iStockPhoto dropping support for IE6

I thought this is a pretty important development due to iStock’s size and the fact that it is used a lot by corporate types as well. iStock is to start dropping support for IE6. Although unfortunately they are not starting the phase out until 2010, they were pretty damning in their reasons quoting PC World Magazine as calling IE6 the 8th worst tech product of all time.

Finally we can start laying this one to rest!

I hope so, I just hope IE8 won’t break all the sites I have done for ie6, 7

This is obviously a good thing, and another nail in the coffin; trouble is, it’s a pretty large coffin, and will need lots more nails yet.

Google have started doing this with their properties (gmail & reader) and pushing Chrome & Firefox as alternatives, and 37Signals (www.basecamphq.com) have started doing this too, along with others. It all adds momentum and will hopefully embolden other sites to join in.

Trouble is, IE6 market share is already down to ~25% and it’s quite possible that a large part of the user base that knows what a web browser even is, have already switched. The rest probably won’t ever switch - either because they can’t, or they just don’t understand the concept or are oblivious.

We’re not really going to get rid of IE6 until all those old Windows 2000 machines, and all those illegal XP machines (which aren’t connected to Windows Update) go away. This will probably have to wait until the hardware dies or gets upgraded - a process of natural wastage which will drip along over the next few years. The economic situation will probably slow this, but hopefully the Windows 7 release cycle will help counter this.

As IE6’s market share falls (generally it’s about 20-25% and actually <10% on http://www.codeistry.com/ already) I’m paying less and less attention to fixes for it. I’m also wondering when to start charging extra for supporting it - breaking out IE6 testing & fix time as a line item in invoices. It used to be that it could easily suck up 10-20% of a projects total time - but thankfully advances in CSS & Javascript frameworks have helped to reduce this. Maybe market share has fallen far enough to start making this an extra-cost item, that you discuss up-front with clients? It certainly deserves to be - and maybe you could sell it as a discount for _not_ doing it?

Obviously all my sites will function, be accessible and degrade gracefully in IE6 - in the same way they would to Netscape 4, or Lynx - but if the client insists on 100% visual parity between IE6 and modern browsers - then this ought to be chargeable separately, I think.

What do you think?

Here’s some interesting statistics for MODx itself. As of a few minutes ago in Google Analytics the following IE stats hold true. Now granted, we’re a webdev platform and I would expect things to weigh heavily towards Firefox:

% visitors from IE: 18%
of those, % IE 6: 24%

This actually represents only a hair over 3% of our page views, 4% of our absolute unique visitors, and 4.4% of all visits.

I think we’ve almost reached the point where MODx itself will abandon IE support on its marketing and support site, and unquestionably in the manager. We won’t purposefully exclude them, but we will most likely not spend a lot of time hacking and patching for IE6 any longer.

As a side note, as our site usage is in an overall up-trend, IE6 remains in a down trend. This is a very good sign indeed!

That being said, I sure would hate for a key decision maker that happens to be in that 4% of visitors above using IE6 and having a bad experience. That’s the risk you take.

I checked a non tech site and IE6 is about 30% of total IE visitors. I don’t understand why people still use IE6, but I think it has to do with the large number of unlicensed windows users who cannot afford to upgrade to IE7 (since it would require a license). So not only is MS responsible for the worst software, they are also responsible for keeping it in existence. I wish that everyone that had an unlicensed version of windows learned about *nix, the world would be a better place but many are just discovering the computer not to mention the internet.

Another option would be for M$ and other Corp$ to lower the cost of licenses in underdeveloped regions. The price of an updated OS can be quite expensive in some parts of the world which is why unlicensed versions are so popular. I sponsor the site of a social responsability NGO for underprivileged communities and they get over 60% of IE traffic going to IE6 which is an indication that it is the class that can afford less that still use it. And they only get 20% firefox (which means that IE6 is more used than FF)

iStocks stance is a good one, IE6 sucks, but who ends up being discriminated against are the worlds underprivileged. Would it cost that much more to have something available to IE6 users, even if it is just plain html? What about the poor people with disabilities who rely on ancient screen readers (based on IE6)? I guess only the wealthy interest iStock since the poor don’t spend.

