Im one of the few, who have ditched support for IE6 and ealier browser versions, without even looking back. The code simply becomes a mess if you must support all these broken browsers!

It’s not worth complaining about as most problems with IE6 are solved by using the same solutions. (float:left;, height:1px;. etc).

To be honest I’m kind of worried about what happens when we do drop IE6. People will get a bit complacent when they don’t have to try hard to work on all browsers, resulting in some “lazy” coding. Probably less testing too.

it is our *job* to support it

Well put! It’s all fine and well to code first and foremost for modern browsers, but to disregard the other 50% would be, as you say, “arrogant”.

@John:

Half my clients don’t even have sufficient access to their systems to upgrade their own browsers

Good point. It’s safe to assume that in most corporate environments IE is the preferred web browser, and many IT managers are understandably cautious of doing company wide browser upgrades. It is futile to punish end-users for a situation over which they have no control.

@Phil:

“This page best viewed in….” messages is also a bad idea, there are no longer so-called browser wars

My feeling as well. I think it’s possible to design for modern browsers while ensuring pages degrade gracefully in old – yet still relevant – browsers such as IE6. Besides, within a couple of years the majority will have upgraded to Vista, with IE7 pre-installed.

It stinks of slackness and disrespect imo

Blocking out users of certain browsers or bringing back the “This page best viewed in….” messages is also a bad idea, there are no longer so-called browser wars as most browsers are getting closer to the standards. It is possible to deliver a reasonable site in IE6 without too many hacks and I would certainly rather do that than block out half the users of the internet! I do however like to leave adverts to upgrade to Firefox within IE conditional comments, but I know that’s not going to make a huge difference!

Finally, your point about who gets the blame for bad websites is totally right. Your average user doesn’t know about browser bugs or standards support. When they see a broken website they will leave and not return, not something you want to inflict on your clients.

While *forcing* people to upgrade to a better browser is a great idea in the imaginary world, in the real world, imagine having to tell your clients that the broken site they are seeing in IE6 really does work, and that furthermore, they are to blame for having an out of date browser is to say the least, a hard sell.

Half my clients don’t even have sufficient access to their systems to upgrade their own browsers, let alone the know-how, not to mention that only a year ago I was having to support IE5.0 for a company whose IT was refusing to update.

btw what is a good way to get IE6 to show transparent pngs???

answer here

When you compare it to IE5 (don’t even mention IE5 Macintosh in my presence), IE6 is really a piece of cake to keep happy.