Phasing out the IE Dinosaur
The bane of every web developers existence is Internet Explorer 6. When it was developed in 2001, it was a good web browser. However, it is now 2009 and there is a lingering population who still uses this now legacy technology.The problem with IE6 is that it does not meet with modern day web standards even some basic CSS styling components. As a result, developers must spend sometimes hours creating “hacks” that allow their sites to work within IE6 even when they appear correctly in every other browser currently in popular use.
Some reports are showing that 15% to 20% or users are still using IE6. All analytics that I personally monitor are showing less than 10% and some sites are receiving less than 5%. There are many organizations and groups who have recently banned together to start a movement to eliminate IE6 including the group at IE6 No More. Even some mainstream organizations such as YouTube are beginning to announce they will no longer support IE6 as a technology and only limited resources will be available to those who continue to use the browser. Even Microsoft is pushing for users to give up IE6 especially on the heals of the release of IE8 which Microsoft is actively pushing through its automatic updates.
So, if you are using IE6 to read this post I implore you to update your browser right now by installing IE8. Also, don’t forget that there are plenty of other popular browser alternatives available such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. If you haven’t tried one of these, I do encourage you to install IE8 AND one of the “other guys” even just to try it out, see what else is available.
