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I'm wondering if it's appropriate to try and get my user base to upgrade from IE6 to newer browsers? Right now we only have 5% of users coming from IE6 or less, we of course don't want to support IE6 further, but is it bad practice to offer suggestions to those using older browsers?

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Please, please, do! However, it's unlikely to help. – SLaks Jan 21 '11 at 18:22
@SLaks: It's unlikely to help on its own merit only. But well, after several years of "IE6 is a deprecated browser" from everywhere, people and organizations are starting to abandon it - precisely because the pressure against it is rising, one iota at a time. – Piskvor Jan 21 '11 at 22:22
Yes. Nothing more. nothing less. Yes. With the big fish no longer supporting IE6 no reason to feel guilty. – WernerCD Jan 21 '11 at 23:06
Thank you for all the responses guys. – MrGrigg Jan 24 '11 at 18:48

2 Answers

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Most people using IE nowadays either do not want to upgrade or cannot upgrade either due to cost or they are using a work computer and cannot do upgrades to their software. For these people telling them to upgrade will really just be an annoying message (that they're probably getting in a lot of other places).

At this point, just build your websites to take advantage of newer technologies and just be sure they degrade gracefully in IE 6. As long as your site still works for them they'll keep using it. Their experience just won't be quite as good us that of users with more modern browsers.

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"using a work computer and cannot do upgrades to their software" and "telling them to upgrade will really just be an annoying message" +1 – MrG Jan 21 '11 at 18:08
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A small message, which they can choose to remove, is not harmful imo. Can be implemented easily using cookies/sessions and optionally javascript.

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