Comments on: IE5 is dead (and IE6 is on death row) http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/ If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down. Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:23:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Incoherent Babble » Blog Archive » IE7 Auto Update http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/comment-page-1/#comment-330 Incoherent Babble » Blog Archive » IE7 Auto Update Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:38:29 +0000 http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/#comment-330 [...] « IE5 is dead (and IE6 is on death row) [...] [...] « IE5 is dead (and IE6 is on death row) [...]

]]> By: sstchur http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/comment-page-1/#comment-266 sstchur Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:32:32 +0000 http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/#comment-266 RichB: <p>Fair enough, but my point is that it's /our/ job to make sure IE6 dies. In my post, I never said IE6 was dead. I said it was dying (which it is -- no one should disagree with that -- even if it's dying slowly).</p> <p>But the bigger point is that it doesn't help the web to keep supporting old and incapable browsers. And It certainly doesn't help users of those browsers. Obviously we can't just stop supporting IE6 right now, but we need to handle it better than we did with IE5 and NN4.</p> <p>Designers should not be chosing which browsers to support /solely/ based on browsers stats. That should play a significant role, no doubt, but it can't make up the entire equation. Otherwise, we'll have what we had with NN4 and IE5. Those browsers should not have stuck around as long as they did.</p> <p>IE6 has already worn out its welcome, so the time to start thinking about an "IE6less" web is now. Now isn't the time to drop IE6 mind you, but it's time to start thinking about it, educating users, encouraging it, and doing whatever else is possible to get rid of it.</p> RichB:

Fair enough, but my point is that it's /our/ job to make sure IE6 dies. In my post, I never said IE6 was dead. I said it was dying (which it is — no one should disagree with that — even if it's dying slowly).

But the bigger point is that it doesn't help the web to keep supporting old and incapable browsers. And It certainly doesn't help users of those browsers. Obviously we can't just stop supporting IE6 right now, but we need to handle it better than we did with IE5 and NN4.

Designers should not be chosing which browsers to support /solely/ based on browsers stats. That should play a significant role, no doubt, but it can't make up the entire equation. Otherwise, we'll have what we had with NN4 and IE5. Those browsers should not have stuck around as long as they did.

IE6 has already worn out its welcome, so the time to start thinking about an "IE6less" web is now. Now isn't the time to drop IE6 mind you, but it's time to start thinking about it, educating users, encouraging it, and doing whatever else is possible to get rid of it.

]]> By: RichB http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/comment-page-1/#comment-264 RichB Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:34:24 +0000 http://blog.stchur.com/2008/01/15/ie5-is-dead-and-ie6-is-on-death-row/#comment-264 IE6 isn't dead. Microsoft[1] said, 2 months ago, that IE6 still had a greater market share than IE7. This is also confirmed by the browser usage statistics websites[1],[2]. I would expect uptake of IE7 over IE6 to tail off after the first few months of release - and that looks to be what happened. So, going forward, it appears the most popular browser will continue to be IE6 for a significant time. [1] http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/30/the-first-year-of-ie7.aspx [2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp [3] http://upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm IE6 isn't dead.
Microsoft[1] said, 2 months ago, that IE6 still had a greater market share than IE7. This is also confirmed by the browser usage statistics websites[1],[2]. I would expect uptake of IE7 over IE6 to tail off after the first few months of release – and that looks to be what happened. So, going forward, it appears the most popular browser will continue to be IE6 for a significant time.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/30/the-first-year-of-ie7.aspx
[2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
[3] http://upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm

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