10 Reasons why you should Ditch IE6
Internet Explorer 6 is becoming increasingly unpopular among the Internet society. Still people seem to find some strange reason to continue using it and surveys show that a surprisingly large number of people still have it as their default browser. We think that it is time to let go of IE6 and force people to an upgrade. As a designer, developer, or user, we can all unite that IE6 is a problem that must be rid.
1. Its security and track record is a joke which led to PC World Magazine ranking IE6 as the 8th worst tech product of all time. Shouldn t this tell us something?
2. The software is 7 years old. In Internet measurements it corresponds to about the Stone Age.
3. IE6 is bug heaven. Microsoft knows it, but doesn t care to fix the plethora of problems, so why should we?
4. Newer versions of Internet Explorer exist, amongst the newest IE8, but still sites choose to continue support IE6. And some sites are perfectly build for IE6 but not other browsers. Designers and developers- we need to look forward not backwards.
5. As a user, you have to wait until everything loads in order to use the URL bar. And wait, why on earth did the toolbar move to the middle right?
6. IE6 follows its own standards (thank you Microsoft for always going its own way) for rendering pages. So now, we all need to add in statements to code to ensure proper web pages.
7. The IE6 CSS rendering machine is simply put: horrible.
8. Online voting show that about 90% wants to drop Internet Explorer 6 so why don t we just do it?
9. If sites supporting IE6 would stop getting built we would force about 30% of all the Internet users to gracefully develop in the right direction.
10. It would take you about 2 minutes to switch/upgrade browser.
So, there you have it folks… Let us all work towards a brighter future of the Internet where bugs and embarrassing security is more of an exception than a given fact. If you for example are taking advantage of small business web hosting or E-Commerce web hosting this should be a crucial matter. Ditch Internet Explorer 6, get Firefox, get IE8, but just run away from IE6.
Loading ...…And by the way, as I copied this post from MS Word (where I orginally typed it), MS added 15 lines of codes on font size, font type, and everything you didn t want to know about copy/pasting text. Maybe Microsoft should take a peek at their other softwares.
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mostafa says:
31 Dec, 2008
thanx for ur effeot ..and i like this site
Omni Web Solutions says:
5 Jan, 2009
Sorry, I agree with the fact IE6 is shit but this article sucks and sorry again for the expression. Did you mean that if I want to buy a new car, I should be able to demonstrate to the saler that I want that car …? every client (visitor) should be treated in the same way, you are a professional, not evangelist.
Will says:
8 Jan, 2009
Couldn t agree more with this article. And I obviously don t agree with Omni… I don t think Eva sounds like, or tries to be, an evangelist. The only professional way (and I mean really professional way) would be to ditch IE6. Doing so would be a favor for all. I just don t understand your point “Omni”. But hey, that s just me…
karl says:
13 Jan, 2009
Agree, IE6 is outdated, and there are better alternatives around, including IE7. This certainly is true for the home / small business user.
However: In the world of large organizations like banks and government you don t want the latest browser, but you want a working system - and once it works, you never change it unless you absolutely have to!
Where I work we have lots of legacy applications, some web/plugin based, and we cannot just migrate from IE6 to IE7 unless we can be sure all the applications will continue to work on IE7.
(Same with Firefox: some FF2 Add-ons just don t work on FF3 or are not available at all.)
For us, business continuity is simply more important than having the latest browser. We expect all our applications to be certified and supported on IE7 by 2010, so we will have to stick to IE6 until then. It s easy as that.
Jeremie Tisseau says:
21 Jan, 2009
Thanks Karl. You got a good point.
Zoran says:
31 Jan, 2009
Hi!
Very nice post. Being myself web developer I m in constant battle with IE6. Some months ago I started new offensive misson: I started to put small php detection/blocking script in every page (where I could) so, I hope that will help to exterminate IE6. Greetings from Serbia!
Jonathan Allen says:
29 Apr, 2010
Internet Explorer 8 is very good because it is as stable as Opera. I hate the previous versions of IE like IE6 because it hangs frequently. .
Tej Kohli says:
13 Aug, 2010
Now the IE 9 come into market , So we have to concentrate on latest browser