When can we stop supporting IE?
We had a client asking us, “Will the site look the same on IE 6 as well?”. The answer was obviously Yes! We had another client asking us to make it look the same on IE 6 without the “hacks”. Absurd. Undoubtedly, if there is one thing that is confusing in web designing, then it is this – IE 6 hacks.
What are hacks?
“Hacks” stands for style definitions that are used to make websites appear on old browsers like Internet Explorer 6 the same way it looks on other new browsers like Firefox and Safari.
What is wrong with IE6?
A lot. Internet Explorer is very much prone to spyware, virus attack and above all its inability to follow the W3C guidelines. You name it and IE 6 has it.
Whose mistake is it anyway?
There is a set of guidelines that has been set up by the W3C Standards Group regarding CSS and XHTML. When a set of guidelines exists, coders are bound to follow these. However, the sad part is certain browsers such as IE 6 do not follow these guidelines. The ‘3 pixel hack’, ‘the box model’ and all such hacks exist for the simple reason that IE 6 does not follow web standards. And the sad part is, majority of the Internet users still use IE 6.
What does that mean?
It means that coders have to spend extra time to create these hacks just to support an outdated browser. Even if they do, chances are that the style-sheet becomes invalid on the W3C Validator. Instead of including IE hacks in the same style-sheet, it can be included in a separate style-sheet which can be called using javascript. Things become worse if the user is using a javascript blocker to save his computer from spyware.
What can be done?
Educate. The simplest thing that can be done is to educate more people about the bad qualities of IE6. Websites should stop supporting IE6. When more websites look absurd on their browser, people will blame the browser and not the site. A good example can be seen at Revyver. View the website on both IE6 and other browsers and feel the difference. What we need is better browsers like Firefox and Safari.
However, for XHTML – CSS coding services like Slice and Stitch, it finally depends on the client’s requirement. However, we have stopped using IE hacks for our website and all other websites on our network. It is high time IE6 users realize that their browsers are really outdated.
