Sean Walther's Blog

The Pending Browser Hell – On IE Half Life

Paul Irish, wrote Browser Market Pollution: IE[x] is the new IE6, which details the complexities we have coming up for us as web developers.

I’m glad to see someone fully thought this through.  Browser half life is a significant issue for website accessibility.

When was the last time someone asked you to get your site working in Chrome 9?  Well, that was 3 releases ago, as was IE6 (I’m even ignoring the fact that Chrome 9 was February 2011, and not August of 2001 for IE6).  I’m constantly hearing that a client is asking for IE6 support.  I do all I can to dissuade them (logic, reasoning, and finally .. a 30% surcharge as it requires much more time to debug and handle), but IE6 support is still an issue.  Why?

Because of the half life of Microsoft browsers.

› Continue reading

Tags: Arstechnica, Browsers, Chrome, IE, ie6, IE7, IE8, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Paul Irish

Brower Market Share: Chrome at 10.7%, IE 6 at 12.03% – Companies upgrading from IE6

ConceivablyTech has done a good job summarizing the data from NetMarketShare.

From The Third Double-Digit Browser: Chrome Blasts Past 10%:

Google’s Chrome had another successful month and ended 2010 with 10.70% market share, according to Net Applications and almost 16% according to StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to lose market share on a fast pace while Mozilla’s Firefox is fighting and tightly holding on to the market share it has.

› Continue reading

Tags: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Ie 6, ie6, IE7, IE9, Internet Explorer, mozilla, Net Applications, Safari, web developer

Facebook to drop IE6 support on IE9 beta day, September 15

I’ve been quiet for  while, and wanted to start up again with some great news.  Facebook is going to stop IE6 support for chat on the IE9 beta day.

Projects always ask about IE6 support, whether they need it, etc.  Surprisingly IE7 and IE8 support is also an issue, since they don’t support many of the cool toys supported by actual modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox).

I hope IE9 quickly replaces at least the IE7 and IE8 communities.  IE 6 seems here to stay, at least for that last 6-8%.

Some other information from that article:

• Microsoft will support IE6 until April 2014
• Google has removes IE6 support in Google Docs, Google Sites, Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube!
• Microsoft Office Web Apps doesn’t even support IE6 (how could you when trying to do anything cool)

The article quotes numbers as high as 17% for IE6 usage share, but I haven’t seen those numbers in a long time.  My website enjoys an IE6 user base of 0.5% (in the last month, whereas IE, all versions, was around 19%).  Other larger websites I manage see around 7.7% IE6 usage (with IE, all versions, being an amazing 55% of overall traffic).

Tags: browser support, Chrome, Facebook, Google, Ie 6, IE 7, IE 8, ie6, IE7, IE8, Internet Explorer, internet explorer 6, Microsoft

CSS3 and HTML5 For the masses: HTML5Shiv and CSS3 PIE make it possible

Everywhere I look on the web (the web developer web that is) is CSS3 this, jQuery that, shadows, HTML5.

Such a tease, what about our minimum browser requirements spec?  Damn IE6 is yet again 10% of the target demographic.

Not only is IE6 the problem, but so is the most recent IE8, as well as IE7.  They just don’t support CSS3 and HTML5.

Now we have some solutions…

› Continue reading

Tags: css3, css3 PIE, HTML5, ie6, IE7, IE8, PIE, shiv, web developer

Help: IE7 won’t load my JSON but IE8 will – Using a JSON Validator

I just ran into this issue, and found surprisingly little documentation.  My JSON request wasn’t returning.  I was using the jQuery “getJSON” method to send the request out.  Nothing was coming back.

› Continue reading

Tags: Chrome, Firefox, getJSON, IE7, IE8, Internet Explorer, jQuery, JSON, JSON Validator, JSONLint, Safari

Google Chrome 4.0: Extensions and Bookmark Sync

Today Google officially announced the release of Chrome 4.0.  The update features two major pieces of functionality, Extensions and Bookmark Syncing.  If you already have Google Chrome, just click on the “tool” -> About Google Chrome, and click on “Update” in the lower right corner next to the OK window.  Otherwise, download it from Google. › Continue reading

Tags: adblock, bookmarks, Chrome, Firebug, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, IE, IE Tab, IE7, IE8, iPhone, Xmarks

IE6 and IE7 limit CSS links to 30

Help!  Working in Drupal and having trouble getting stylesheets to work?  Did they break all of a sudden in Internet Explorer only?

I can’t see my stylesheets anymore in IE6 or IE7!

Internet Explorer limits the number of stylesheets included with a LINK tag

That’s right.  If you include an additional CSS file beyond 30, it will break other CSS files.

This problem is only in IE6 and IE7.  Officially I’m sure Microsoft says the fix is to upgrade to IE8.

What code causes the problem? Perfectly valid code below:

[sourcecode language='html'][/sourcecode]

Just repeat that 31 times, and you will see an error.

The Solution

While <link> tags may have issues beyond 30 stylesheets being included, you can cheat with using @import.

For example, include CSS using the following instead:

[sourcecode language='html']

[/sourcecode]

If you’re working in Drupal, there’s a module that implements this fix for you, IE Unlimited CSS Loader.

Tags: CSS, Drupal, fix, HTML, ie6, IE7, Import, Internet Explorer, Link, Microsoft