That was the problem, IE6 had 5 years to become a standard that still won’t die after 2 major releases. After reviewing the analytics from many client sites I see that IE still has close to 5% market share. Sure it is only 5% but try telling a client that you aren’t going support 5% of their client base; you’ll have some ex-clients on your hands. The question is how do we as an industry handle the situation?

I’ve seen some companies that just choose to not support it at all. My current employer still tries to get IE6 look like all other browsers. As the guy who has to build the sites and write the CSS I think this is the wrong approach. Why is it the wrong approach? It doesn’t encourage someone to update their browser, why update if all the sites look correct. Now I’m not advocating making websites look like shit in IE6, I just say don’t make it look as good. Progressive enhancements is how we can accomplish this task.

Designers should design the site to look as good as possible in modern browsers. If they want to use a drop shadow or a button with rounded corners over a gradient that need to be transparent PNGs (something unsupported in IE6) then do it. Instead of using hacks to get those graphics to work in IE6 just don’ use them. IE6 users don’t get the drop shadow, they don’t get the rounded corner button instead they get a rectangular button. The site still looks nice and works just fine but it doesn’t have that wow factor that the newer browsers have.

After all we shouldn’t punish IE6 users, it isn’t their fault. IE6 users fall into two categories, category 1 is ignorance. Many users don’t know to update their browser, they don’t know that IE6 is a security nightmare so bad that Microsoft wants users to update to IE8. They don’t know that they are missing a slew of great features by just updating one version. Category 2 is the user that is stuck with IE6 because their company locks down the computers and won’t update. These are also the users that are working with IE6 because they are stuck with a dated web app that won’t run in new browsers.

To the developers that spend their days bitching about supporting IE6 I say this, shut up. You have a choice to make, support IE6 or don’t; its up to you. Bottom line is your clients want IE6 support because their customer base is still using it. No one really cares that it is harder to code for and those of us that understand your pain suffer it ourselves. Happy birthday Internet Explorer 6 may this be you last.