Comments on: Why ‘IE6 Update’ is a terrible idea

By: ArianaLymn

ArianaLymn — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:10:39 +0000

Hi there, not sure that this is true, but thanks

By: Bruno Abrantes

Bruno Abrantes — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:08:02 +0000

@allan Try not to think of Progressive Enhancement as “dumbing down”, but rather “dressing it up” for browsers which support it. Using your class analogy, teachers would teach in a way that all students could keep up with but would give smarter kids other books or tools so they could learn more while the rest of the class finishes the regular tasks.
Anyway, I still don’t think it comes down to the choice of supporting IE6 or not. If you write responsible code, IE6 issues should either be small enough to ignore or non-existent at all.

By: JessicaBoync

JessicaBoync — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:12:59 +0000

Thanks for good post

By: Matt Hill

Matt Hill — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:04:02 +0000

I’ve discussed my views on this in detail on the blog post I wrote a couple of weeks back, and in the comments. The link is in my earliest comment above.

Why does a webapp (or site) have to be considered as “dumbed down” if you make it work for IE6? Surely it’s better to be as inclusive as possible and offer core functionality for IE6 users, even if some of the nice stuff is missing?

Why don’t you support IE6 users? Because it’s too hard? Because they are “stupid” for using an outdated browser? Or some other reason? Those are some the arguments put forward by other developers which personally I think are unacceptable. And I’m happy to have a minority view on this issue.

By: allan branch

allan branch — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:32:02 +0000

@bruno, I think dumbing down a webapp for IE6 users is a silly idea. Should teachers teach the whole class at the speed of the slowest person in the room?

@Matt, those are the two choices. We don’t support IE6 users and have thought about using that script. So we can continue to NOT support IE6 and have that script install or not have the script installed.

Thoughts?

By: Matt Hill

Matt Hill — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:28:00 +0000

Agreed, there is always at least one more choice than the two presented by Allan — progressive enhancement for modern browsers is the preferred way to tackle that scenario.

By: Bruno Abrantes

Bruno Abrantes — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:24:29 +0000

@Allan Well, if those were my only two choices, using the script would definitely be an improvement to serving a broken (or semi-broken) page to my users. Of course in this scenario I would try to use Progressive Enhancement techniques to develop a page that basically worked well in IE6, and avoid doing IE6-specific development in the first place.

By: allan branch

allan branch — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:30:24 +0000

As a developer if your choices are to not support IE6 or to install this script, which would you do?

By: Matt Hill

Matt Hill — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:00:31 +0000

Great post Bruno, I wholeheartedly agree and we need more articles like this to educate developers that hijacking the IE information bar is just not a good practice to get into. Any site that uses this technique is treading on very dangerous ground and really should be discouraged.

There’s been an interesting discussion with some of the creators of IE6 update about this on the comments for a blog post I wrote the other, you might like to check it out:

http://www.friskdesign.com/2009/04/21/why-ie6update-is-wrong/

By: Bruno Abrantes

Bruno Abrantes — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:00:42 +0000

I’m sorry if I didn’t say it clearly, but what I meant to say was that this practice was dangerously close to phishing. You’re absolutely right, it’s not phishing per se, since the goal is not to extract information from the user, but still the fact that the script impersonates Microsoft is pretty evil.

I fully agree that users need to update, and that we should actively get them to upgrade, but this is just not the way to do it. I myself believe in Progressive Enhancement.

By: dnnsldr

dnnsldr — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:50:52 +0000

Ok, I have to disagree with your comment regarding phishing. According to your own definintion:

“…process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details..”

By sending them to Microsoft to update, you are not in anyway creating a phishing scenario.
Really, they need to upgrade, and we are doing them a disfavor by letting them continue to use an obsolete browser.