Interesting to see Microsoft mount a campaign to speed up the demise of it’s infamous version 6 of Internet Explorer.
On one side I'm being told IE6 = bad, on the other I'm prompted to download IE (no version number). Hmm.
According to their stats as of February 2011 around 12% of the world’s online population still use it which is interesting considering I think on the last check on average most of our client sites are polling the same figure on an individual basis.
I could write the book on IE 6 hacks, fixes and workarounds I’ve done so much of it and I think it’ll take at least another 2 years before it starts to get kicked to the back burner in the list of requirements. Most instances where I run into IE6 requirements is in larger organisations where IT infrastructure is more than a bunch of PCs and a couple of laptops. Even if worldwide usage is cut to around 5% it means nothing when you’re client’s requirement is to have it looking peachy within their IE6-laden organisation.
Last week Microsoft released IE9. That leaves us with 4 versions of IE running in the wild we need to test on. I just don’t understand it – why can’t they adopt a similar approach to Firefox or Safari and be more pro-active about the upgrade process and replace older versions?
Personally, I don’t think it would be any great harm if Microsoft just packed in making browsers. They’ve been playing a slow and painful catch-up game for the past 10 years and their market share is continually eroding.
There’s plenty more fish in the sea doing a better job.
