

IE 6 Update - auston
http://ie6update.com/

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kennyroo
In my consulting work I see a lot of usage data from sites of all sizes, and
there is a correlation between dial-up users and IE6 users.

I assume that dial-up users don't download Microsoft updates because of the
download time and the frequency of updates. At this point, it's probably fair
to say that IE6 users will only upgrade if they get broadband or replace their
computer with one that has a better browser pre-installed. Since money is
clearly a factor in both cases, I'm not holding my breath.

Color TV arrived around 1960, and it took 13 years to pass the 50% bar.
(Source: <http://is.gd/taGM>) Clearly, there are some consumers who will only
upgrade when something breaks -- probably because they just can't afford to do
otherwise.

I actually feel for people who are still using IE6. For whatever reason, it's
either impossible or impractical for these people to upgrade.

If you want to design a site that doesn't work with IE6 and you can afford to
cut off 10%+ of the general population, just do it and explain (nicely) that
the site requires a newer browser. They probably won't upgrade, but you've
done your part. No need to resort to trickery.

~~~
matt1
In my experience, if you ask the people who use IE6 why they don't upgrade
most of them will respond with something like "What's IE6? Oh you mean
Internet Explorer. What's wrong with the one I have?" and then _if_ you
finally convince them they they should upgrade you have to explain to them how
to do it, which for most people who are still using IE6 can be a big
challenge.

My grandmother uses IE6. She says it works and doesn't want to bother with an
upgrade. She doesn't care that you app doesn't render properly :)

~~~
snprbob86

        She doesn't care that you app doesn't render properly
    

I think this is the most important point, but it is made so rarely!

Most people who have IE6 are either too ignorant to care if your site renders
incorrectly or know that they are forced to use this browser for some reason.
The former group probably isn't using your next gen web 2.0 fancy pants app
anyway, and the later group has seen so many broken websites (at work) that
they look right past the problems or try again when they get home.

In general, all you need to do is ensure your site WORKS AT ALL in IE6. It
doesn't need to look perfect, just not be broken. But honestly, I might just
serve them the mobile version with a warning on top...

~~~
thwarted
That's not a bad idea... serving the mobile version to IE6, because as time
goes on, and as more people are using smart phones with modern browsers,
browsers that are more powerful than IE6, IE6 starts to look more and more
like an ancient mobile browser anyway.

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feverishaaron
While well-intentioned, this phishing-like technique seems at the very least a
disingenuous method of getting people to switch. I think there are other ie-
update js floating around that get the point across without having to
masquerade.

~~~
tialys
I had the same feeling. I work on computers that are infested with spyware
from silly things like this. Not to suggest that this is a bad thing, but it's
misleading, and might lead users to learn a bad habit.

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antirez
The simplest thing we can do against IE6 is: don't support it anymore. Build
your sites like if IE6 does not exist and the problem will auto-fix in short
time.

~~~
axod
We, uh, we fixed the _glitch_. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so
it'll just work itself out naturally.

We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved
from your end.

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keopi
I could imagine a lot of people thinking their computers are hacked when IE
suddenly changes because of a required update that looked like a usual activeX
install.

I'm living in Korea right now, and you need activeX for any kind of school,
internet banking, or government website. This would make a lot of them not
understand what happened to their computer (not that they are particularly
aware to begin with.)

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j_baker
While I really like the idea of getting rid of IE 6, this is simply unethical.
While the link may not tell the user anything that's incorrect, it is
obviously intended to look like an official message by Microsoft. If this
isn't illegal, it should be.

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rythie
I think this is unethical and it won't work anyway, the people who still have
IE6 have ignored warnings like this for years or don't have control.

I saw someone using XP the other day who didn't know that other browsers
existed (other than IE) and Safari was even installed but she didn't know how
it got there (I suspect quicktime) or what it was. The IE(7) she had crashed
on virtually every link she clicked on due to an old toolbar that probably
only worked properly with IE6. The machine was also dead slow due to 512MB
memory and loads of task-tray stuff.

Although she already had IE7 I could easily imagine, similar users not being
capable of doing upgrades especially on dial up or not wanting to because it
might break.

I would have thought the best thing a lot of people could do for the web is
actually offer to sort out a few of their non-techy friends computers, which I
think would be more effective than a warning message.

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jasonkester
Let's face it: Building web sites is hard.

For some reason every new generation of developers comes out expecting that to
change, but it's not going to. There will always be browsers going out of life
that you need to support. That's just the way it works.

And yes, there will always be people like this author whining about it and
blaming his users for the his problem. That's the wrong way to go.

If you build web applications, you need to suck it up and support all the
browsers out there. Yes, it's harder and yes, you need to use a common subset
of all the available tools.

It's been this way since 1995. It's not going to change. Please stop
complaining about it.

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thorax
Anyone have a suggested script like this that isn't so phishy? Tinyarro.ws is
absolutely worthless to IE6 users (since it doesn't support unicode in URLs)
so we actually would want to encourage IE6 visitors to our homepage to
upgrade.

It's easy enough to tell them ourselves, but if there's a common/classy
alternative, we'd check it out.

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raheemm
"IE6 is like an illness that won't go away" - so true. :)

