Web browser marketshare

[Grimace]

Does anyone know of any authoritative resources for finding browser marketshare or userbase? I have found different examples #1 and #2 that have very different results.

A component to a page that I am designing doesn't like IE6, but plays nicely with all other browsers including IE7. I'm trying to gauge what kind of impact this would have -- as in, how many people still use IE6?

[Mal]

The IE 6 results there aren't different enough to make a difference in your coding. There's still a heck of a lot of people out there using IE 6. Unless you can look at your personal web hosting statistics and see that you're only getting, oh, less than 3% or so IE 6 users, then I'd say you need to make it work for them. It's far more common than most other web browsers, apparently only lagging behind IE 7 in both of those (IIRK).

jW

[Aea]

If it's a design based problem and you're using CSS you can prefix an attribute with an underscore, which only IE6 will use. For example sometimes there's problems involved with windows horrible implementation of the box model, so sometimes css like this can be useful...

width:600px;
_width:590px;

Also, here's some stats on my website, which might be helpful to you, my users are more or less technically inclined. Also, AwStats doesn't differentiate between IE6 and IE7, so this won't be terribly helpful in that regard.

Firefox 54.3 %
MS Internet Explorer 29 %
Opera 7.7 %
Wget 5.3 % //Internal Use
Safari 1.6 %
Mozilla 1.4 %
iBrowse 0.1 %
Camino 0 % // Rounded, some use.
Netscape 0 % // Rounded, some use.

[md11]

As said before, that totally depends on the page you're running.
For example: If you have an apple fan-page like macrumors.com you'll get less IE6 traffic compared to a page where the average user surfs: hotmail.com.
Best will be to find out your statistics.

[Grimace]

Originally Posted by Aea

If it's a design based problem and you're using CSS you can prefix an attribute with an underscore, which only IE6 will use. For example sometimes there's problems involved with windows horrible implementation of the box model, so sometimes css like this can be useful...

width:600px;
_width:590px;

This is exactly the problem. I have limitations on what I can use (based on those who update the site) so there is a table providing the border of the content. Inside of that there is a left hand nav vertical nav menu -- then 800px of content room. (A fixed-width Flash box of 800px needs to span the top.) Every other friggin browser knows how to count up to 800! IE6 gets to 785px or so (thinking that it has reached 800px -- and it bumps it way down the page to fit *below* where the left nav-bar is. [Reduced-quality example of correct placement below]

It seems like a familiar problem to folks here. The dash model [width:600px; _width:590px;] sounds VERY promising. Is there a resource on how to implement that? (I doubt that it's as simple as "IE6 always reads "_width" and no other browsers do". THANKS SO MUCH!

[radiantm3]

Originally Posted by Grimace

This is exactly the problem. I have limitations on what I can use (based on those who update the site) so there is a table providing the border of the content. Inside of that there is a left hand nav vertical nav menu -- then 800px of content room. (A fixed-width Flash box of 800px needs to span the top.) Every other friggin browser knows how to count up to 800! IE6 gets to 785px or so (thinking that it has reached 800px -- and it bumps it way down the page to fit *below* where the left nav-bar is. [Reduced-quality example of correct placement below]

It seems like a familiar problem to folks here. The dash model [width:600px; _width:590px;] sounds VERY promising. Is there a resource on how to implement that? (I doubt that it's as simple as "IE6 always reads "_width" and no other browsers do". THANKS SO MUCH!

Sounds like it's the box model problem. And you should not be experiencing that issue in IE6. Did you set a doctype in your html? Otherwise IE6 goes into quirks mode (legacy) and messed up the box model. And as I and a few mentioned, css hacks should be avoided when possible. And using conditional comments for IE is the best way to solve ie bugs. But you shouldn't be having the box model problem in the first place in IE6.

[Grimace]

hmm....well - the problem for me is that all of the CSS is controlled via some proprietary system [referenced] much higher up in the code. I know they use a bunch of IE6 hacks used to combat other problems.

[epochblue]

Originally Posted by radiantm3

Sounds like it's the box model problem. And you should not be experiencing that issue in IE6. Did you set a doctype in your html? Otherwise IE6 goes into quirks mode (legacy) and messed up the box model. And as I and a few mentioned, css hacks should be avoided when possible. And using conditional comments for IE is the best way to solve ie bugs. But you shouldn't be having the box model problem in the first place in IE6.

I'm glad someone else pointed this out. It's amazing how many people I've come across that don't realize this.

[radiantm3]

Developing for IE6 is still very important. Windows users in general tend to be very slow at upgrading.

Originally Posted by Mal

The IE 6 results there aren't different enough to make a difference in your coding. There's still a heck of a lot of people out there using IE 6. Unless you can look at your personal web hosting statistics and see that you're only getting, oh, less than 3% or so IE 6 users, then I'd say you need to make it work for them. It's far more common than most other web browsers, apparently only lagging behind IE 7 in both of those (IIRK).

jW

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

[jng]

Originally Posted by radiantm3

Developing for IE6 is still very important. Windows users in general tend to be very slow at upgrading.

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

Agreed.

Just use the following:

<!--[if IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/ie.css" />
<![endif]-->

Also if you post the link maybe someone here can help you find the problem and a workaround.

[mnkeybsness]

Originally Posted by radiantm3

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

I don't understand why people think conditional comments are new... they've been around for years. It's only been since Microsoft told everyone the best way to make an IE7 or IE6 specific stylesheet that many of you heard about it.

Also, I'd trust W3Schools' stats more than "Market Share". But overall, you should always look at your audience. The more technical (or "nerdy") the audience, the more Firefox users you will have. The more Apple Fan Boys, the more Safari users you'll have. But since there will always be stragglers that are forced to use IE6 because of IT lockdown in large corporations or Universities, it will always be best to learn how to do things right and just support everyone.

[radiantm3]

Originally Posted by mnkeybsness

I don't understand why people think conditional comments are new... they've been around for years. It's only been since Microsoft told everyone the best way to make an IE7 or IE6 specific stylesheet that many of you heard about it.

Who thinks they are new?

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by mnkeybsness

Also, I'd trust W3Schools' stats more than "Market Share".

Why? That seems totally crazy.

W3Schools's stats are just for their site, so they'll have a bias towards web developers, which means the data is highly likely to be biased.

Hitslink's data is for lots of sites with a wide variety of different subjects so their data is likely to be better.

[Grimace]

huh, it does like the box model problem. My content is 800px wide (photo gallery!) but IE6 needs to have it be 780px or so to fit correctly.

Here is the top of my code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>


I'll keep playing around with things...thanks for all your help so far!!