IE 6 crawled out of the primordial soup 8 years go, at the peak of the dot-com boom. Compared to it’s predecesor, it improved CSS support and for the box model. Nice of MS to do that !
The user didn’t have much of choice. Browsers were still something understood by very few. I heard about Netscape, but that blue “e” on the desktop was still easier to use and seemed to do it’s job, which was enough for my 13 year old brain, at that time. IE6 peaked at ~90% market share in 2002 and 2003.
As the interweb trend evolved, some other alternatives came, but IE still seemed to do it’s job and that’s the quality standard for most of the population. Besides this reason, there is the fact that IE came already with Windoze. “Why bother with terms like updating and heavy processes as making shortcuts, when that blue “e” is already on my desktop and it’s doing it’s job ?”. This is why all the big companies bought Windoze and got IE6 for free. Suddenly that hot blonde secretary or the old accounting lady were using IE6, w/o knowing, caring or willing. Only the tech-guy had Netscape.
Visionaries were pushing the limits and IE6 started to get old. As the internet evolved, the need for rules and standards rose. It’s easier when everybody talks the same language.
Since 8 years ago IE6 still has that 6 at the end. You can ignore the following service packs (SP), because that 6 still remained there.
In typical MS style, developing a website for IE6 is pretty mysterious. It doesn’t follow W3 standards completely, a pixel is not actually a pixel and there is no feedback for developers.
IT industry is not as old as other industries, but 8 years is a decent lifespan for any industry. Dragging it’s lifespan will just make it worse for MS. I’m sure MS is smart enough to know this problem and how to solve it. Maybe they need some help, so I’m willing to give them a hand. From today onward I decided to drop all support for IE6 and prompt these poor IE6 users to upgrade their browsers. By this, users will have an alternative.
As an UI developer, I can leave my ego aside and not ask for the cutting edge stuff, like CSS3, HTML5, but working with a coleague who’s mute is making me have grey hair.
Thank you IE6 for showing me the internet. Don’t overstay your welcome. Rest in peace !
