if you go to them with IE even with IE9 they just tell you to use another browser.

while i totally undertstand the need to stop dealing with IE6 and get folks to update i personally think that some sites are going a bit too far....

and i wonder what they are doing that works in safari / chrome / firefox that is so broke with IE9 ?

for example:

http://www.asana.com/

if you try to use the web app it's broken in IE9

or

http://www.lauckstreetshipyard.com/

has all kinds of issues with IE9

if this keeps up will anyone use IE outside of some corp intranet soon ?

I almost wonder if some folks have made templates that deliberately will not work in IE?

Herbie

Let's hope that IE 10 can win some of that back. In part that may have to do with the success of W8, WP8, Xbox, and to some degree SmartGlass. If Microsoft can get people interested in their ecosystem then IE's use may increase -- especially if SmartGlass takes off. If they were smart they'd do a SmartGlass business implementation for Windows that would allow you to extend your work onto devices like they show in their concept videos like this one. I bring up SmartGlass because it's HTML5/JS and am assuming that at least on Microsoft devices it will run [better] in the IE engine.

It could be worse for Windows users though. As a Linux user Silverlight gives similar problems way too often and I can't solve it just by switching the browser.

9 minutes ago, spivonious wrote

I'd be okay saying "Hey, you're using IE6, it's time to upgrade", but to completely ban IE altogether is extremely unprofessional and cutting off a good portion of your potential customers.

If you're going to do that for any browser, phrase it apologetically (sorry that my website sucks on IE6) or encouragingly (upgrade to get better features!), never aggressively ("upgrade from IE because IE sucks!")

And Never, Ever, use an alert message. If you're using an alert message, it's because your website is rubbish. Good websites give feedback inline.

IE6 might be a pile of crud, but your customers probably already know that. Nobody uses it out of choice.

Your website is there to help users. If you're going to punish them for visiting, they won't come back.

13 minutes ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

If you're going to do that for any browser, phrase it apologetically (sorry that my website sucks on IE6) or encouragingly (upgrade to get better features!), never aggressively ("upgrade from IE because IE sucks!")

And Never, Ever, use an alert message. If you're using an alert message, it's because your website is rubbish. Good websites give feedback inline.

IE6 might be a pile of crud, but your customers probably already know that. Nobody uses it out of choice.

Your website is there to help users. If you're going to punish them for visiting, they won't come back.

I would agree with your "not by choice" statement, but I've seen many computers that still have IE6 because the users are still on XP SP1 and never run Windows Update (or have so much malware that IE no longer runs, so they've switched to Firefox 2).

The site I've developed for work says

<url> is tested in the following browsers:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8+
• Mozilla Firefox 4+
• Google Chrome 9+
• Apple Safari 5+

While other browsers may work, you may experience display or functional issues. It is highly recommended that you upgrade your browser to the latest available version.

I don't exclude anyone, but the site does start looking pretty funky in IE6 and Opera.

I always start with developing for the current standards, and then implement additional browser support as required, either by usage stats or customer specs.

To reverse it, if I were the customer, and the developer blocked IE access with some arrogant demand they they use another browser, I'd simply refuse to pay them.

Anyway, this really feels like feels a bit like poetic justice for all the times "unprofessional" developers use/used non-standard IE features or proprietary browser plugins like Silverlight that "punish" users for daring to use non-Microsoft software. Welcome to the club. Cheers.

That means if their user use Win7 or lower version of Windows, it's easier to tell them to install a different browser.

-Josh

I guess someone in marketing just found out they were turning away 50% of their potential customers and I guess they weren't amused.

Good job

1 hour ago, Blue Ink wrote

@figuerres: looks like that second site you listed just removed the silly message box (just commented it out, so we can still admire its awesomeness).

I guess someone in marketing just found out they were turning away 50% of their potential customers and I guess they weren't amused.

Good job

possibly the author of the site who owns the business saw this and saw my name here and is now not liking me at all .... but i can deal with that if that's the case ....

it's a business site that i have bought from in the past, I am building a model ship in wood and they have some really great  guides on how to make them.

if anyone ever wants to try making an amazing wood ship model they are the folks to get the step by step guide on how to do it.

:--)

After that, users either chose to stick with IE8 or move to other browsers, leaving IE9(+) at marginal importance.

2 days ago, JoshRoss wrote

If you have a site that depends on the browser having access to sqlite, then you have no choice as to make it a no-internet-explorer-zone. But for anything else, most of the other features can be shimmed in.

The specification reached an impasse: all interested implementors have used the same SQL backend (Sqlite), but we need multiple independent implementations to proceed along a standardisation path.

IE10 supports IndexedDB. Now we have to wait until Apple wants to do the same.

53 minutes ago, ZippyV wrote

Web developers make the mistake of trying to make their site look the same on all browsers and abandoning older browsers completely if they can't get it right. Just create a basic css file for older browsers that don't support css3, so that your site is still readable. Don't even attempt to port back features it doesn't have like border-radius.

++

If you're not a website-artist website whose sole purpose is to show off swooshy website templates, then your website's purpose is not to show the template. It is to show the content.

If you're turning people away because your template doesn't work on their browser, well, you're stupid and you've misunderstood the entire point of your own website.

Even IE-5 can do basic text rendering and forms, and frankly that's all you need to run most websites. If your site doesn't work on that browser - give them a basic site. Not only will people stuck with IE6 thank you for it (and not immediately go to your competitors), but people with disabilities such as partial blindness who hate funky website designs will be thanking you (and not suing you) too.

4 hours ago, ZippyV wrote

Web developers make the mistake of trying to make their site look the same on all browsers and abandoning older browsers completely if they can't get it right. Just create a basic css file for older browsers that don't support css3, so that your site is still readable. Don't even attempt to port back features it doesn't have like border-radius.

3 hours ago, evildictait​or wrote

++

If you're not a website-artist website whose sole purpose is to show off swooshy website templates, then your website's purpose is not to show the template. It is to show the content.

If you're turning people away because your template doesn't work on their browser, well, you're stupid and you've misunderstood the entire point of your own website.

Even IE-5 can do basic text rendering and forms, and frankly that's all you need to run most websites. If your site doesn't work on that browser - give them a basic site. Not only will people stuck with IE6 thank you for it (and not immediately go to your competitors), but people with disabilities such as partial blindness who hate funky website designs will be thanking you (and not suing you) too.

So. much. truth.