McColin Dot Com Colin McCloskey rants and raves and sometimes forgets to update

Let’s All Forget IE6 With Good Reason

Supporting Internet Explorer 6 is one of the most frustrating things about my job. It seems like a petty thing to worry one's self over, but it's come to this.

I work for a marketing agency that builds social marketing applications and ad campaigns in the world's largest social networks. Paramount among these social networks is Facebook. I'm sure you've heard of it. One thing you may not know about Facebook is that they've not been officially tailoring to Internet Explorer 6 for some time, now. As a user of an outdated browser (even Firefox 2, Safari 2, and other oldies), you see this message on your home screen post-login:

What you see when you login to Facebook with an outdated browser

While this does not itself represent a failure to support the browser completely, it is an indication that your browser may render things a bit differently, because it's old. They go so far as to provide helpful links to make your path to upgrade simple. As I understand it, this screen is Facebook's way of saying, "Hey. Your browser is old. We can't make everything look perfect for you until you upgrade."

The message isn't rude. It's not forceful. They don't prevent you from using the site,  and most of the things you'll do with Facebook-proper look pretty fine in your old browser. Not everything, but most things.

I've felt for a long time that this is a good approach to web development -- do your best to support the bleeding edge, and scale back your efforts on the lower end of the spectrum. Once it becomes a frustration and hassle to support things in the oldest of platforms, cut out the old platforms. Microsoft even acknowledges this, as they haven't allowed IE6 or any of its lesser forefathers to even be installed on Windows Vista or the forthcoming Windows 7 (see chart of Microsoft's commendably aggressive history of putting old browsers out to pasture). By focusing your efforts on the future, you are enhancing your own products going forward, without concerning yourself with the past. Odds are, the customers you are likely to attract with new and fun things are the ones running the more recent technologies themselves.

Internet Explorer 6 was a great browser. It was the industry benchmark for awesomeness... when it was released... in August, 2001. Eight years ago! I commend it for being a stable platform that opened doorways to a lot of advanced web development that has taken place in the past eight years. Unfortunately, it has been showing it's age for years, now (I could list those reasons, here, but feel an excellent job is done in this post of hate declaration). It's lack of support for some basic principles of design used in today's development cycle make it the most hated thing for developers and designers like myself.

Why not just cut it off? Stop supporting it? Good question! The answer most development houses and agencies fall back on varies a bit, but always contains an amalgamation of the following points:

• Clients use IE6 as their primary browser at work.
• Many of these clients use corporate computers they have no ability to upgrade.
• IT staffs at many corporations are remiss to upgrade IE6 because some variety of intranet or HR software that was written over five years ago doesn't look good in any other browser
• IE6 still maintains a considerable market share of overall Internet browsing (something near 15% at my last check)
• The client told us we have to support it

These reasons are understandable. They make sense. But they indicate a problem wherein clients (often large, lazy corporations behind on their technology) are thinking about themselves and not their customers. It is absolutely true that the browser distribution in corporate settings is ridiculously still IE6-leaning, but that is no indicator of a general consumer population, which is rejecting the browser for newer alternatives, be it the latest Internet Explorer (version 8 is joy to use over its ugly older step-siblings), FireFox (infinitely extensible, pretty fast, and standards compliant), Safari on macs (delightful to use and test on), or even Google's Chrome (pretty slick). Consumers get it. They've upgraded and are using newer stuff.

So what it comes down to is corporate clients should take faith in the fact that the public is using newer technology then those within their walls and they should embrace that reality.

And agencies (like my own) should grow a pair and convince clients that the future is now. The past is the past. Look forward. You'll be able to build a better, more feature-ful product. Plus you'll get it in less time since there won't be as wide an array of awful compliance testing for developers to engage in.

Oh, and you'll make my life easier, but that's just an added benefit. For me, at least.

Please?