Sleepy CoderWeb Developers shouldn’t support Internet Explorer 6
Surprisingly even with the release of Internet Explorer 8 back in 2009 there is still a wide audience of people who insist on keeping their very outdated version of IE6. Yet my theory is that to finally rid us web developers of the dreaded IE6 we should be cutting support for it.
Of course there are many reasons why people don’t upgrade their browsers. Some people don’t know how to upgrade, others simply don’t want to upgrade. Whatever the reason it’s becoming an increasing hassle for web developers. Not only do web developers have to keep up to date with all the latest browsers, such as the recent release of IE8, but they also have to keep fixing their outdated counterparts. So, what does that mean for web developer? More work, that’s what it means!
According to the popular W3Schools (www.w3schools.com) at least 9.6% of people as of February 2010 still use IE6. Now this statistic may not be exact depending on your website audience but it definitely gives you a rough estimate. To have 9.6% of the internet population still use IE6 is definitely worrying. Not only are their computers open to more virus attacks due to a highly decreased security but they are also going to be seeing a lot more broken websites at incredibly low speeds due to some developers already ditching support for IE6.
IE6 has been around since late 2001. It has definitely been a browser that changed the World Wide Web. I remember it use to be the fastest most reliable browser of its time. But nine years later I think it’s time to let it go and more on to more stable and faster releases such as Firefox, Chrome and even Internet Explorer 8. Even Microsoft no longer supports IE6 so why should we developers have to support it for customers who simply don’t want to upgrade?
In my opinion the faster web developers drop support for IE6 the faster we can move on to better technology, faster web browsing and less time spent hacking IE6.
What’s your opinion regarding IE6 support?
Of course there are many reasons why people don’t upgrade their browsers. Some people don’t know how to upgrade, others simply don’t want to upgrade. Whatever the reason it’s becoming an increasing hassle for web developers. Not only do web developers have to keep up to date with all the latest browsers, such as the recent release of IE8, but they also have to keep fixing their outdated counterparts. So, what does that mean for web developer? More work, that’s what it means!
According to the popular W3Schools (www.w3schools.com) at least 9.6% of people as of February 2010 still use IE6. Now this statistic may not be exact depending on your website audience but it definitely gives you a rough estimate. To have 9.6% of the internet population still use IE6 is definitely worrying. Not only are their computers open to more virus attacks due to a highly decreased security but they are also going to be seeing a lot more broken websites at incredibly low speeds due to some developers already ditching support for IE6.
IE6 has been around since late 2001. It has definitely been a browser that changed the World Wide Web. I remember it use to be the fastest most reliable browser of its time. But nine years later I think it’s time to let it go and more on to more stable and faster releases such as Firefox, Chrome and even Internet Explorer 8. Even Microsoft no longer supports IE6 so why should we developers have to support it for customers who simply don’t want to upgrade?
In my opinion the faster web developers drop support for IE6 the faster we can move on to better technology, faster web browsing and less time spent hacking IE6.
What’s your opinion regarding IE6 support?
