42• 18 years ago

I was asked to provide a little support to a neighbour the other day - nothing serious but I did notice the Windows 98 machine was running some pretty old software. The owner made his case that the machine did everything he needed just how he liked it so he was going to keep his machine locked down and unchanged. Hard to argue against that as it is exactly the sort of line a great many corporates take - get it working then leave it alone.

Why bring this "Luddite" up? Well he is an active participant in a number of web communities plus does a fair bit of web shopping - he is certainly not the sort of user I would want to exclude from my sites. He will "upgrade" one day when his current PC dies but that could be a while yet.

alecco3• 18 years ago

Not so hard to argue: Because it is antisocial.

In the case of your neighbour with that careless attitude, there is a good chance his computer is part of a botnet or at least infected with some virus. Therefore a source of spam and even denial of service attacks.

I'm sure a lot of people felt the same a hundred years ago with old schoolers refusing to keep their horses away and just leaving manure all over the place. I'm sure car owners hated them the most. (Just to add a colourful simil.)

mseebach• 18 years ago

I have a similar story, but with a different outcome.. My mother was running windows 95 on a old PC, and she had some trouble. I looked at it, decided I needed to re-install, and told her that I wanted to put Ubuntu on it. There was a bit of worry if she'd be able to figure it out, and I told her yes, and also strongly suggested that when she asks for my help, she should be willing to accept my recommendations.

Voila, Ubuntu installed and a brief, "wow, I'm actually running linux now?", and she was happy. Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice FTW.

Corporations with archaic IT operations procedures will be difficult, but the Windows 98-neighbours and mothers of the world need to start using Ubuntu.

Jem3• 18 years ago

Campaigns like this always seem to miss the biggest problem: some of the most common users of IE6 and even IE5 are browsing through corporate or educational networks where upgrading would be a nightmare or nigh-on impossible for the techies.

I don't use IE6, I don't like IE6, I even run an IE "hatelisting" - but the reality is that IE6 is not going anywhere any time soon.

greyman• 18 years ago

Yes. And then there are also less experienced people who never upgraded any program, don't know how to do it, or even don't understand the concept of "upgrading".

jwilliams• 18 years ago

That's why cross-grading to Firefox or similar can be a good idea. They can always fall back to IE6 if they encounter a problem.

The other issue is that many corporates/educational simply don't support or let you install another browser.

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

I fail to see how this sort of thing will make a difference. IE 6 may suck, but the people who choose it (mostly corporate IT departments) have very valid reasons. Their intranets and other such programs were designed for IE6. Upgrading would cost them money, since they'd likely have to de-hackify them, and there would be no benefit.

In fact, their hope is probably that their workers don't spend their days surfing the rest of the web, so why would they want to make that a more pleasant experience? It would make little or no sense for many of them to upgrade, and so they won't, no matter how many websites plead with them to.

edw5195• 18 years ago

As much as I hate IE6, this goes against everything I believe in businesswise.

Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is".

I support IE6 because that's where the users are.

Sometimes in business, the predator does what he has to do to eat and the prey whines about the state of the world. This is a perfect example. If you're not nimble and capable enough to meet your customers on their terms, maybe you are prey.

walterk3• 18 years ago

This is a prisoner's dilemma. Individually, it makes sense to support IE6, because "that's where the users are." Collectively, however, it exacts major costs in terms of support and user experience.

edw5195• 18 years ago

it exacts major costs in terms of support and user experience

Ah, then maybe the question should be, "How can we support IE6 without exacting major costs in terms of support and user experience?"

You may be surprised how good you really can get once you start thinking outside the quadrilateral.

fauigerzigerk4• 18 years ago

The question is whether users are using IE6 voluntarily or just accidentially or because they are forced to do so. Maybe they need a reason to upgrade and giving them that reason may actually help them in terms of security and productivity.

Also, the cost of developing for IE6 is being passed on to users, be it in the form of fewer features or loads annoying adverts. They may not know that and are therefore unable to make a deliberate decision.

netcan2• 18 years ago

How long before IE6 dies of natural causes? Predictions?

fauigerzigerk4• 18 years ago

That probably depends on your definition of dying. Usage will drop asymptotically I suppose.

netcan2• 18 years ago

fuzzy definition. But get to the point where it gets little or no support from most developers.

jcromartie• 18 years ago

People who run IE6 are like people who drive SUVs. They don't really care what anybody else has to put up with (gas prices, environmental impact, physical danger... or development costs, code quality, and spyware).

apu• 18 years ago

Regardless of the merits of this campaign, I'm curious if any web campaigns have ever had any effect in the real world?

Hexstream• 18 years ago

It's a ray of Hope in a world of Darkness.

billroberts• 18 years ago

We don't support IE6 on our web app, just IE7, Firefox2/3, Safari 3 (and Chrome works fine). We didn't give up on IE6 lightly, but we use a lot of javascript and getting it to work correctly on IE6 would have taken a lot of time, that we decided to spend on making the app better for the more modern browsers. We realise we're losing some potential customers, but have to balance that against having a better product for the browsers we do support.

As we currently appeal to a mainly early-adopter crowd, then it's not a big deal for us: only a small proportion of our site visitors use IE6 (FF is the most popular). Hopefully once we go a but more mainstream, even the big corporations will have got round to upgrading!

ideamonk2• 18 years ago

In http://www.stopie6.org/spread-t he-word , it would be better if you change src for img tags to absolute urls and not relative ones... that will make it easier for banners to appear on my/(anyone's else's) pages/blogs.

i.e. change ###img src="120_60.gif" alt="Stop IE6 campaign logo" width="120" height="60"###

to ###img src="http://www.stopie6.org /img/badges/120_60.gif" alt="Stop IE6 campaign logo" width="120" height="60"###

ideamonk2• 18 years ago

I hate IE too. Its way too slow

gruseom• 18 years ago

We just got a contract that will fund several months of development for our startup - maybe close to a year. The client uses IE6. You think I'm going to tell them they have to upgrade?

dc2k08• 18 years ago

i'm just worried that once they find out there are other browsers it wont be long until they discover adblock. then it'll be bye, bye internet :)

jayliew• 18 years ago

I humbly believe that evolution/capitalistic markets would wipe IE6 out for the haters, no banners necessary.

If IE6 actually succeeds on merit (which I agree with the crowd is very unlikely), then you know what? They earned it.

To that end, I say, let it try prove itself - if it can.

Stop IE6 campaign - A campaign devoted to wiping IE6 off the web

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