Hi, my name is Timo Ernst and I am a web expert.

Anti Internet Explorer 6 Plugin for WordPress

Posted on: March 21st, 2009 by Timo

I made a little plugin for WordPress that can detect visitors if they are using the Internet Explorer 6 or older. In this case, they would see a message that upgrading their browser or even switch to a different one would be a good idea.

This Plugin follows the idea of the “IE Dead March Project” which wants all webdevelopers to stop supporting the Internet Explorer 6.

For installation instructions, screenshots and download just visit the plugin-site of wordpress.org.

There is also a Drupal6 module available to automate this feature.

If you need the plugin in different languages, read this.

Please digg this if you like my plugin. Thank you.


Update: There was a critical bug in the old version 1.0 and 1.1.
In order to work properly, the plugin must be updated to version 1.2.
It is recommended to upgrade as soon as possible.
To do so, download the new version and overwrite your old files on your server. That’s it.

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30 Responses

  1. baron says:

    Works great, thank you

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  2. Timo says:

    You’re welcome :-)

    Feel free to post any improvements sugestions or bugs you’ve found.

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  3. GregR says:

    Good work, the older IE browsers are riddled with security and CSS problems. I agree 100%
    Thanks

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  4. Is it possible that you will make this anti Internet Explorer Module in more languages in the future ? I would like to se a Swedish one :)

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  5. Wolforg says:

    Hello, I’ve the same question as Glamor Johanna, but in french :-D
    If you serach someone to translate your pages infrench, fell free ton contact me ;-)

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  6. Timo says:

    Yes, that is possible as long as someone translates it for me

    If you want to do that, do it like this:

    1. Go to http://timo-ernst.net/stop-the-ie6/
    2. Open a new TXT file and translate each page into an own file
    3. Send it to me via http://www.timo-ernst.net/contact/

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  7. [...] habe eben das Anti Internet Explorer 6 Plugin for WordPress installiert, um so meinen Teil zu einer besseren Welt beizutragen. Aber seltsamerweise wird mein [...]

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  8. [...] however, is entirely under our control. Thus, we launched the blog with a WordPress plugin, the Anti Internet Explorer 6 Plugin, that conditionally meta-refreshes to a static page if someone has a version of IE less than or [...]

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  9. Brian says:

    Thanks so much for this plug-in, it’s exactly what I’m looking for, however after it is activated it is still not working…can you please help me.

    http://www.iheartatlas.com

    THANKS!

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  10. Timo says:

    Well, I had a look at your site and it seems like you already found a different plugin ;-)

    If you’re still lookin into MY plugin, something went wrong installing/activating it. I can’t find the according sourcecode in your html at least.

    What were the steps you took to install and activate it?
    Which version did you install?

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  11. Levani says:

    I would like to translate the message in Georgian language. What should I do for it? Feel free to contact me via email at any time.

    Thanks for the great plugin!

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  12. Timo says:

    Hi, unfortunately I can’t see your eMailadress.

    If you want to translate, just go to http://www.timo-ernst.net/stop-the-ie6 and translate everything on that site and then send it to me via eMail through http://www.timo-ernst.net/contact/
    (Don’t forget the 2nd link on the top of that site)

    IMPORTANT: You will have to do this once with Internet Explorer 6 and then again with a better browser like Firefox.

    Thanks for you help!

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  13. Timo says:

    I fear I don’t understand the language that your website is written in so I don’t clearly understand what your point is.

    As far as I understand, I think you missunderstood the purpose of my plugin.
    It’s intension is NOT only to reduce work for webdesigners by avoiding IE-hacks and stuff. It’s a general attempt to get rid of the IE6 because of all the bugs and security issues of that browser.
    The redundancy of special css adaptions for the IE-browsers is just a nice side-effect of that.

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  14. Gothika_47 says:

    Is there a option to make it show this message with EVERY internet explorer browser?All of them seem to suck…please reply to my question @ my email :)

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  15. Tim says:

    Nice ideal, but unfortunately many corporate reasons are locked into using IE6 because their web-apps don’t work in proper browsers.

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  16. Timo says:

    These are bad web-apps then, Tim ;-)

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  17. Anonymous says:

    @Timo

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  18. [...] I have been designing for the web since 1994 and unfortunately I carry baggage full of bitterness towards IE that occasionally clouds my judgment. I felt I was spending to much time fixing bugs for IE6. At this writing IE6 is less than 20% of the browser market. I decided it was not cost effective to continue to support it. If I was infatuated with WordPress before this decision I fell head over heals in love for sure enough there was a Plugin to the rescue— Anti Internet Explorer 6 Plugin. [...]

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  19. Rosa says:

    When I render my site in IE 6 on IE NetRender I dont see any IE 6 warning. How else can I confirm that the plugin really is working on IE 6?

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  20. Timo says:

    Hello Rosa,
    I had a look into the source code of your blog and it seems like you installed the plugin correctly.

    If you want to verify yourself if things are working properly, use the Adobe browserlab: http://browserlab.adobe.com
    It’s basically the same like the IE NetRenderer but… better ;-)

    Looks like IE NetRenderer does not use the correct user-agent for Internet Explorer 6. That’s why it’s still showing the old website instead of the warning-page.
    I used NetRenderer to view my own personal blog, where my plugin is installed and 100% working, and it didn’t show me the warning page.

    If you want to be 100% sure, you can always install a virtual maschine on your computer and install Windows XP. Make sure not to install to many updates for XP then, otherwise IE will be updated to version 7.0+.
    According to your latest blog-entry you seem to own a mac now (Welcome on board ;-) ). If you want to install a virtual machine on it, use Parallels Desktop or VMWare. Parallels is the more “Mac-way” of doing this though.

    A last but not that elegant solution could be to install IE6 on your mac natively using wine: http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

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  21. Rosa says:

    @Timo
    Thank you for your thorough response!

    I have tried out Adobe BrowserLabs in the past. Must have forgotten about it! I tested it out and the message instructs the user to update to the latest browser version, but doesn’t direct them to a download link.

    Is this something that can be added in the future? I think this would be useful, as the less savvy users probably haven’t a clue how to upgrade their browser.

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  22. Rosa says:

    I just realized the screenshot I get in Adobe BrowserLabs for IE6 does not match the screenshot provided along with the plugin. Hmmmmm….

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  23. Timo says:

    Yes, BrowserLab filters out the images, which link to the browser downloads. Don’t worry. They are there. Don’t know why browserlab filters them out though.

    Update: Seems like browserlab is working properly now and displaying the whole page. I made a quick screenshot here so you can see what’s going on: http://yfrog.com/70aiepbrowserlabscreenp

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  24. Rosa says:

    @Timo
    Thank you Timo! It was behaving a little funky that day :) You’re the best! And so is your plugin!

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  25. Timo says:

    Yeah, I know I’m the best but thanks for reminding me ;-)

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  26. Chris says:

    Is there a way for this to work with all IE versions?

    I hate them all, because all sites I design have problems only in IE.

    Firefox
    Chrome
    Opera
    Safari

    All work fine, always. Only IE keeps messing everything up and I’m tired of wasting hours and hours to fix errors in this crappy browser.

    Please email me if you have a solution. I would be VERY thankful.

    Chris

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  27. Timo says:

    Yes, that’s possible.

    In order to get this to work, you must uninstall any pre-installed versions of the Anti Internet Explorer 6 plugin and remove any code that you might have used for that.

    Then, in the <head>...</head> section of your website, enter this:

    <!--[if lte IE 9]><META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=http://www.timo-ernst.net/stop-the-ie6"><![endif]-->

    That should reject all IE users (up to IE9).

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