~~~
lucumo
IE6 is the Netscape 4 of our time :-(

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RossM
The IE6 hysteria keeps coming around but it won't change. About now it appears
to me that the only users of IE6 arelarge corporations that can't/won't
upgrade (feasibility/old internal intranet apps) or those that wouldn't know
how to.

In the latter case I think this is a poor way to go about this. I've seen
these information-bar mimics before but this one actually suggests you need
the update to view the page. Trying to appear as a message from MS itself
(which, to those not in the know, this will do) is just trying to trick the
user into upgrading. Yes, it's got good intentions but is it ethically correct
to almost white-hat-phish someone into this? MS are advising iE6/7 users to
upgrade regardless.

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IanOzsvald
To see ie6update in action watch this 3 minute screencast:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TclHo_F7rsE>

I wanted a demo but didn't have IE6 to hand, in the end I installed ies4linux
-> Wine -> Jaunty RC and I figured that others might want to see it in action
so I sat up until 2.30am making the screencast.

Nick says he'll integrate it into their blog shortly, but in the meantime...

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edw519
This kinds of things overlook on critical detail:

50 million people access the internet from work on locked down computers. One
would hope they are current, but we know many are not.

Either way, there's nothing your user can do about it, so you can code to him
or abandon him. Bitching won't help.

~~~
lucumo
Where did you get that number?

~~~
stavrianos
even if the number _did_ come sliding out of his ass (not meaning any offense,
I really don't know if you've sources or not), I think it's a good guess that
there's a non-trivial demographic in that situation

~~~
lucumo
Yeah, sure. I wasn't trying to discard that point. But I do think a number
like that should be sourced. Otherwise, stick to something like "a lot" or
"non-trivial demographic".

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chops
On casual (read: non-business) sites, I just put in some kind of fun little
insult. Example: <http://dkpfiles.com/pias/pics/f941GOZ66b29i2Q2Z.jpg>

This is just too phishy and does instill bad habits in users who (using IE6)
already don't have good habits.

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CalmQuiet
Somewhat off-topic, but... Is it not a little strange that neither the demo
nor the IE-8 Home page does any checking for non-applicable conditions. For
example the fact that I'm browsing with Safari(OS X)? [ Whereas visiting
Mozilla always seems to know what downloads it ought to offer. ]

~~~
duskwuff
Er, the demo is intentionally shown to all browsers on clicking the "demo"
link. Otherwise you'd have to get IE6 running to test it out, which would
suck.

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vang3lis
a nice one, because it doesn't even suggest any particular alternatives when
an update would suffice

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Shaitan_Apistos
When do we get to start crusading against IE7?

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csomar
I think some MS guys made this to help trasit people from IE6 to IE8 (better
than they do choose FF or Chrome)!!

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foobar2k
this is really sneaky. i like it

