Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (or IE6 for short), was released in 2001. This is about halfway between the birth of the web, and the current day.
IE7 was released in 2006, and IE8 was released in 2009. Both newer versions contain numerous security, standards and performance upgrades. Microsoft made IE8 a critical update as of May 2009.
This means it has been over 3 years since Microsoft officially stopped all support for IE6. The userbase for IE6 is in decline and according to many reports is below 5%.
As web developers, we’ve had to support IE6 for years due to it’s large market share. Since this is finally down to a minority, and since it has been 3 years since Microsoft has stopped supporting their own product, Kintek too has decided to discontinue support for IE6 as part of our Cross-Browser-Compatibility testing. Other major websites such as Google, Youtube, and Facebook are all officially dropping support for IE6 in the very near future. All previous versions of IE are insecure and pose a security risk to users running them. We can not encourage the use of dangerous software online.
Obviously, we are still dedicated to the best for our client’s sites, and neglecting 10% of potential customers is often not a viable solution. If a client requires IE6 support we can offer it on a case by case basis. We typically offer two solutions for IE6 support.
1. This first option is free. We will redirect IE6 users to a page which explains their browser needs an additional plugin to view the website. This installs Google ChromeFrame. This is an Internet Explorer plugin, which allows some websites (which explicitly request it) to be rendered using Google Chrome’s engine. This installation page will be consistent with the style and layout of your existing website, and will be extremely user-friendly. The Google ChromeFrame installation usually only takes a few seconds (and one or two clicks), after which the website will display perfectly in IE6.
2. The second option, is we can spend time creating manual fixes and “hacks” to correct the site for viewing in IE6. This is charged at our standard hourly rate. It is important to note that even with these fixes, IE6 will remain unsafe and is sometimes simply incapable of delivering “modern” content - such as highly dynamic menus, animations, etc. We aim for a “functional” version of the site in IE6, but often a highly attractive version is simply not possible.
Due to the rapid decline of IE6 we do not recommend this second option as a cost effective solution. The new computer operating system Windows 7 to replace Windows Vista and XP launches at the end of October and comes bundled with IE8 which means hopefully it will only be a matter of months before IE6’s marketshare has reached a negligible amount. Most statistics websites show IE8 out ranks IE6 as a percentage so the tidal shift has already mostly occured.
To provide cost effective solutions to the majority of our clients we cannot support IE6 by default. Thanks for your understanding. We value your business, and are always happy to discuss.