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I Hate IE6

Really, I hate Internet Explorer 6 with passion. It just sucks. Hard.

I’m not trying to turn this blog into a hate blog, but as a web designer I have to voice this out.

Most, if not all web developers and designers will share the same thought as me. Rated as one of the 25 Worst Tech Products Of All Times by PC World, Internet Explorer 6 really gets on the nerves of developers due to its lack of support for modern web, not to mention a built-in open invitation for hacks, trojans and other happy security hijackers.

If you’re still using IE6, for God’s sake, upgrade to a better browser.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about IE6:

In May 2006, PC World rated Internet Explorer 6 the eighth worst tech product of all time.[23] A certain degree of complacency has been alleged against Microsoft over IE6. With near 90% of the browser market the motive for innovation was not strongly present, resulting in the 5 year time between the IE6′s introduction and its replacement with IE7. This fact is one contributing factor for the rapid rise of the open source alternative Mozilla Firefox.

Unlike most other browsers currently in use, IE6 does not fully nor properly support CSS version 2, which makes it difficult for web developers to ensure compatibility with the browser without degrading the experience for users of more modern browsers. Developers often have to resort to strategies such as CSS hacks, conditional comments, or other forms of browser sniffing to make their websites work in IE6.

Additionally, IE6 lacks support for alpha transparency in PNG images, instead removing all transparency and displaying the image with a gray background unless the proprietary AlphaImageLoader filer is used.

Thats not all, there are thousand ways to crash IE6 with just a few lines of code. Here’s 7 of them.

Not convinced yet? Here’s more from Contrast:

IE6 was was released on August 27 2001. Over seven years later, 42% of global users are still browsing the web with it. This worries me. It’s possibly the worst “modern” browser out there, with a broken box-model, no support for PNG alpha transparency, lack of support for pseudo classes, no min-height support, a nasty flickering background bug, and at least seven ways to crash it with one very mundane line of code. To say it’s unstable is an understatement; to say it makes the job of a web designer difficult is even more so.

Damn right.

In short, IE6 screws the CSS, JavaScripts and all other things developers had spent hours putting together for you. Then developers have to use tons of hacks and hours to work backwards in order to make them work for IE6.

So if you come to this blog with IE6, you will see an uber ugly header with unwanted extra colors and misplaced page elements.

For the mere few months of my working life as a web designer I can’t remember how many hours I have placed in just to make pages look right in IE6, while all other browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari or even IE7/8) look just fine. IE6 renders the net the 10-years-ago way. There’s nothing wrong with a 10 year old product, really, but why can’t Microsoft just come up with patches that fixes all those problems to make life easier for us?

The “good” news is, Microsoft is extending its support for IE6 for another 4 years to 2014. Like, HOLY CRAP! Do we have to suffer for another 4 years?!

IE Voodoo Doll

I thank Teresa Watts for teaching us how to create an IE Voodoo Doll for all of us IE haters. If you’re with me, make one and lets have fun!

IE6NoMore

If you’re really with me, support IE6NoMore. They are a group of developers who wants to see IE6 disappear as soon as possible (die IE6, DIE!!). By putting this code in your website, a notice will appear whenever a visitor with an old browser visits your site to urge them to upgrade to a newer browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, whatever it is, it’s still better than IE6!!) in order to improve their viewing experience.

Cmon everyone, SCREW IE6!!