I've been redesigning different aspects of my site, and keep having issues with IE 6. I hate it so much.<p>How many people think its a huge mistake to suggest to users to view the site in FF before entering (if they have IE)?
I think it depends on the site. Most programmers are probably already using FF while they browse - but if your target is the average home user, it might be more of a problem.<p>Personally, I don't like it when a website tells me I have to use a certain tool. Now granted, most of the problem is that IE chose to be different than everything else, but still - when I'm working, I would rather have a smaller feature-set that runs on everything than a larger feature-set that requires a certain browser. I would rather be told to use FF than IE (my utility company requires IE, and it bothers me because it's all financial transactions - and Microsoft has, on occasion, not even trusted its own product). But still - I would advise against requiring a certain browser.
I am on the same boat as you are.
However, you can expect people to upgrade from IE6 to IE7, but not IE to FF or Chrome. Think outside of the geekdom - people are used to and happy with IE and do not want to venture out into anything developed by hackers (for them hacker is still a bad word!).
I am planning to make my app IE7 & IE8 friendly (IE6, forget it! I will live with those users giving up on me).
Two years ago I hated IE6 as well, but then I discovered the wonders of inline-block and stopped using floats on anything but images. Since there's so many JavaScript and Flash only websites, I don't see what makes Firefox only any different. Just test in Safari and give notice that a Standards compliant(CSS3, SVG, Canvas) browser is required.
I don't think flat out denying entry with an ie6 useragent is the way to go.<p>I'd suggest throwing a banner across the top that says something like, "Your browser is outdated and some parts of this site may not function correctly. Upgrade here"<p>The more sites that encourage users off ie6 the better off we'll all be.
Telling users to use a different browser is pretty anoying. When designing websites I try to get the design as close as possible in IE6.
If you really want to tell people to upgrade, I'd suggest Pushup:
<a href="http://www.pushuptheweb.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pushuptheweb.com/</a>
i think its a huge mistake to _require_ users to get FF by either forcibly denying them, or by 100% ignoring cross-browser compatibility in such a way that your site is unusable in IE6. not yet, anyway, as IE6 still has a chunk of the market (15-ish%).<p>for the most part, building a web application that degrades gracefully is a good idea, and you can forcibly degrade it for older browsers.<p>and making a suggestion is good. there are quite a few sites that will show a message suggesting browser upgrades.<p>/$0.02