Posts tagged facebook

Someone said “IE 6 is pretty much like cancer, for the web” and i think they are right.
It is an old browser it hasn’t evolved in years and its full of security flaws…
It is still used in many companies i know, i had the experience not long ago, with a client who had most of their computers with that browser.
Create a new website didn’t took me long, but make it work on IE 6 took me nearly as twice the time i used for coding the website.

IE 6 has to go its a dinosaur, webmasters waste too much time trying to adapt their websites to that browser.
The problem is IT people who don’t care about upgrading, will not care unless important websites stop working on this browser.
That is why several important websites are stopping their support on IE 6.

According to the W3C in June 2009 there were something like 14,9% of the people who were still surfing on IE 6. You can see the full stats here

Digg asked the people why are you still using IE 6
37% couldn’t upgrade because they don’t have admin rights to the machine (they have a crappy IT deparment who don’t really care about security)
32% can’t because they have someone telling them they can’t! (some people in their office like it the good ol’ times better…even if they are wrong)
17% think they don’t need to upgrade (or they are too lazy to do it)
7% can’t because their computer is old and they can’t have a newer version of windows (linux could be a good solution for these people)
7% preffer that browser (they probably didn’t try something else)
you can see the source for these stats here

Youtube, facebook have also announced they are stopping support on this browser and rumors says google will soon do the same.
Not having facebook or youtube will probably annoy lots of home users who had IE 6…but they can upgrade on their own…
Many companies block websites like facebook, youtube or digg to avoid people wasting their time on those websites (unless they are community managers for their company or something like that).
Google usually is not blocked in companies. If Google stop supporting IE 6 that will annoy lazy IT deparments for sure, they will get lots of calls from all their users and they will be pretty much forced to upgrade.

I have decided to stop support IE 6 on this website too. i know i don’t have lots of visitors with that browser but the web has to evolve and this website evolves too.
I will stop wasting my time making it compatible with that dinosaur.
From now on if you enter this website with that browser you will get a link to download a newer browser (IE 8, firefox, opera, safari, etc).

So, kiss goodbye IE 6 and Welcome HTML 5! :)

For those on twitter there is a petition going on here

via: mashable

Related articles

• YouTube and Digg help speed up the slow death of IE6 (downloadsquad.com)
• Still Using I.E. 6 ? It Is Time To Upgrade That Browser (lockergnome.com)
• YouTube will cut loose IE6; Digg may, too (seattlepi.com)