April 20th, 2009
Death to IE6?!
Finally, Microsoft is dropping IE6 support! At the end of April, Microsoft will begin offering IE8 as a automatic update to IE6 and IE7 users. This calls for a celebration.
Internet Explorer 6 has long been a fly in the web designer’s ointment. It takes longer to develop for IE6, its loaded with bugs, etc. The drawbacks have been well-documented. Some big companies like Apple, 37signals and now Google, have dropped IE6 support awhile back and are encouraging users to use Safari, Firefox or Chrome. Robert Nyman has written a nice post on his blog outlining some of problems with IE6 and why we should stop supporting it.
Web designers have gone back and forth about whether or not to continue to support it on the sites they build. There are two groups of people still using IE6 – users who don’t know about other browsers, and users trapped in corporate settings that won’t allow individuals to upgrade. So while many people may want to upgrade, they can’t. I hope with Microsoft pushing IE8 as an automatic update, all users will be able to upgrade.
I think its important to understand what will happen to an IE6 user if they enter your site, but I don’t think IE6 users need to get the exact same experience as users with current browsers. As much as I’d like to block IE6 users entirely, I don’t think that’s a workable option.
On a side note – I’ve noticed a number of sites specifically decidated to bringing IE6 down. Here are a few I’ve come across:
Posted in: Web design | Tagged: Web design