We have to support IE6 till 2010? Oh, no!
Ivan | Sun, 2005-02-27 13:45Quote:
...Im not optimistic, either way. No matter what IE7 gets right, the browser upgrade cycle is slower than ever. There are so many compelling reasons to stop using IE6 now, but the market has done next to nothing about it. Even if IE7 is perfect, well be supporting IE6 for a long time yet. Ive predicted 2010 as the year we might be able to stop; even that might be wishful thinking, unfortunately.
Here is the full post: http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/02/15/ie7/index.php
The sad part is that he's probably right. :(
Catering to all the different browsers when designing is terrible, and if this proves to be true, it will just continue. Hopefully Microsoft will make their browser more standard adherent instead of constantly trying to establish their own standards. Having to deal with this crap until 2010 is just scary.
SlideawayMedia - web design for Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and surrounding areas.
http://www.modsuperstar.ca - now with 23% more iron
I think I read somewhere a year or two ago that microsoft is no longer supporting IE for mac. If only that were the case for pc.
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more and more people realize there are alternatives. only 8% of the users coming to CB is using IE. that's very good. a few month back the same number was over 50. the most widely used browser with 43% is Firefox. second is Safari. and this despite the fact that 50% of the users are Windows users. i wish this was a general trend, not just on CB.
That makes sense though Ivan. When you think of it, people browsing blogs and the like tend to be more web-savy. Given that fact, it makes sense that these savy folks will use alternatives to IE because they know all the flaws the program has, and they know how much better the alternatives are. I know myself I've turned other onto running firefox instead of IE just for the sake of security. I read on macminute today that IE is losing marketshare and firefox is gaining. Hopefully the trend will continue and we won't have to put up with the Microsoft bs for much longer(wishful thinking).
SlideawayMedia - web design for Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and surrounding areas.
http://www.modsuperstar.ca - now with 23% more iron
Boy, wouldn't that be nice. What will be even nicer is when Firefox becomes a true cocoa app like Camino, and will integrate completely into OS X. Fortunately for us Mac folks, Mozilla just hired on a new Mac programmer to help speed development. Yeeaaahhh! :D
BTW, here is the Firefox 2 roadmap straight from the Mozilla website. I think this will be an exciting year for Firefox.
I think people should just stop catering to IE and start making users aware of just how bad IE really is. Granted, this probably isn't a practical thing to do at this stage, but if more and more users saw warnings on the various Web sites they visit about how their browser is outdated and might not display the site correctly (much like what MSN.com does for IE:Mac!), the more users will start to think, "hmm, maybe I should look into an alternative."
I suppose right now it's in everyone's best interests to play well with IE. Call me crazy, but if Firefox keeps gaining market share, IE continues to suck, and/or IE7 doesn't get adopted within a reasonable timetable, I think putting these sorts of warnings on a page would be a fairly easy, unobtrusive way to nudge unsavvy users in the direction of switching.
We may actually do just that with cb. It will not block IE users from the site, but may display a warning that they are not enjoying the best possible experience..
I would LOVE to see this, really I would.
The people I know that use IE right now are the people that are scared of technology, the people that are intimidated by even browsing the net... they know something will work, they use it... and I think that is the hardest group of people to get to change, and among the worst to throw extra screens and buttons at...
but they do make my life miserable...
That's why it's important to still allow users to be able to use the site despite their use of IE. If users start seeing these warnings, and then after a while start seeing that the websites they're trying to visit look very odd, I think it's only a matter of time before they start paying attention to the warning message. Firefox is now at the point where it's completely easy to download and install, and as such it should be relatively easy for people to switch browsers even if they're timid... all we have to do is make it easy for them by showing them how.
I have a black header across the top of my page so I made the image below that pops up in the corner of my site if somebody visits with IE. Anybody feel free to download it if you want to use it.
It would be cool if we could develop a standard image that we all could use on our sites as a banner. If there's one way to at least get people to notice it's repetition.
Me, on the other hand, I use Safari but It's not us Macheads that we need to worry about.