In pondering my Google analytics I discovered that 26% of my IE readers this last month still use IE6…WHY? I thought there might be a lot of Windows 98 users still bouncing around the interwebs. After all computers are expensive and XP and Vista are hard to find. Hmmm.. That can’t be it. Here are some facts:
- Internet Explorer was released on August 27, 2001 near the time Windows XP was released
- Safari 3, 4, and Firefox 3 support CSS 3, IE6 partially supports CSS 1
- Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 in late 2006
- Secunia counted 20 unpatched security flaws for IE6
- PC World rated Internet Explorer 6 the eighth worst tech product of all time
So the question comes down to why are you 26% still using this clearly outdated, unsecure, poorly updated, soon to be banned browser?
It’s not because you’re running Windows 95, 98, or ME… Here are the stats:
| OS | Percentage |
|---|---|
| XP | 69.71% |
| Vista | 27.14% |
| 2000 | 1.14% |
| CE | 0.57% |
| NT | 0.57% |
| Not Set | 0.29% |
| ME | 0.29% |
| Server 2003 | 0.29% |
- 97.14% of all visitors running Windows are capable of running at least IE8.
- 1.7% of visitors cannot run IE7 or IE8
- 24% of visitors running IE6 are capable of running IE7 or IE8
So what’s the problem? Anyone running Windows XP or Vista should be running at least IE8. Period. Its faster, more secure, supports the latest web technologies and standards and its FREE! Why not upgrade? It’ll even transfer your settings. You can get tabbed browsing, anti-phishing security, support from a vast community of users and companies.
Additionally many companies and services are going to drop support for IE6. Why because it costs them money. I spend half of my time trying to hack CSS to get it to work in IE6. Basically develop once for standards compliant browsers. Then develop all over again inserting extra tags, and styles to get everything to display the way it does everywhere else. What a pain. These 26%ers are literaly holding back the world wide web. We are all slow pedalling to let you keep up with the rest of us.
It’s time to move on. Knowing that only 2% of my visitors are completely incapable of using a modern version of IE (they could use Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera…) gives me no reason at all to continue wasting my time catering to this lowest common denominator. Now all I have to wait for is IE8 (9, 10 maybe 11) to support CSS3 like their competitors.