Why does anyone still use IE6?

By Paul Farnell
15 Jul 2009

Why does anyone still use IE6?

Digg recently ran a survey of their remaining IE6 users. The results are fascinating. The main reason people still use IE6 is because they have no choice.

Chart showing IE6 usage reasons

Source: Digg IE6 survey

As you can see from Digg’s survey results, 76% of people aren’t able to upgrade from IE6 because of restrictions beyond their control. That doesn’t bode well for web designers. It seems likely these people’s situations will not change any time soon.

Digg are taking an interesting route with their IE6 support in future. For IE6 users they’re making it possible to view content on their site, but not to interact with it. So you can read the stories, but not log in, vote, comment, and so on.

This isn’t dissimilar to how we handle IE6 support within Litmus. We don’t actively test our application on IE6, but we do make sure that published test results are viewable on IE6. Our thinking is that there are no professional web designers using IE6, so there’s no reason our application needs to be perfectly compatible. However it is somewhat likely that designers’ clients may be using IE6, and therefore any published test results need to be compatible with IE6.

Perhaps you can cut down on the functionality offered to IE6 users on your site, but still allow them to access the most important content?

http://makitolabs.com Alistair Holt

The problem of business users with no ability to upgrade is huge. We really need to get the people in charge at businesses to upgrade if we ever want to see the back of IE6.
http://www.jakeisonline.com Jake Holman

It always baffles me why Online Software developers decide they’re going to stop support for a given browser. It’s basically telling a segment of your customers that you don’t care about them.
IE6 still holds a market share of about 15%, combined with Digg’s survey almost 13% of that share don’t have a choice about the browser they use. Hello?
Don’t like designing or developing for IE6? Well tough, deal with it. It’s you damn jobs, do it well.
(On reading this back, it looks like I’m aiming this at Litmus, I’m not!)
Martin Smith

Hi mate,
Some of our clients are large organisations who run internal ‘locked’ systems, just as Digg describe.
Unfortunately it’s these people who approve the development process, sign off the HTML templates etc…
Some of us are still very much catering for IE6 due to our client base and will be for a good while yet.
http://www.davidrivers.name/ David Rivers

Paul, you mistakenly quote that 86% of IE6 users surveyed by Digg report that their usage is due to reasons beyond their control. The actual figure from the Digg blog you link to is 76%.
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up to the Digg survey. I agree with your approach. I’ve gone out of my way to design jazzrecord.org to progressively enhance for modern browsers and gracefully degrade for IE6+, but the funny thing is that, looking at the analytics reports, practically most hits from IE6 are probably from my own testing. Jazzrecord.org is a site for developers, and most developers abhor MSIE, so I probably shouldn’t care so much. I am, however, of the mind state that if it doesn’t kill you to make it compatible, then why disenfranchise a demographic (even if anger compels you to take spite!)?
http://www.marcusk.co.uk sunwukung

@Jake Holman: I take your point buuuuuuuuut:
MSIE should die in all it’s forms, for single handedly thwarting the dream of a uniform browser environment.
XHTML (XML) dead? Thanks IE.
Still can’t use half the features of CSS2? Thanks IE.
Having trouble with your event listeners??? Thanks IE.
Compatibility view?… Oh FFS IE, just get lost will you?
Never mind death to IE6, death to IE fullstop.
I don’t think we should deny IE6 users support, but we should be permitted to grant them an acceptable and pleasant but non-uniform experience.
I don’t complain if my copy of Windows 78 won’t run Half Life 2 – and as long as core functionality remains, neither should people stuck on IE6.
Oh, and by the way
Internet Explorer must DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
http://litmusapp.com/ Matthew Brindley

Hi David,
Thanks for letting us know about that mistake, I’ve corrected it now.
http://trib.tv Andrew

Surely the fact that such a large proportion of the people still using IE6 are doing so against their will is a GOOD thing.
What if the survey had revealed that the main reason people were still using IE6 is because they liked it? Then we’d be properly stuffed.
http://www.somniotic.com Adam E

@Jake Holman
I care about my customers. But 15% is not a large number. I would rather the other 85% have an incredible browsing experience on my site, and 15% have a limited experience, than 100% of my users have a mediocre browsing experience.
I have no problem doing my job. However, IE6 prevents me from doing my job. My job is to create websites that can do unique and powerful web 2.0 applications that can do things people have only dreamed about. How can I do this when dealing with obsolete technology?
Mike Gale

It’s good to see that Litmus tests IE 6 and earlier versions if you really need them.
In a practical world designers don’t decide what the web population uses. That’s not our job. We just have to live with what’s there.
I see a great deal of ignorant comment about IE6. We should remember that IE is actually designed not to allow old versions to exist on a machine. It takes an act of will to hold IE back. It’s not Microsoft’s fault.

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