IE 6, how do I hate thee, let me count the ways...

[Vekseid]

So, I'll be frank, I'm seriously considering banning old browsers from the cms I'm building for Elliquiy.

Pretty much anything up to and including IE6 - not going to see much. Either that, or I spend a seriously disproportionate amount of time, bandwidth and processor power just to cater to one broken browser. I want to be able to use transparent PNGs. I want to be able to have nifty scripts without breaking spec. I want...

I'm still shooting for a goal of having a skeleton of a beta up by next month, but a lot of events have put me behind. It will probably be at least a year before Elliquiy goes this new route, but I'm basically posting this as a litmus test and a warning - most people here don't use IE6, so I'm going to pointedly not cater to it.

For the 7% of you who are using IE 6, may I suggest broadening your horizons?

1: Mozilla Firefox
2: Google Chrome
3: Apple Safari
4: Opera

Seriously, you're missing out.

[Hunter]

May I point out that Chrome is too new (and probably going to record everything you do right back to google anyways).  Safari doesn't work well on Windows based on my experience and I'd steer clear of Opera.

And yes, use Firefox!      (edit: from a lazy IE6 user who refuses to upgrade to IE7 because he hates tabbed browsing)

[OldSchoolGamer]

The tabs are a bit of a learning curve...but nothing terrible.  Used correctly, they can certainly be an improvement over having to close a zillion windows.

[Greenthorn]

*sighs*

From a Vista lover: I also love my IE7

*ducks and runs*

(as a note...it's pathetic and all..but if IE caused issues, I'd download Firefox -just- to visit Elliquiy!  I'm entirely too addicted)

[Kalen]

I would cry.

Seriously. 

I'm in a locked down environment at work, and am restricted to what they give us... which is IE 6.  Being a federal government department, change comes slowly (and as cheaply as possible), so I, for one, would be greatly upset.

I mean, I'd understand.  You don't need to do extra work for a few of us.  But I would miss being on E during the day.

[Mia]

IE8 then?... use Firefox 3 myself.

[Hunter]

The tabs are a bit of a learning curve...but nothing terrible.  Used correctly, they can certainly be an improvement over having to close a zillion windows.

Ah...but I've never felt the need for a zillion windows (or more than a few).  And I have a cronic tendency to close the window rather than the tab (even after all these years).

[Vekseid]

I would cry.

Seriously. 

I'm in a locked down environment at work, and am restricted to what they give us... which is IE 6.  Being a federal government department, change comes slowly (and as cheaply as possible), so I, for one, would be greatly upset.

I mean, I'd understand.  You don't need to do extra work for a few of us.  But I would miss being on E during the day.

Well, like I said, it'll probably be a year or so before it goes into full swing. IE7, Firefox 2, etc. will all be fine, though IE 7 still has some really annoying problems, they are on the level of 'can deal with' rather than "will take half my time".

[MagicalPen]

IE7 is already out. But it IS a microsoft product. 'Nuff Said.

[Trieste]

I like IE7. I don't mind Firefox.

You can turn the tabs off on Firefox, by the by.

I liked the simplicity of Google Chrome, but it's not ... there... quite yet. It's a bit TOO simple at this point, and has a tendency to flip out when you close a media-related tab and then try to swap to another one (my system would lag every time I would close Pandora or Youtube, for instance, but it runs fine on both IE and FF on mine). I think I'm going to wait a bit 'till it's a bit more refined to try it again.

[Maeven]

I really like firefox.  To me, it seems faster than IE7 and you just can't beat the integrated spell check.

[Mathim]

Is it really prudent to have more than one internet program? My friend has IE, Netscape AND Firefox on his computer, and I find myself wondering, does he even need two of them, let alone three?

[Trieste]

Need, no. Want? Sure. You don't really NEED to eat more than the same meal every day .. some chicken, some green beans, maybe some potatos and corn and a big glass of milk or water. Some people are happy with that, even... but some people want, you know, pasta sometimes.

[MagicalPen]

Some sites dont work with Firefox (Windows Update, for instance) so most people do have a need for it from time to time.

[Hunter]

I really like firefox.  To me, it seems faster than IE7 and you just can't beat the integrated spell check.

I'd have to agree.  For those few sites that don't work with Firefox, there IS an ie addon.

[Xillen]

I hate IE7's interface, but other than that, my OS won't support it. Doesn't go further than IE6.

I'd like to keep my computer clean, so I rather don't install XP/Vista on it, and neither do I really enjoy having more than one browser installed.

I understand your reasoning, though, so I might have to settle to installing a seperate browser :(

[Hunter]

You can get 2.0 of firefox for a little while longer (not much, though).  It's at the link below.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

[Xillen]

What do you mean? Firefox 3 won't support Windows 2k?

That kind of blows...

[Hunter]

I'm not sure.  Haven't tried it.  I do know that Firefox 2 does work on 2k (because that's what's at work).

[Oniya]

I have to use IE for one site only - my work's time-card entry system.  I've tried to get them to get with the times and branch off, but *shrug*.

I use Firefox for everything else

[Vekseid]

What do you mean? Firefox 3 won't support Windows 2k?

That kind of blows...

Firefox 3 should support Win2K. I haven't checked on my Win2K system lately, but Firefox 3 is a great deal faster than IE 6 or 7.

But yes, it is prudent to have at least two independent browsers on a Windows system (keep in mind a number of browsers, such as AOL's browser, just use IE's rendering engine).

The reason for this is it's easy to get yourself trapped in a configuration where you break the IE dlls - have them unregistered, corrupted, or whatnot. In this case, it's good to be able to load something else up and figure out how to fix it.

[Hunter]

Firefox 3 should support Win2K. I haven't checked on my Win2K system lately, but Firefox 3 is a great deal faster than IE 6 or 7.

Okay, just checked:

Firefox 3 System Requirements

Windows
Operating Systems

    * Windows 2000
    * Windows XP
    * Windows Server 2003
    * Windows Vista

Minimum Hardware

    * Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)
    * 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
    * 52 MB hard drive space

[Porphyre]

I put an -- if IE6 -- conditional on the bottoms of the pages I work on these days that explains that the browser is outdated, and that certain aspects of the site may not display properly... And if it takes me more than 5 minutes to solve an ie6 bug, i don't.

Honestly, it is high time people stopped using it, and you could do worse things than exclude that browser from consideration. Nobody has any good reason to use it.

[Revolverman]

anyone use the google browser? is it any good? Google programs tend to work ok, but this is so new.

[Vekseid]

Unfortunately for my current projects I'm getting paid for, fixing IE6 bugs is quite mandatory. But some of the loops I'd have to jump through to support IE6 are simply not worth it for everyone else. Only 7% of Elliquiy users use IE6 currently, and for the same quality of look and feel, it involves a significant bandwidth hit.

As for Chrome, it's probably Google's most serious project short of their search engine. There are some fairly advanced concepts that are only going to be possible with a model like Chrome currently uses, and Firefox 4 will use. I would bet money that Safari, Opera, and Konqueror will quickly follow suit. I wouldn't use Chrome for the sake of just using it, but it is a very political move by Google and their intentions and goals with it are surprisingly clear.

You could think of web services - Google docs is one example - as a giant Microsoft Office-sized hole about six feet deep. Chrome is like the prototype of a proper nail. No one has made the proper coffin yet, though its shape is pretty obvious at this point.

But as others have mentioned, there are currently much more stable browsers than Chrome currently is.