As to the automatic deployment of IE7, there still seems to be some issues. According to recent statistics IE 6 is still more widely used than IE 7

This statistic could also be influenced by other browsers forging as IE6. But as I don’t know how much this impacts the statistic, I dont want to emphasize this.

If you have a close look at my demo page, you can see that this is exactely what I intend to show to the user as soon as he clicks on the “Details” button.

Ah there was a link. So much for usability I don’t like the text “This page may not look…” because it focuses on the technical limitations that a normal user is not concerned with. As a normal user I simply do not bother if my browser adheres to standards or how much hacking-effort is required to support it. All I want is to use the webpage and thus such a message could at least be annoying or even offending to some users.
Maybe the text could focus more on the things that is gain by upgrading to IE7, e.g. RSS-feed, security, tabs. This is still not an optimal solution, but at the moment I dont have anything better in mind.

I don’t think so. If web developers have to worry less about browser hacks, they can adhere more easily to standards. And standards will improve accessibility.

But the common browser-hacks for IE6 are well-known and documented since a long time. So it should not be that much effort to support it.

That’s true. I wanted to write the article a little provocative, so I didn’t want to include those “special” cases.

But these special cases are the sites that attract the majority of the users. If somebody at http://frickel.gnu.org/~whatever puts this on his webpage, he wouldnt achieve anything, because he has few users, most of them do not even use IE and/or do already know about the problems with it. You have to reach the big sites, which can thus influence many users. And these sites depend heavily on their users either directly or indirectly.

As to the automatic deployment of IE7, there still seems to be some issues. According to recent statistics IE 6 is still more widely used than IE 7. This might be due to Windows Update being disabled or because some system administrators specifically block the Internet Explorer upgrade.

In general I think that you have to explain to users where the advantage in upgrading to IE7

If you have a close look at my demo page, you can see that this is exactely what I intend to show to the user as soon as he clicks on the “Details” button.

(…) Isn’t now your idea of abolishing IE6 contradicting this approach

I don’t think so. If web developers have to worry less about browser hacks, they can adhere more easily to standards. And standards will improve accessibility.

Websites that depend on their users (…) have still no choice but supporting IE6.

That’s true. I wanted to write the article a little provocative, so I didn’t want to include those “special” cases.

In general I think that you have to explain to users where the advantage in upgrading to IE7 (which has a new look and feel and maybe other compatibility issues) lies, instead of showing some annoying messages, which remind me of the “This page is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.0 and a resolution of bla”-notes in good old web 1.0 days.

And as a last point: In recent years there has been made much effort in making the web accessible and usable by as many users as possible. Isn’t now your idea of abolishing IE6 contradicting this approach?

Websites that depend on their users (e.g. web shops, or private websites that depend on their advertisments) have still no choice but supporting IE6.

P.S: I find a current statistic that shows how many people are still using IE6 on Windows XP/Vista/2000(?) (and thus have a chance to upgrade) missing in your post.