Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Righty-oh, here goes. Since my post about building the web for non-techies I’ve come across a reasonably intense and high-profile debate about a new-ish service that has become available for web designers and developers. IE6Update is a small script that detects if the user is browsing with IE6 and prompts them to upgrade. No problem there, right? Well on the face of it there isn’t. Believe you, me, I’d love nothing more than to see IE6 go the way of smallpox. What IE6Update does, however is sneaky and arguably very wrong and underhanded.

Upon detecting IE6, the script displays a message at the top of the browser window that is, to the untrained eye, identical to an official Windows or IE notification bar, you know, the kind that tells you about blocked pop-ups or necessary Active X controls. It even has the Windows Security icon! If you click this, you are taken to the Internet Explorer site and shown how to upgrade. This is where the argument starts. Paul Boag, in a recent chat with Ryan Carson discussed why he feels that IE6Update is totally wrong and he’s caught a fair bit of flak for it. I, however agree with him.

So what’s the problem then? Well despite duping users into upgrading their browser which raises clear moral questions (Read or watch Watchmen to understand my post title), you need to think about the audience you are targeting with this script. Typically IE6 users will fall into three categories;

• Users in corporate environments that either have bespoke apps relying on IE6 or operating systems incapable of supporting anything newer.
• Home users with old operating systems. There’s still plenty of them. Trust.
• Average Joe public who doesn’t know any different and, more importantly, doesn’t care.

Obviously those in corporate environments who can’t upgrade will be continually nagged by IE6Update and will get pretty annoyed and, if they do finally upgrade, their long suffering IT department will have a mess of work on their hands having to roll them back when their apps don’t work. People with old operating systems (Windows 2000 and even earlier)… Well, I think it’s pretty safe to say that an out of date browser is the least of their concerns and let’s not forget they’d be unable to upgrade IE even if they wanted to. As for the ignorant and un-interested; these people, based on the experience I have in tech support, will remain that way in spite of the message. A lot of these people are unable to make the distinction between their browser and the Internet, don’t forget.

So is IE6Update right for anyone? Well yeah, it’s bound to work some of the time. Some people will follow the link and ultimately will upgrade but is that group really worth using these kind of sneaky trick tactics? I don’t think so. We in the web industry are supposed to be the watchmen, championing the cause of honest improvement of the web. When we start tricking people into upgrading their browser out of what is, in the main, a shit-tonne of our own hang-ups with a hurdle to publishing fresh new content and features just seems like a perversion of our goals.

It might seem like an uphill struggle at times and it may get frustrating but I feel the only real way we can usher out IE6 once and for all is through education. What we need is for high profile individuals (not just in the web industry – The Stephen Fry’s, the Jason Bradburry’s, the BBC’s and ITV’s) to really spread the word and let people know the benefits of an up to date OS and browser. Let’s paraphrase a worthy cause: “Give a man an updated browser and he can browse more safely, but he remains part of the problem. Teach him the benefits of staying current and he can be part of the solution.”