So Many Browsers, Just One Problem

IE6 denial message – Illustration by RobotJohnny

It’s not that it’s cool to hate Internet Explorer; it’s just so damn easy. Internet Explorer is the sharp, depressing pain in every web designer/developer’s neck. Sadly, it still tells us what we can and can’t do. I remember the first time I heard of Firefox; it was supposed to be faster, and less susceptible to spyware. I installed it on my Windows XP workstation and that’s when I realized that Internet Explorer was no longer in control of my web browsing experience. Extensions and add-ons only sweetened the pot from there on out.

The main issue for a lot of us web guys is Internet Explorer 6. This was the most popular web browser on the planet until the summer of 2007 (roughly). Us designers and developers are literally stunted in what we can and can’t do by the existence of this inferior browser that just won’t go away. IE6 is older than the first Xbox, older than the Nintendo Gamecube, and a lot of other things too. IE7 does a better job at a lot of the failings of IE6 (mainly: transparency [allows for cool effects and rich designs] and the minimum-width/minimum-height attributes [allows for elastic sites]) while IE8 is leaps and bounds beyond IE6 in capability.

The problem we have now is that we [as developers] need to test our designs in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, IE6, IE7 and IE8! All three versions of IE are quite different, yet the same in the only way that matters; they fall short of the offerings from Mozilla, Apple and Google.

There is light at the end of the tunnel however. Many large sites have dropped support for IE6. This means that more of us web guys and gals have an excuse to drop support for it as well, and hopefully this will hasten its demise. Some intranets and large companies literally depend on IE6 due to old code or strict IT departments, so some users simply have no choice. We have also dropped support for IE6, and it’s no longer on the list of browsers we test our code in.

Another recent trend is the effort to trick users into upgrading. A few sites and coders have come up with clever ways of helping the user make the jump to a newer version of IE or another browser altogether. Some approaches use a large callout area to notify the IE6 user of his/her less than ideal situation.

A Youtube message warning IE6 users of a move to no longer support the browser

While others have used a more subtle approach that pretends to be part of the IE6 user’s normal experience, which then tells them to upgrade. Lastly, a few sites have created full screen lockout messages that appear when you visit their site in Internet Explorer 6.

Perhaps if more sites were to create denial messages like the above image (created for momentile.com) IE6′s market share could fall at an even greater rate, and before you know it, we’ll be complaining about IE7!