
I think it may have been 2006 when web developers everywhere first thought they saw the light at the end of the IE6 tunnel. We knew a day would come when we could stop wasting so much time getting our websites to work in that crappy browser. It is now 2009. Though the IE6 browser share has gone down significantly, there’s still a good 20% average of users out there browsing with the technology of 2001. Ajaxian rang in the new year with a post on this topic, pointing out that the last 20% may be the hardest to get rid of.
The real irony of this problem is that even though IE6 represents so much less of the browser share now, the complexity of web apps have increased in a way that actually makes supporting IE6 harder in 2009 than it ever has before. It is no longer an annoyance, it’s a real problem – and it’s becoming clear that developers can not and will not wait for that 20% to go away on its own. In December, 24 Ways wrote about addressing the problem with a “sliding scale” of support, and 37signals dropped support for IE6 completely last October.
I say forget about sliding scales of support, or dropping support completely. This is the year to purge IE6 users; The year to give the digitally illiterate a safer, faster, modern browsing experience. Allowing a user to remain on IE6 isn’t helping anyone. The best way to improve the situation is to get that 20% to get off of IE6, one way or another. Giving your users a path to upgrade is helping you, the user, and anyone else who makes websites…
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