While I am on that note, it is ridiculous for apple to charge for their OS since it only runs on Apple computers! The development of the OS goes hand-in-hand with the hardware.  But that is a rant for another day 

Apple invests billions of dollars in hardware and software engineering on a platform that in my experience makes me noticeably more productive. Unfortunately, Apple is a for-profit company and it’s their fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. That means charging money for software and hardware. By choosing—and it is a very strategic choice—to limit their supported scope to a very narrow range of hardware they can continue to deliver an experience that meets with their internal standards. I’m OK with that, but others are not. And others are free to choose a different platform.

Is it appropriate for developing countries? Most likely, no is the answer 99.999% of the time.

I guess an analogous statement would be that it’s ridiculous for anyone to charge more than $X per hour (yes, single digits) for web development work or design work since there are places on the globe where you can get it for that price. Do you charge more than $9/hour?

most of the time when people say drop support it means it might not look pretty or be so animated. (except maybe heavy ajax search like the manager). if people use ie6, im sure they start to realize A LOT of sites dont look pretty.

Quote from: rthrash at Jan 28, 2009, 06:19 AM

I guess an analogous statement would be that it’s ridiculous for anyone to charge more than $X per hour (yes, single digits) for web development work or design work since there are places on the globe where you can get it for that price. Do you charge more than $9/hour?

I don’t know of any professionals working for single digits (maybe teenagers), I think that those days are over. There is the significant factor of geographical discrimination when it comes to rates. If you live in an emerging economy people expect your rates to be lower, and to get a job you may be forced to accept that regardless of the cost of living and overhead. To the 1st world, emerging markets are still synonymous to the immigrant workers who hang out behind Home Depot, cheap labor. Believe me, once you have seen what poverty is like in the 3rd world you will understand how much a difference $5/hr can make (but wait, they will only see that money weeks/months down the line after finally getting the check from PayPal and finding a local merchant to cash it).

But i digress.. IE sucks

LOL ... indeed.

I get the poverty and developing market rates. I just don’t get the notion that Apple charging reasonable prices for significant functional and usable upgrades of their core OS is somehow ridiculous just because they only run on their hardware. They have control over the hardware and experience for end users, and that’s a critical part of the Apple brand promise. When you inject commodity hardware and components into the mix—because the only effective way to compete with Apple would be on price—then there’s a chance that people would start to have a bad experience and it would be Apple’s fault, because that’s what the end users interact with.

I’ve got an older Mac that came with Panther (10.3) but it also runs Leopard (10.5). Is $129 worth it to get a much better performing and capable machine without having to throw it all out and upgrade to the latest, greatest Vista-capable (or WIndows 7) platform, as would likely be the case on the other side of the fence? Absolutely it is for me.

Granted, this ignores the Linux option which is probably a great one, but I’m not comfortable enough to explore that route for daily use ... and I am too depended on Adobe CS (PS/Illustrator/InDesign) to abandon Windows or OS X.

I sure would love to see Apple license OS X to HP or Dell though. That’d be awesome!

I just don’t get the notion that Apple charging reasonable prices for significant functional and usable upgrades of their core OS is somehow ridiculous just because they only run on their hardware.

It is in Apples own interest to have people running the best OS on the Apple systems. By not upgrading old systems, Apple is allowing for users to run a lesser OS than is available for their systems. The absence of the ’significant functional and usable upgrades’ will ultimately reflect on the quality of their product as well as add additional overhead in maintaining multiple OS versions. If they were competing in the OS market it would be one thing, but they are only competing in the hardware + software (as a unit) market and have no competition within the Apple market itself (other than *nix) so it is not like they are trying to get a larger market share with 10.4 vs. 10.5, they are already Mac users anyway.

With Windows I 100% understand and agree (never thought I would say that), they sell OS and that is their core business. It is totally within their interest to charge for upgrades. I just don’t think that Apple is correct in doing so. OSx should be free to download since it only runs on a Macs. If you download it then you have already paid Apple for the computer that you will run it on and that had ’hidden’ fees for OS development included anyway. Older computers will not be able to run newer OS so the user will be inclined to upgrade their entire PC and newer ones will be running top quality OS, everyone wins.

The lucky thing is that Mac does not have an obsolete browser packaged (although I have a client that was still using the IE5 that was packaged with her iMac, that is much worst than IE6).

I sure would love to see Apple license OS X to HP or Dell though. That’d be awesome!

I don’t understand how that would be a good thing? But I am old timer and am still getting over the fact that there is an Intel inside my mac. To me Intel and Windows were the "evil twins of the computer world" and now MS owns a part of Apple and Intel is inside it.