Several weeks ago Internet Explorer 8 came to life. 9 years ago the disaster Internet Explorer 6 was released. Believe it or not IE6 is not dead.
30% of all users that visit compojoom.com are using Internet Explorer. 25% of these 30% are using IE6. That are 2000 people per month that are experiencing poor security and a terrible user experience with this browser.
Our duty as developers is to educate the users and offer them the best possible web experience! Since I don't want to repeat what other people say I will just give you some important links to read:
http://robertnyman.com/2009/02/09/stop-developing-for-internet-explorer-6/ - Very good article explaining why we should stop developing for IE6! A must read!
Here are few sites that started campaigns to stop IE6!
http://www.stopie6.org/
http://www.bringdownie6.com/
http://iedeathmarch.org/
http://idroppedie6.com/
It is time for the joomla community to show its support and bann IE6! Don't waste money and energy on developing for IE6, give your energy on educating your users to use modern browsers!
Starting from today IE6 is not a browser, that compojoom is going to support and tolerate! I'm not going to develop for IE6, neither will be devoted to make anything work with this browser.
We have already the tools to educate! There is a plugin in the joomla repository that will display a message if the user uses ie6:
iewarning
YOOiecheck
I personally prefere iewarning, because I don't have to worry about module positions and the message "You are using IE6 ...." displays always! It is a little bit intrusive, but if we want to change something, then we have to do it! We should not let the user take this warning as annother annoying popup! They should read it and do the necessary steps!
You can check the browser statistic at w3school.
Here is compojoom's statistic for the IE browser:
I will publish it every month until the visitis from IE get under 5%.
What now?
If you are joomla extension developer: please stop to develop for IE6 and tell your users to upgrade!
If you are joomla administrator: please install iewarning or YOOiecheck to notify your users!
If you are joomla user that still uses IE6 - well you know what you have to do!
LET US MAKE THIS TOGETHER HAPPEN!!!
