When to stop caring about a browser

I think jQuery helps a lot in dealing with IE6. You really have to weigh the cost to support it vs the benefits, given the makeup of your user base. Here's Resig's cost/benefit chart. I've found this kinda interesting to look at.

_{(source: ejohn.org)}
http://ejohn.org/blog/the-browsers-of-2009/

There's no magic answer to this question of course, though like the question the answer is simple. :)

You need to look at the data for visitors on that specific site, and then make a cost vs. benefit analysis, based on the extra effort it will take to support that browser vs. the number of visitors you expect to be using it.

There are other things you can do to make your life easier however. For example:

• Use frameworks (eg jQuery) to abstract away browser differences and bugs.
• Don't worry about pixel perfection cross-browser.
• Send IE 6 a simpler style-sheet, or no style-sheet at all.

Your still supporting the browser in these cases, just not giving it the level of support that you might a modern standards compliant browser.

See Yahoo's Graded Browser Support policy.

The problem with IE6 it's that it's still the standard browser on Windows XP in quite a lot of corporate environments. So basically Microsoft has to release a credible replacement for Windows XP before we can be rid of the dreaded IE6.

Edit: I had a once had a bug report "on behalf of 27,000 users" (IE6), we had a bug that was making our site unusable for a large corporate customer. In an otherwise slow-moving environment this bug was fixed and deployed in 2 days.

You do not need to lose your head on style sheet bugs and peculiarities of every web browser - no browser's display/layout engine is perfect. It is alright if your web site does not look optimal on some lesser used web browsers which are difficult to support. However, your web pages should be accessible and usable on old web browsers too.

This means:

• Write valid, well structured HTML, in proper markup that makes sense and is legible without stylesheets too (yes, not all browsers support them, and you never know how your page will be presented anyway). Your pages should make sense with stylesheets disabled.

• Try to write stylesheets that are as simple and structured as possible given the desired effect. That will increase the likely consistency of the layout and presentation among different implementations.

• Test your pages with stylesheets on web browsers and setups that you expect to be commonly used by the majority of your target audience, to see that they look good. Test them on a few older and less common browsers, to make sure that they look acceptable and are still legible and accessible, even if the fonts, spacing, and layout is not exactly what you want.

If it doesn't look really good as you designed on a very common browser (e.g. Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 nowadays, and more depending on your audience), that's a shame - even if it's because of a browser bug. Find ways to fix it or work around the bugs, occasionally you'll need to use some tricks to work around such bugs.

I do not know exactly how common various versions of Internet Explorer are. However, in general, if your site just plainly does not work or looks all garbled up on Internet Explorer 6 or a lesser common browser, that's bad.