Here’s a thought. Even complete technophobes managed to add Flash to their browsers (I did) by following friendly, intuitive links when a page they were expecting to work didn’t. So, imagine this. A standard IE6-only message, in a red box (e.g. by hacking a div to be off the screen for everything else) that can be copied and pasted to any page, and says something like “Your version of Microsoft Internet Explorer might struggle to display this page. If it’s a problem, please upgrade… [LINK] or install Firefox, a free, easy to use browser which meets modern standards… [LINK]. If you can’t do so (for example, if you are on a organisation’s network and are not an administrator)…[LINK to something, say a php/rails operation, that swaps in a very basic stylesheet]

Or something like that, anyway. Obviously the details need refining. If enough people were being friendlily nudged towards Firefox like this, not to mention the bad publicity and branding damage, I’m sure it’d scare Microsoft into finally patching their old browsers. (particularly if people made a habit of emailing their PR department…?)

It is an over simplification of the situation (as pointed out by Roland who’s views were spot on btw) but the fact of the matter is that people need us to support IE6. We can’t ignore 40% of internet users because IE wastes our time.

IE6 users still matter, even if they are trying to roll on square wheels. I’m guessing none of your clients have online shops? Most e-commerce sites cannot disregard 40% of their profits because it wastes their developers time.

Many businesses, medical institutions and even some schools haven’t or can’t upgrade because their end users have a lack of permissions on their machine, even if they wanted to upgrade they can’t. One of our major e-commerce clients is in the medical industry and many of his users are stuck with Netscape Navigator because they can’t upgrade. I’m not saying everyone should support it, but for some even the most archaic browsers are still a necessity.

Just a note about having balls, I have two and I make a point of recommending to everyone I know (clients as well) to upgrade to Firefox, or IE7 at the very least.

We are in a position to educate people so that’s what we must do. I build an IE warning into all my websites now, telling the user to get a better browser if they want to get the most out of the website. If everyone did it, you wouldn’t be able to browse the web without realising that you are using severely outdated software.

I also write into contracts that I code to support standards compliant browsers. Supporting non-standards compliant browsers is another job in itself, and must therefore be charged separately.

If we all stopped being concerned about ‘looking bad’ because we don’t support a really terrible product, and actually gave good solid advice to our clients, we could easily change things.

I don’t agree with those that say it’s not as simple as trying to force people. It is. If all web-developers stopped supporting IE6 hacks tomorrow there would be no choice in the matter.

Get some balls and ditch IE6.

Microsoft has integrated their browser so seamlessly into the operating system that to switch to Firefox for those users amounts to a deep customization of the user environment.

The wheelchair analogy is misleading because it oversimplifies the situation, pointing out that absurdity that is patently obvious to those who understand the situation, but glossing over the practical obstacles to addressing it.

If there were a button you could press that would somehow completely replace IE with Firefox in Windows, that would be a substantial first step…sadly I don’t think it’s technically possible. Microsoft is perfectly happy with that and is unlikely to facilitate a browser switch short of an act of Congress.

What’s happened to me time and time again is that my clients are using IE6! I can’t ask them to upgrade so that my sites will display correctly! Their first question is going to be “what’s the site going to look like for all the other IE6 users out there?”

If only we could bill Microsoft for all that time we spend making websites work on their browsers!

However, the term ‘Accessibility’ doesn’t contain ‘Proprietary’ in it’s definition:

We developers spend a huge amount of waisted time working for IESicks( IE7), when neither comply to accessible web standards…

Harsh analogy:

If a physically disabled person, with no use of their legs, complained that a ramp accessing your building didn’t work with the proprietary square wheels on their wheelchair, what would you do?

Would you say ‘upgrade your wheelchair’?

Totally agree with the above responses–most of my clients don’t know how to answer the question which browser are you using? Let alone which version.

We just have to deal with it, I think. I am continually grateful for those designers that publish compatibility fixes–I’d be sunk without them!

LMAO – “mythical mountain-dwelling mammal” indeed!