Contributing to the Death of IE6
IE6 as every developer knows is a real pain. The website killie6.com has given an easy solution to help drive people away from using IE6. Here is my spin on killie6’s module.
The Idea
I liked killie6’s module, but I think it has to be a little more in your face. Originally I thought having something like a humorous 404 page would do the trick, but that would kill any sort of navigation of your site. So I opted to create a lightbox that pops up if you’re using IE6, make the user feel painfully guilty for using IE6, then give them a way to upgrade right then and there. Hopefully this will get the idea across to users not to use IE6.
If you like this idea please download and use it. If you want something less obtrusive go with killie6.com. Something has to be done, the browser is driving everyone CRAZY!…okay maybe not everyone…probably just me. 
I appreciate the desire to rid the world of ie6 – but before you go slapping people in the face – consider that most of those who still use IE6 are doing so because they are unable to change their browser at work.
Perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to provide a form they could fill out:
Give me your IT department’s email, and I will personally send an email requesting they update your browser.
It would be pretty easy to automate, and avoids the harsh edge.
One other good idea is to make a ie6 version of the page in just black and white, you could have a pop up with an image of what the site looks like in a decent browser…
I’ve been a webmaster for multiple successful websites for years, and I don’t see a problem at all. I don’t find supporting multiple browsers to be all that different, I test for versions of internet explorer, and have templates for content that will produce IE 6 friendly pages, more involved pages for IE 7 and above, block firefox and safari and that pretty much covers my intended market. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
I just implemented it on my blog using jQuery and a lightbox clone.
Opening links in new window also kills kittens.
You mean a pop up? I don’t think there is anything wrong with open a page in a new tab in the browser. That way you won’t kill your navigation.
I totally agree with patrick, what is all the fuss about??
Well, the fuss is about the lazyness of the web-designers, they want to make more money, less working. I’ve made hundreds of websites who all work on IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 1, 2, 3 and every other major web browser out there. No problem and no time wasting.
These people who want the IE6 away, I call them script kiddies… They want everything easy, HTML5, nothing hard, everything by the book and new technology.. It’s just not that easy… Even if IE6 got out of the way, what about the mobile browsers? Tv Browsers??
The fuss is you try to write valid code via w3 standards, and IE6 won’t let you. An example I ran into yesterday. You can’t use the <q> . IE6 doesn’t support it, although it’s the proper tag to use for quotes. Sure you can use other tags, but you shouldn’t have to.
@Kjartan Ólason
You’re an idiot.
Firstly, you didn’t make up the term “script kiddies”, it already exists and applies to a totally different group of people.
Secondly, it’s not about web designers being lazy. It’s about phasing out an ancient browser that is hindering progress on the web. There are so many things that IE6 doesn’t support that slows down web designers and forces them to compromise when making a website in order to keep compatibility.
Either you’re lying about how many websites you’ve made, or you make bad websites. Simple as that, because any serious web designer knows the difficulties that IE6 presents.
Real developers are not phased by IE 6 :p
The killie6.com is just a parked page.
Hmmm….I guess he took the site down. Crappy.
@Garry
Oh, I am so sorry that I hurt your feelings, just because you dont know how to write a cross-browser website.
Of course I know about the difficulties about making a fully cross browser website for IE6 and the rest, but if you take some time to learn it, you CAN DO IT TOO! Eventually, it becomes an invisible habit.
If people who think it’s easy to write cross-browser code are idiots, well… then I am really proud to be an idiot.
And I didn’t say anything about making up the term script kiddie… I just said that “I call them script kiddies”.
And if you were a serious web designer, you wouldn’t be complaining like that.
Kjartan, I’d really like to have a look at a few of the “hundreds” of websites you produced, cause I think you’re just trolling here.
Sure, everyone willing enough can eventually defeat any IE6 bug, but it has never, ever been a “no time wasting”, “invisible habit” for me – unless you make the same website over and over again. I’ve come across so many different, weird bugs with IE6 over the years and wasted so many hours on it that I’ll happily join the “script kiddies” crusade.
I’m with TOM….I’m calling BS on Kjartan. Hundreds of sites? That are even compatible with IE 8? That was just recently released? Your bologna has a second name…it’s spelled B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.