Recent news that Firefox 3 (FF3) has overtaken Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) will hearten many a web developer, but is it too early to drop support for it all together?
IE6 is a well known beast, but generally unloved amongst web developers. It has numerous quirks and bugs but with generally known workarounds. Security is its other big problem however. It's younger sibling IE7 is a big improvement, but is yet to completely replace IE6. According to StatsCounter IE6 still has around 22% of the browser use market in February 2009. This places it behind IE7 (41%) and FF3 (24%).
A couple of campaigns have been started to highlight the issues of IE6 and encourage change. Free the Web and finn.no. Both encourage users to move to IE7 or alternatives such as Opera, Safari, or Firefox. The finn.no campaign has gathered a significant response in Europe, and even has the support of Microsoft (suggesting IE7 or IE8).
So can a web developer ignore IE6 and move away from workarounds? A more technically targeted site without a MS focus, possibly yes. If you have a site that targets a general audience, then not really. Alienating 20%+ of an audience may not go down well with a commercial site. So when will IE6 die? Unfortunately not soon. Any IE6 user who has not updated to IE7 is not likely to update to IE8 or another browser. IE6 users will be Windows XP users who have ignored the IE7 update or on and older Windows OS such as 2000 or even 98. The only way these users will change is when they upgrade their PC. And given global economic conditions many users will likely try an extra year out of that current PC. The same goes for corporate upgrades which often trail the latest technology, and have not embraced the move to Windows Vista.
