The Long, Slow Death of Internet Explorer 6

CNN recently published a piece on the latest efforts of web developers and designers to convince Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) users to upgrade to a better browser. (We tend to recommend the latest flavor of Firefox around here). The number of hacks, workarounds, techniques, and advice for dealing with IE6 really is quite impressive. For whatever the reason (and there are many) IE6  has managed to stick around like that awkward friend at a party for a an impressive amount of time, and that tends to stir up the emotions of developers everywhere (present company included). Heck, even Google's home page throws an error in IE6 these days.


Even IE6 error dialogs throw errors

About a month ago, Digg.com polled its IE6 users in an attempt to understand why they hadn't upgraded, and to help them determine how to continue to evolve functionality without completely shutting this audience out. The results confirmed suspicions of  corporate users who are stuck in browser hell because IT won't let them (or they think they can't) upgrade, clocking in at a whopping 70% of responses. I have to hope (for my own sanity) that a good portion of the 7% claiming to prefer IE6 over more modern browsers were pranksters.

If, as Digg's numbers indicate, the vast majority of the dwindling minority of IE6 users out there are indeed trapped in a corporate IT upgrade holding pattern, perhaps the impending release of Windows 7 will be the final nail in IE6's coffin.

Microsoft has said they will support the browser until they cease support of XP, in April of 2014. With any luck, it'll become an edge support case far sooner than that. Some high profile web properties are beginning to drop support for IE6, although I can't believe YouTube's decision to drop IE6 will change much for corporate users: YouTube was probably blocked for them already.

For us, the goal has always been to accommodate IE6 as much as we can, suggesting users upgrade if it makes sense for the audience, and maintaining content fidelity over functionality.