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The slow and stubborn demise of Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)

4 November 2009 Posted by Brian

There's been a slew of articles and stats over the last few months detailing Internet Explorer 6's continuing but stubborn decline and some outlining that IE6 has finally been surpassed by Firefox according to the latest worldwide market share numbers. Whilst not the final nail in IE6's coffin, it's certainly being seen as much welcomed milestone toward IE6's final iternment.

For web developers, clients and even end-users IE6 has always been a hot subject of debate. It's slow and unresponsive, the CSS support is problematic (understatement) and the JavaScript support is proprietary nonsense. Forums the online world over are full of folks trying to troubleshoot it.

Some web designers have staged online revolts against IE6 - IE6NoMore: http://www.ie6nomore.com - others have spoofed it - SaveIE6: http://www.saveie6.com/ . The main claim against IE6 in the web development community is that it is potentially hampering the ability of the Web to move forward in a cool and interactive way. IE6, released in 2001 and twice updated by Microsoft, is crippling the Internet's potential and slowing down the online experience. For the majority of web developers, IE6 has the potential to give developers the shivers, forcing some to write bespoke hacks to cater for the derelict browser. Microsoft has apparently said it's going to support IE6 until 2014 .

An irony is that in terms of usage/ reach IE6 has been Microsoft's best performing browser and yet rated one it's worst tech products - generally scoffed at/ loathed by developers and suffered by users. In time future, IE6 may be remembered as the browser that allowed others back in - especially Firefox. Instead of these other browsers being necessarily brilliant, it's as valid to say that IE6 was so rubbish for so many communities and types of users and users individually that Firefox et al were pushing on an open door.

However, all of the above is in some ways irrelevant and any claim on the demise and disappearance of IE6 is foolhardy. An estimated 15 to 25 percent of people still use IE6. This figure alone means not considering IE6 is not an option. It has to be considered and considered carefully. It would take a brave online marketing executive, designer and/ or strategist to make that call - to potentially disenfranchise and deliver a 'bad' user experience to 15-25% of their total users and potentially lose their trust, custom and likelihood of return.

Against that, spending significant resources on a pixel perfect IE6 version of a website (forever!) has to be set against IE6's (slow) demise, decreasing market share, developing web technologies etc. A considered viewpoint and approach is needed - often requiring conversations and educating clients. Though it can sometimes be an long conversation to have with clients it's a conversation worth having as it helps manage future expectations.

For us, browser support focuses on usability and accessibility rather than pixel perfect rendering across all available browsers. Sites should render in all browsers, but will only provide advanced features and aesthetics to modern browsers that can support such features. This approach is taken from Yahoo's graded browser support strategy: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/index.html

This is a strategy for testing a sane subset of browsers in a way that supports users, supports the open web, and maximizes the value ... it also significantly reduces costs and ensures that every user gets the best experience possible within the limitation of their own browser.

From a straw poll from a few of our clients (8 in total) - ranging from sites doing c.20k visits per day through to c.200 visits per day, there's quite a range for IE in general. Ranging from 81% (advocacy charities/ nfps), down to 50- 60% (for more commercial orgs) and finally as far down to 33% (cultural charities/ nfps). The percentage within IE (as a total of IE) ranges from 17% through to 38%. A quick table:

/: IE%/ IE6% (as total of IE)
1: 81%/ 29%
2: 76%/ 38%
3: 63%/ 22%
4: 63%/ 18%
5: 60%/ 23%

6: 59%/ 19%
7: 46%/ 17%
8: 33%/ 23%

So IE6 is still a significant browser - 'even' 8% of users represents a sizeable user base that mustn't be ignored or discriminated against.

The decline of IE6 however is well established - it's just that it has been and will probably continue to be stubborn. One of the reasons is that there's a good percentage of organisations that invested (relatively heavily) in infrastructures at around the time when IE6 was approaching or at its zenith. As such there's a sizeable community who are only IE6 compatible and they can do v little about it. It would be costly to upgrade an entire organisation to a newer browser version. That's changing but it's a slow process.

Also, as pointed out on a charity sector forum this week, IE6 was the last version that didn't include fully automatic upgrading. IE7 on XP and Vista will, in default installations, get upgraded automatically and silently in the background. Hence why IE7 is quickly losing ground to IE8.

Then there's users with old computers, users who passively don't care and those who don't know any better ... there might even be a few who actually prefer it (though I know not where from they come) :-)

IE6 hasn't and won't be disappearing anytime soon.

LINKS:

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/
http://docs.webbler.org/index.php/Browser_support
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
http://css-tricks.com/why-people-still-use-ie-6/
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/october-2009-browser-stats-firefox-finally-passes-ie6.ars
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/06/internet.explorer.six/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8196242.stm
http://technologizer.com/2009/08/11/should-microsoft-kill-ie6/

 

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