Maybe you have heard it a thousand times, or maybe you haven’t heard it before: “Is this website going to support IE6”. Unfortunately the answer is almost always a resounding Yes. These three letters have the ability to make any developer cringe similarly to the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
So maybe you are asking, what is this acronym, what does it stand for? Internet Explorer 6, IE6 for short, is the oldest supported web browser still in use today. It was released in 2001 when the Internet was just a teenager, still trying to find itself in the world. But what was once the leading browser in the world has now become the Elephant in the corner in a room of heavy weights that boast full Acid 3 support, CSS3 integration, and at the very least can render transparent graphics without ugly workarounds.
So now that we all understand what I am talking about, its time to look at why we are still punishing ourselves with this browser. Lets start with Digg, one of the largest social news sites on the Internet, whose IE6 users make up rougly ten percent of their total userbase. Digg surveyed all their IE6 users as to why they might just be using the most outdated browser, and the two largest reasons for not upgrading were that the user simply didn’t have Administrator access, or because someone at work told them they couldn’t.
Even large web-based companies such as 37signals have taken the cue that the IE6 market share wasn’t worth the time and cost of developing and tuning for. 37signals cut their support for IE6 more than a year ago.
I guess the real question that I want everyone to walk away from this with is: Does my website need to support IE6? To figure this out look at your Analytics, look at your user-base, take a deep breath and say ‘No’. Supporting this browser is only slowing the progression of the internet. The only way to encourage large workplaces and offices to spend money to upgrade is to stop supporting their browsers en-masse.
So please, save the developers. Its time to move on Internet.
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Matt, I hear that youtube is on board in getting these push through. Is this true? are you seeing any great articles about how this change is effecting Windows 7 ?
Thank, great information
Andrew
Google and Youtube are really pushing this through. The problem is that a lot of these sites are blocked at the workplaces that still run IE6 so it wont make that many waves.
Windows 7 penetration is helping, but only for people at home. The issue really is the large workforces and government orgs that don’t want to spend the money to update everything.