The death of Internet Explorer 6
09.03.2011
The countdown to the termination of support of Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) has started and for those companies still using this version as their standard it’s time to consider an upgrade.
IE6 is nearly 10 years old, which in Internet terms is ancient. When we build installations we at Nemetos still produce a fair few lines of code that are written specially to ensure back-compatibility with the old browser due to the (thankfully falling) number of business users who are locked into this version.
As you can see from this site, The Internet Explorer Countdown, in most regions the usage is well below 5% with the exception of a few areas. (Note to marketing: if China is your market, then you’ll do well to ignore all noises about forcing upgrades).
Why upgrade? Well, apart from suddenly losing support for your software, there are a number of advantages of the later version 7 and 8. Microsoft has produced a useful chart to outline the differences here: (This is probably a slightly less biased chart than this one that lives in the same section of the site, comparing different browsers!)
So, upgrade now, and help our clients save time effort and money building their sites to support a dying software. Why don’t you even dive into Internet Explorer 9 and you won’t have to upgrade for another ten years (just joking – we certainly wouldn’t suggest you commit your company policy to a release candidate software).