IE6, We Need to Move On
It may shock you to learn that a web browser that was developed eight years ago is still the third most-popular browser used today. Behind Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, Internet Explorer 6 is still in regular usage. However, this third-place browser is causing some first-rate problems for web developers and casual internet surfers alike.
Although the World Wide Consortium has developed a set of “standards” that all browsers must comply with in order to properly display a website, each browser varies in its support of these standards, resulting in a variation of what functionality is and is not supported by a particular browser. Although most modern-day browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome offer similar support of standards, Internet Explorer 6 lacks much of the support that we have come to expect from its successors. This is understandable, considering the browser’s age, but this lack of support has lead to many time-and-money consuming issues within the web development community.
IE6 Issues
One of the main goals of any web developer is to maintain website compatibility across all mainstream browsers in order to ensure that site visitors have the most consistent and enjoyable user experience possible. However, since IE6 does not support many current standards, web developers often find themselves devoting special attention to making websites work within the outdated browser. This process includes implementing “hacks,” or browser-specific workarounds, to allow the website to function as it would in a modern browser. Devoting special attention to IE6 cuts into production time, and often costs the developer, or the organization where the developer is employed, money.
The lack of support for standards also slows the progress and natural evolution of the web. For example, two new standards for HTML and CSS (HTML5 and CSS3) are under development and are already being adopted by most modern browsers. HTML5 and CSS3 will simplify the development process, and will present users with more advanced and visually-pleasing websites. But since IE6 cannot support these standards, web developers are left with the choice of whether to use the latest technology and disregard a portion of their audience, or to spend the time developing for IE6 users, allowing them to access the site but forgoing the opportunity create a more advanced, more user-friendly site.
But even with the issues that IE6 has caused, support for the browser continues.
