5 ms·

The really, really good news is the fall of IE6. Currently 7.6%. 5% should be an important milestone in its decline into irrelevance. Hopefully when that is att

by sho 17y ago

The really, really good news is the fall of IE6. Currently 7.6%. 5% should be an important milestone in its decline into irrelevance. Hopefully when that is attained - and it looks like it could be soon - we can all kiss that nightmare of a browser goodbye for good.

vaksel 17y ago
I say kick it now. Only 9% of people use IE6, that # will continue to dwindle. The current rate of drop for IE6 is 2% a month. So it'll probably go down to 5% within 4-6 months. No sense in supporting a browser that will become irrelevant in 6 months.
- antirez 17y ago
  > No sense in supporting a browser that will become irrelevant in 6 months. and not a browser like another, one that will require radical changes to your site code in order to barely work.
  - erlanger 17y ago
    Depends on what you're doing. IE6 causes more JS problems than HTML/CSS.
    - antirez 17y ago
      Sure, with "site code" I mean HTML + CSS + Javascript
    - jpcx01 17y ago
      Doesn't IE6 have almost the exact same JS Engine as IE8?
- newacc 17y ago
  i dont know how they calc the stats - IE is already dying or may be dead .... this is because there will be mix-up(layers) on the top of IE, for example it is possible that all PCs that came with IE6 pre-installed cant be taken in to the account as most of them might be using other browsers. If you calc the pure downloads then IE is dead.... users have multiple browsers but they rarely use IE - it is sad that MS killed netscape to make it sort of mandatory to have IE, but still they couldn't sustain the lead - when people bypass your product and specially go on the net to download your competitor's product that means you're nearly DEAD. and BTW who is the competitor? the same guy whose product you killed years a go!!!! GOOD REVENGE !!!! NICE JOB, Eric Schmidt !!!
- seldo 17y ago
  YUI's graded browser support chart dropped support for IE6 under Windows 2000 this month: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ But IE6 under Windows XP continues to cling on, and it isn't in their forecast for the next quarter: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/07/02/gbs-update-20090702/ http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/07/02/gbs-update-20090702/ Which means Yahoo, at least, expects IE6 to still be relevant in 6 months.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    doesn't really apply to startups. Yahoo is huge and mainstream, they HAVE to support every browser, they can't present a crappy looking site to 5% of their users. That 5% means millions of users getting a crappy experience, and possibly going elsewhere. On the other hand, startups can afford to show a "crappy looking" version of the site since its more or less expected. + the % of IE6 users is much smaller for startups, since startups typically have early adopter users.
- dandelany 17y ago
  Depends on who your client is. If you're running a tech-y website/blog and most of your users are running Safari or the next FF beta, you're generally OK not supporting IE6, and can probably even pull off a snarky message that pops up alerting your IE6 users that they're using a crappy browser. If your client is a financial services company that mandates its employees use Win NT, your cries of "but IE6 is dead!" will be drowned out by angry shouts of "our interwebs site is broke!" Charts like this are helpful because they give us a sense for the current, global browser-usage climate and trends. However, global statistics alone should never be used to determine which browsers your site should support, as a cross-section of your niche of users may vary widely from this data.
  - derefr 17y ago
    I really wish Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and everyone else who controlled a decent portion of the net would all just agree to simultaneously put up snarky messages. What if the entire internet did break for IE6, all of the sudden? Given a long, fair warning--perhaps even a TV ad--it could be similar to the analog switchoff.
    - martey 17y ago
      This is super unlikely to happen. Google's snarky messages would invite people to download Chrome, while Apple's would try to convince people to download Safari. Combined with the fact that people still using IE6 of their own volition would be most likely to blame Microsoft for "breaking the Internet" and switch to a different browser, it would not be in Microsoft's best interests to coordinate something like this. In addition, television advertising made sense for switching off analog television, since the people most likely to be affected would be watching. Even if even one of the three companies you mentioned put up money for television advertising, it would be a waste of resources. Targeted banner ads would be better.
      - dandelany 17y ago
        > Google's snarky messages would invite people to download Chrome Actually, I'm surprised Google hasn't tried anything like this yet. Given how many ie6'ers use Google everyday, I bet a nonintrusive, hide-able message on search results pages encouraging them to 'upgrade' to Chrome would go a long way towards increasing their marketshare.

