With the recent release of Internet Explorer 8 and the even more recent announcement that the browser will be included in Windows Updates, the issue of Internet Explorer 6 rears it’s ugly head again. As people within the web industry we know all about the issues we face surrounding IE6 and have done for a while now, but will this latest release see the end of IE6 or will it be hanging around for a while yet.
The fact that Microsoft will begin pushing the download to the users will see many users upgrade from IE7 to IE8 and the latest version which is an improvement on previous versions. But if users haven’t upgraded to IE7 more than two years after it’s release, then why would they decide to upgrade now? There are many reasons why IE6 still occupies around 17% of the market, and a lot of these users won’t care or won’t know how to upgrade. To us within the industry IE6 is a major pain, but to many users who use it then it works perfectly fine for them.
With this new version, many designers and developers have decided to stop supporting IE6 altogether in a bid to get users upgrading, and without getting into what supporting it actually means, this could be a positive move. There are many ways to alert users to the fact that they’re using an old browser such as offering different stylesheets to give users a different look to the site which can include a built in alert stating that the site works better in a more up to date browser, or javascript notices that also alert users to their old browser. However, one of the latest ways of getting users to upgrade is a little sneaky. IE6 Update mimcks the official alert bar which is normally used to tell users about missing content such as ActiveX controls or a flash player upgrade, but is used to tell IE 6 users to upgrade.
Now I’m all for getting rid of IE 6 and it would make life easier if it wasn’t hanging around and causing us problems but to trick and deceive users is the wrong way to get people to upgrade. As stated above, many user’s don’t have a choice in what browser they use and in the case of the older generation, can’t afford to upgrade and may well get put off the internet altogether if this yellow bar appeared all over the net. The good thing about the internet is about bringing people together, and this has the ability to tear us apart in some cases.
It’s not all bad though, it won’t be long before IE 6 disappears as Microsoft reduces support for Windows XP and as many organisations have a policy of running software one version below the latest version may see some upgrade their systems to IE 7 within the next few months, and by this time next year I think the market share of IE 6 will have reduced greatly.
Do you think IE6 Update is a good idea? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think.