As many web designers and developers may have known, statistically, IE6 users are dropping day by day, and with Windows Vista along with IE7 installed in most new PCs, as well as those who updates their PCs regularly. But does this mean that IE6 is going to be perished any time soon? No, not if we don’t push the campaign further. And I can’t stress enough on how important this is.
To web-standards developers reading this, I don’t think we need to discuss the matter here. We all know what’s happening. To clients reading this, I perfectly know that sometimes it is hard when users that are actually browsing to your site are stuck in the past, or they are working in an office with an ignorant IT department that does not even issue free modern browsers to their employees’ workstations. And you, as a client, of course wants everyone to be able to access your site without the effort of upgrading their browsers. I’m afraid this is just inevitable, while right now we can still have limited support to even support IE6, the browser is two versions behind (We’re on IE8 right now, if you are sticking with IE) and many major web companies are dropping their support for IE6, such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc. If these huge companies are taking huge steps to throw IE6 overboard, why don’t we join their cause? Why don’t we all try to reeducate web users that IE6 is a prehistoric browser, it does not play well with the latest web technologies, and it is hard to develop the same experience you’ll get on newer browsers. Is this what you want your users think of your web? As something that is stuck in the past? I certainly don’t think so.
Does this mean that we’re dropping support for IE6? Not at the moment, we charge additionally if you really need IE6 support and if there’s absolutely nothing you can do but to cater them. But although we still have this service, we never recommend it to our clients as it is not worth it for the both of us. It’s not worth it to invest your money on a dying technology, and it’s not worth it for us to spend time developing for IE6, while we can push the boundaries further for you, if we focus on modern browsers.
So if you’re thinking to move your website to the future, the time starts now. Are you with us?
Some links for further reads: