Out with the Old, in with the New

Well it has been with us since 2001, but finally the web community is giving up on making the aged browser work with modern websites.

The fact is there are many aspects of IE6 that were fine in 2001, but just won’t cut the mustard these days. IE6 does not fully support CSS version 2 which makes it difficult to ensure compatibility with other browsers. It also lacks support for alpha transparency in PNG images and the instability and security issues of IE6 have been well documented.

Would the last one to leave, please turn out the lights

Organisations around the world have been steadily abandoning support for IE6 since 2008 and in January 2010 Google (which also owns You Tube) announced it would no longer support IE6. WordPress which hosts millions of websites, joins a long list of providers that have officially decided that enough is enough in regards to IE6 and since March 2010 even Microsoft have been urging people to switch to a more modern browser.

So with the web community united in its condemnation of the browser, why is it still in use?

Who uses IE6?

It is in steep decline around the world with the massive exception of China, where it still comprises over 25% of browsers in use (7.7% of the overall world usage statistics). This is mainly due to the large number of older PCs in circulation in China and will likely plummet over time as newer, improved technology becomes more readily available.

To see which countries are phasing it out visit the Internet Explorer 6 Countdown.

In the UK IE6 currently hovers at around 1.4% of users, level with Canada, Brazil and Australia and trailing behind the US, Finland, Norway and Turkey! One reason for this relatively high level of usage on the UK is the resistance to adopting new browser technologies, demonstrated by several Government departments, including the MOD.

But, What if the Client wants it?

Like anything in the world of the web, (almost) all things are possible – the problem is who wants to pay double the cost of developing and building a site, for the 1.4% of IE6 users that remain?

As with so many decisions it is important to examine your audience and business needs – if your audience is comprised of Military Personnel who view your website from a DII system then a certain amount of compatibility will be required, however given the limitations of IE6 it simply won’t be possible to have all of the modern features and interactions available with other browsers. This is a good rule of thumb – if it is a requirement of the client, then additional testing and fixing time will have to be included and should probably cost extra. It is amazing how often an extra charge will remove the ‘requirement’ but if it persists then there is probably a genuine need and some sort of compromise will need to be reached.

So which browser should I be using?

Again, this depends very much on what you will be using it for. For most standard consumer uses you can pretty much take your pick – Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Chrome – they all have a variety of features that may appeal to you, so try them out – just make sure you keep the software up to date with all the latest versions, patches and updates.

As web developers/web marketers we like Firefox. It’s fairly stable, has load of add-ons and plugins to enable you to view websites, change elements of them for testing or provide additional marketing resources such as page rank and traffic data. It also has some nice features for working from home such as syncing your work Firefox with your home edition so your bookmarks, history etc are the same.

+Innovative Consultancy UK