

Ask HN: What % of users are still on IE6? - twelvedigits

And if we're running into constant snags with CSS that is killing us in IE6, should we ignore it in the spirit of efficiency so that we can get a version up, or always work to get it right?
======
jonny_noog
37Signals will begin phasing out support for IE 6 today as it happens
([http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-
phasin....](http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-
phasin.html)). I note that even they had originally planned to phase out
support for IE 6 in August this year, but extended the deadline.

I think this is a decision that you really need to make after analysing your
particular market. If you have a lot of government/corporate clients who may
be slow to move to new technology, then possibly the extra effort to get
things sorted for IE 6 may be worth it.

But if like 37Signals, your market is more made up of small/medium business
and tech savvy users who move relatively quickly to new technology, then
possibly the time to say goodbye to IE 6 is now.

Only you know for sure.

------
shutter
It's usually better to get something out sooner. You can always go back and
"tweak" IE if you have time.

Companies can thrive on less than 100% of the market; look at Apple as one
example. You don't have to win _everyone_ over to succeed -- and in this case,
IE6 share will continue to decrease with time, so your market segment will
increase likewise.

Don't kick IE6 users out, but don't go out of your way to make the experience
flawless. If the issues are fairly noticeable, you can put a note saying
"You're using an outdated browser; for the best experience please upgrade."

------
astrec
As I'm far too lazy to find my last comment re: IE6 let me dazzle you with
stats for this month.

For a classifieds site with broad appeal:

UBs: 4,828,839

IE6%: 24.82%

As a point of interest -

FF%: 17.17%

Safari: 3.97%

Chrome: 0.70%

Unless you are catering to a predominantly tech audience, you've got some
pretty hard decisions to make in not explicitly supporting IE6.

If you're working towards your first release I'd be inclined to trade IE6
compatibility for velocity.

------
mdolon
Still a pretty decent chunk, unfortunately. For their sake, I have adopted
using a separate stylesheet for IE6 in most of my designs.

Best of luck!

------
geuis
At the company I work at, we are gradually inching down towards around 25% IE6
usage out of all IE users. Overall, about 75% of total traffic is Internet
Explorer. IE8 is about 1%, IE7 is about 74%. Firefox is around 20% overall.
The other 5% contains Safari and other minor browsers, which includes Opera,
old IE versions, Chrome, Netscape, etc. Our site gets about 3.5 million hits a
month. My coworker and I are the lead front-end engineers for the site and we
are actively pushing on all fronts to abandon IE6 support entirely. We are
making gradual headway, but its a long slog. Unfortunately for us IE6 users
still comprise too large a percent of our audience to abandon completely.

~~~
DabAsteroid
That adds up to 125%. Maybe you meant that IE7 is 49%.

