Internet Explorer, the “fantastic” browser from Microsoft that is really irritating web designers and web developers around the world.
Every time you create a web application you have to have this old browser in mind. And it is getting worse with the latest browser from the company on the west coast of USA. IE8 can run in IE6 mode, which I believe means that it will show up in statistics as an IE6-browser. And this is bad.
There are reasons why we should now react against the usage of Internet Explorer from Microsoft / Windows.
- The browser was launched in 2001, which makes it eight years old.
- Internet Explorer 6 does not support some standard CSS or Javascript code.
- Internet Explorer 6 is considered unsafe. Many of todays spyware, adware and computer viruses are spread across the Internet thanks to this browser.
And there are people out there using IE6. Statistics from Finn.no as of May 2009 (http://labs.finn.no/blog/nettleserstatistikken-finn-no-mai-2009) , one of the more popular web pages in Norway, shows that 11,6 percent of their visitors are using IE6 (!). Browser statistics from W3Schools shows that 14,5 percent uses IE6. The statistics also show that the numbers are declining – which is a good thing.
It will take a while before we are completely free from IE6. The W3School-statistics shows that IE5 was no longer in use in June 2008 (sic).
Since the release of IE7 in 2006, the usage of IE6 has declined from 60 percent to where it is now. Hopefully we will no longer need to adjust our code against IE6 in 2012. I am basing this calculation on the fact that it took three years to get rid of IE5 from around 14 percent to nothing in the logs.
Regarding 2: Because of IE6 not complying with standards all web designers – and web developers (yes, we have to do markup, javascript and css too, to some extent) – must create javascript-documents just for IE6, CSS just for IE6 (and beyond!) and all this extra work means extra hours.
Some times it’s not just small adjustments that needs to be done in order to make the web page work in the old browser.
Yesterday I experienced that a user at work had set his IE8 in IE6 mode. I became annoyed. Firstly: The page we were looking at (slashdot.org) didn’t work as intended. And secondly – as mentioned before – IE6 comes up in the statistics/logs and when someone says: Now we must update the code so it’s more 2009, someone who looks at the logs can say: Well, it has to be compliant with IE6 as XXX of our visitors uses this browser.
I would <b>really</b> hope that Microsoft would stop developing software is backwards compatible – especially when the software the new version is compatible with is a) insecure, b) not following standards and c) eight years old (and counting!).
I have decided that for my new webpage (mockup here: http://www.trondhuso.no/dev) I will be adding CSS-code that will give the user a warning that he or she is using an old and insecure browser and that there are alternatives to it. In the latest issue of .Net, Craig Grannell (http://www.snubcommunications.com) has written an excellent article on this topic – which inspired me to write this blog post. I would recommend everyone to buy the July issue of .Net and turn to page 74 for this article.
Links:
Bring Down IE6: http://bringdownie6.com
IE6: Do Not Want: http://ie6.forteller.net
Stop IE6 Campaign: http://www.stopie6.org/
Save the developers – stop using IE6: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/save-the-developers-stop-using-internet-explorer-6/
Stop IE6: http://www.stopie6.com/
If you are reading this blog post in IE6 I can suggest the following browsers:
Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com)
Opera (http://www.opera.com)
Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/)
Google Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome)
