Blog

Internet Explorer 6 was released over 7 years ago in August 2001 so why do people still use it?

Users are entitled to use whatever browser they wish but IE6 has many limitations and it’s old, it has lots of compatibility issues, it lacks useful features we’re used to using in modern browsers and it doesn’t even have tabs!

Reports vary on the amount of users still using IE6 (http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php) but the fact of the matter is that the people that do use it probably find that it works for them while they’re using the websites in the way they want. Not really a reason to change or upgrade to a newer and better browser really.

Supporting IE6 users means that effectively your website will have ‘hacks’ in it but it also means that it supports the reason for them not to change, which isn’t a good thing…

Look at the share of browsers on your site using Google Analytics to determine if modern browsers have a majority share. If you drop support for IE6 today how much traffic do you think you’ll lose? If IE6 has a minority share then it may not be cost effective for you to continue supporting it in any case as the additional development / hacking work comes at a cost.

Don’t think that dropping IE6 support will also drop that whole chunk of the user base because it won’t. It can be done gracefully so that IE6 users visiting your site are given information on browser incompatibility and more information on not just how to upgrade but also what the benefits are.

Helping people upgrade at no cost to them isn’t something negative; it helps both them and you. People in companies whose IT systems depend on IE6 aren’t chained to it either, they can download and use a modern browser to visit external sites and services.

These days there are great choices of modern browsers with products like Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc. but we need to provide a push to those still using IE6 by dropping support for it. If we don’t, people will just keep using it.

Start phasing out IE6 support from the web, and IE6 will die and users will benefit from a better online experience.