Why we no longer support Internet Explorer 6
Like many other web developers, dropping support for IE6 was a decision not taken lightly and it was a long time coming. This was not only in part due to the explosion of web standards awareness by web designers, but also because of the growing expectation clients have with regards to what web sites should do (and rightfully so).
With this in mind it became clear we would have to drop support for the only browser in the game that is a consistent cause of prolonged development and innovation restriction – Internet Explorer 6.
Without going into too much technical detail, here's a few facts about Internet Explorer 6.
- IE6 is 9 years old (at time of writing this article).
- IE6 is one of the biggest causes of web site implementation delays, because significant time is often required to make a web site compatible. This naturally, is not a desirable outcome for our clients.
- When a web site is built to web standards, many of the advanced features will not function as expected if at all in IE6.
- IE6 is not a web standards compliant browser. As Titan Interactive conform to web standards, this means we are required to introduce sloppy hacks just for IE6.
- Microsoft has already ended support for many of its IE6 iterations, and plans to completely kill IE6 for good at the impending end of the Windows XP lifecycle.
- IE6 has since been superseded by 2 versions of Internet Explorer, and at the time of writing Internet Explorer 9 is currently in development.
- Microsoft recommends that all users avoid using Internet Explorer 6 and upgrade to any other modern browser, even if it isn't Internet Explorer.
- IE6 stifles creativity and innovation. Its very existence (when supported) holds back the web.
- IE6 is losing market share every day in favour of modern web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 8.
Titan Interactive are by no means the first web developer to take this initiative (if anything we are a little late arriving), as many others - including several high profile web sites (Youtube for example) - realise the extreme limitations of IE6 and have already stopped supporting it.
How can you upgrade?
If you're still using IE6, you can upgrade to any of these browsers and it won't cost you anything more than a few minutes of your time.