by sho 17y ago

vaksel 17y ago

I say kick it now. Only 9% of people use IE6, that # will continue to dwindle. The current rate of drop for IE6 is 2% a month. So it'll probably go down to 5% within 4-6 months. No sense in supporting a browser that will become irrelevant in 6 months.

antirez 17y ago
> No sense in supporting a browser that will become irrelevant in 6 months. and not a browser like another, one that will require radical changes to your site code in order to barely work.
- erlanger 17y ago
  Depends on what you're doing. IE6 causes more JS problems than HTML/CSS.
  - antirez 17y ago
    Sure, with "site code" I mean HTML + CSS + Javascript
  - jpcx01 17y ago
    Doesn't IE6 have almost the exact same JS Engine as IE8?
newacc 17y ago
i dont know how they calc the stats - IE is already dying or may be dead .... this is because there will be mix-up(layers) on the top of IE, for example it is possible that all PCs that came with IE6 pre-installed cant be taken in to the account as most of them might be using other browsers. If you calc the pure downloads then IE is dead.... users have multiple browsers but they rarely use IE - it is sad that MS killed netscape to make it sort of mandatory to have IE, but still they couldn't sustain the lead - when people bypass your product and specially go on the net to download your competitor's product that means you're nearly DEAD. and BTW who is the competitor? the same guy whose product you killed years a go!!!! GOOD REVENGE !!!! NICE JOB, Eric Schmidt !!!
seldo 17y ago
YUI's graded browser support chart dropped support for IE6 under Windows 2000 this month: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ But IE6 under Windows XP continues to cling on, and it isn't in their forecast for the next quarter: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/07/02/gbs-update-20090702/ http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/07/02/gbs-update-20090702/ Which means Yahoo, at least, expects IE6 to still be relevant in 6 months.
- vaksel 17y ago
  doesn't really apply to startups. Yahoo is huge and mainstream, they HAVE to support every browser, they can't present a crappy looking site to 5% of their users. That 5% means millions of users getting a crappy experience, and possibly going elsewhere. On the other hand, startups can afford to show a "crappy looking" version of the site since its more or less expected. + the % of IE6 users is much smaller for startups, since startups typically have early adopter users.
dandelany 17y ago
Depends on who your client is. If you're running a tech-y website/blog and most of your users are running Safari or the next FF beta, you're generally OK not supporting IE6, and can probably even pull off a snarky message that pops up alerting your IE6 users that they're using a crappy browser. If your client is a financial services company that mandates its employees use Win NT, your cries of "but IE6 is dead!" will be drowned out by angry shouts of "our interwebs site is broke!" Charts like this are helpful because they give us a sense for the current, global browser-usage climate and trends. However, global statistics alone should never be used to determine which browsers your site should support, as a cross-section of your niche of users may vary widely from this data.
- derefr 17y ago
  I really wish Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and everyone else who controlled a decent portion of the net would all just agree to simultaneously put up snarky messages. What if the entire internet did break for IE6, all of the sudden? Given a long, fair warning--perhaps even a TV ad--it could be similar to the analog switchoff.
  - martey 17y ago
    This is super unlikely to happen. Google's snarky messages would invite people to download Chrome, while Apple's would try to convince people to download Safari. Combined with the fact that people still using IE6 of their own volition would be most likely to blame Microsoft for "breaking the Internet" and switch to a different browser, it would not be in Microsoft's best interests to coordinate something like this. In addition, television advertising made sense for switching off analog television, since the people most likely to be affected would be watching. Even if even one of the three companies you mentioned put up money for television advertising, it would be a waste of resources. Targeted banner ads would be better.
    - dandelany 17y ago
      > Google's snarky messages would invite people to download Chrome Actually, I'm surprised Google hasn't tried anything like this yet. Given how many ie6'ers use Google everyday, I bet a nonintrusive, hide-able message on search results pages encouraging them to 'upgrade' to Chrome would go a long way towards increasing their marketshare.