Alright now. Like most web designers and developers, I have to spend a lot of time hacking code and compromising design so that my work displays acceptably in Internet Explorer 6—an awful web browsers that does a terrible job rendering properly coded HTML, but that people still use. Microsoft has put an an “Internet Explorer 6 Countdown” site:
The site claims “This website is dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6 usage drop to less than 1% worldwide, so more websites can choose to drop support for Internet Explorer 6, saving hours of work for web developers.” I wish that Microsoft would simply drop all support for the ten-year-old browser, but, this is something.
Microsoft claims that only 2.9% of users in the USA use IE6 — I believe the figure to be MUCH worse, close to 10%. The site is going to “watch” IE6 usage drop to 1%, and while they are providing some useful information about why it’s a good idea, they’re not even naming a target date. That’s pretty non-commital if you ask me.
If you’re using IE6, Microsoft wants you to upgrade to a newer version, currently IE8. IE7 and IE8 are much better than IE6. But they’re still not a good choice, for a number of reasons. Microsoft pretends to align with web standards, but makes their own rules and follows conventions only as they see fit. I say, don’t use any versions of Internet Explorer. Almost any other browser is better. I recommend Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
via @engadget
