Long Nguyen

I Should Have Blocked Internet Explorer 6 Users a Long Time Ago

Internet Explorer 6 has been the bane of every web designers, developers, programmers’ existence. We all make websites work in Firefox, then we all test in Safari, Opera, Flock, etc. and to our heart’s desire, things just work. Our tests reveal that, there is nothing to change. Everything just works. It sounds reasonable to stop there, but we can’t. Many users are still using Internet Explorer 6 which happens to be the last browser in which we test and this is where all hell breaks loose.

Well, for a very long time, I have been tired of letting all hell breaking loose and having to fix my designs for people who just won’t upgrade. I am taking action now against those people: my website is no longer available for visitors who are using Internet Explorer 6.

The green portion on the left pie represent Internet Explorer users while blue represent Firefox users. The pie on the right represent all Internet Explorer users with green being IE6 users and blue being IE7 users.

I am well aware of all the potential customers I will lose through this move, but this isn’t about freelancing, looking for clients or making money. This is about pointing people in the right direction.

For clients, it is a good thing for web designers not to work on making things work for Internet Explorer. I don’t know about other designers, but I am not nice and I will charge for every second spent on fixing for a browser that is total crap.

Now, through everything I have written, you have no idea why Internet Explorer is so bad, so read what Chris Pirillo wrote in 2004 about dumping IE. You may think 2004 is outdated, but keep in mind that Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001. That release date would be first reason why IE6 is crap.

You could very well think that I am a lazy designer, that I simply don’t want the extra work of fixing and you are right. I don’t want that extra work. Nobody wants that extra useless work. However, I do believe in getting rid of Internet Explorer 6. I believe in it so much that I am blocking those users even though my website displays the way I want it to in IE6 (I spent time on fixing). My blog is the only part that can still be viewed by anybody. I actually blocked the part that brings me clients: my portfolio.

This is my call to anybody working on the web and everybody else: Make a move to get rid of Internet Explorer 6.

I am using this script to block IE6 users and I am using Firefox as my default browser.