How to tell users that his browser is not supported

Question

I work for a small company and we are developing a network of expression. Having very few resources that we have, we cannot afford to assemble the development team that we would like (we are only two people). Over time, the web application becomes very complex, and very difficult to make progress in IEx, Firefox, Safari and others. We try to be clean when coding, so we have an almost functional web application for all non-IEx modern browsers, but IE is another story.

How do we inform users that IE is not supported at all, and they need to install a modern browser to continue?

Please keep in mind that the question is not whether we should or should not support IE. Because we will not do it. The question is how to inform users to change the browser.

We currently have a small white border at the top of the page that displays some text and has some links to Firefox and Chrome. Do you have any ideas on how to achieve this? Anyone who has addressed this issue before and has some experience?

Answer 1

1) Do you support a gracefully reduced subset of functionality in IE?

If so, display a warning message when the user first views the application, indicating that due to technical limitations of Internet Explorer software, application functionality is reduced

If not, display an explicit error page indicating that you need a different browser.

2) Do your potential users have a high level of trust in you?

If the Joe Schmoe web page appears and tells me to install XXX, I will say that the web page is "no."

Thus, the best approach is to link to some TRUSTED web source explaining non-IE browsers and how to install them, or instead of your own instructions.

Answer 2

IE supports conditional comments, which is rather strange, but in this case it will work. You can do something like this:

<!--[if IE]> Get a better browser! <![endif]--> 

In any other browser (FF, chrome, safari, etc.) It will look like a regular HTML comment and will be ignored, however IE will really appreciate the expression and display what you ask.

Edit: See the MSDN article on conditional comments for more information. This feature has existed since about IE 5, so it is quite safe and reliable to use.

Answer 3

Consider Chrome Frame support for people who have to use IE6 (in a corporate environment).

And although it’s quite clear that you don’t support IE6, if you cannot support IE8, you are doing something wrong. Work on IE8 standards-based on IE8 should be very small after it already works on Firefox and WebKit.

Answer 4

People always install additional software and clients to use different services. But when you offer a different browser, they sometimes become hostile.

Try to find a wording explaining that this is just another piece of software, another client, and that they don’t need to give up their beloved Internet Explorer. They just need the current browser for your website / web application.

Installing additional Google Chrome and Firefox add-ons to an existing Internet Explorer is as easy as installing a new version of GET-ME-PORN and I-DON'T-PAY-FOR-MUSIC.

Something like that:

To use this web application, you need to use another client. Launch Firefox> = 3.5, Google Chrome, Safari> = 4 or Opera> = 9 and visit that address again.

You can install any current browser other than Internet Explorer without any problems. Just run the downloaded installer, just like any other installer. Internet Explorer was not hurt! Do not change the default browser if you do not want to.

You can associate browser names with download pages.

And to critics: can you take part in Second Life with your browser? Can you play World of Warcraft in your browser?

Answer 5

If you use jQuery, IE discovery is as simple as:

 if ( $.browser.msie ) alert( 'Unfortunately, you are using Internet Explorer, which is obsolete...' ); 

Answer 6

Well, although I do not recommend that you do this, display this image to them:

_{(source: gosquared.com )}

and say: "Instead of wasting time on IE, we choose ......." (achieve the goal, etc.)

And provide some links to download a web browser. Do not provide much, people can get confused.

You can also provide some links, such as: http://stopie.wordpress.com/

Answer 7

Most commentators ignore the issue and discuss the use of IE. stesch probably has a reasonable answer so far.

Answer 8

IE conditional comments are more reliable than user agent strings.

<!--[if IE ]> Go away <![endif]-->

Answer 9

Regarding the mechanics of how to do this, it looks like MSIE's conditional comments will let you handle this.

As for the wording, be careful. You do not want to annoy people, even if you do not support their browser. You should probably recommend something like "This site works best with Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Chrome." If your site will work under MSIE, but not so elegantly, then say so - carefully.

One of the internal corporate sites that I have to use does not support Firefox on MacOS X (and this makes it unnecessary in the browser - I did not investigate why, it works fine with Firefox on XP, but I only load XP from time to time these days, mainly to keep it more or less relevant with security patches). A dialog box appears in which I am told so much, but allows me to continue. The material works - it just looks rotten.

Answer 10

The answers are a bit outdated, and its first hit when you ask Google how to check an outdated browser from a web application, so below is a solution that I found more elegant.

There is a good and non-intrusive alternative, which is to insert the check suggested by browser-update.org . The website will redirect the user to the latest version of each browser. Then the user can choose a brand with which he feels more familiar.

I understand that the OP wanted to specifically abandon the IE browser, but since 3 years the situation has changed, and IE version 10 is -quit-usable now and can be considered as an alternative to another browser for a modern web application.