Systems & Networks | Web | Monday, November 15th, 2010
Cross Browser Compatibility
Let the countdown to the demise of IE6 start!
Recently Internet Explorer 6 passed the grand age of 9, having first been thrust upon an unsuspecting world in 2001.
When it comes to using software, especially in a rapidly changing industry such as the Web, this is the equivalent of wearing flares and a tight shiny polyester shirt with a flower print even when not attending a 70s revival night, or creating a mixtape of Flock Of Seagulls and Human League tracks, despite the availability of Girls Aloud in high quality MP3 or lossless FLAC formats.
Internet Explorer 6 is a case of 2001: A Browser Oddity. Despite this, up to a quarter of your web site visitors may still be using this antiquated technology.
For the majority of us using modern browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, Safari or updated versions of Internet Explorer, loading IE6 today would be a quaint experience akin to watching a classic episode of Grange Hill, with misty-eyed nostalgia intermingling with a relief that you don’t actually have to do it everyday.
For web site owners and designers, however, IE6 is opened with trepidation. For whilst a beautifully crafted web site can appear perfectly in every other browser on the market – and there are many out there – IE6′s inability to render simple pages correctly is frustrating and costly in equal measures.
IE6′s old rendering engine means pages can appear disjointed unless various hacks and fixes are retro-fitted to a site’s coding. It does not support many of the browser enhancements which are driving forward design, such as image transparency effects which add depth and texture to pages.
All this means that designers must carry out additional work (which takes time and costs money) to ensure that page designs are fully compatible with IE6.
Some web sites, including video sharing behemoth YouTube, have dropped support for the browser – even with owner Google’s vast resources, it can’t justify the additional time and cost of backwardly-engineering site code to make it work in IE6.
A year ago, IE6 occupied up to a 25% market share. Thankfully, this has now plummeted to just 6%, according to Adobe NetAverages‘ latest figures – a fall backed up by our observations of the sites we manage. Indeed, IE6 doesn’t even appear as a slice in the browser pie chart of the Web analytics solution we use for one of our major clients, unceremoniously dumped under the tiny ‘other’ segment.
Other web sites aimed at a more corporate level do not have this luxury. IT departments in corporations are notoriously slow at updating installed products – it is, afterall, a big task to roll out updates across a large network, and the cost benefit requirements may not have been met. However, even this sector has seen a drop to just 12% – not quite low enough to justify dropping support, but the cost of implementing IE6 workarounds is getting harder to justify.
Of course, alienating a significant proportion of prospective clients is not part of a solid Internet strategy! This is why Fish.Net (and any other Web agency worth its salt) will work with you to identify whether implementing IE6 workarounds is likely to present you with best value (or whether you’d be better investing in additional keyword research and SEO or an email campaign instead).
The Web industry is close to a collective sigh of relief, but we can’s can’t quite yet celebrate the passing of IE6. Until then, we suggest all our customers upgrade to a modern browser – the Web is a much nicer place that way!
Contact Fish.Net to find out which browser is best suited for you.
Tags: browsers, cross brwser compatibility, firefox, ie6, ie6 bugs, internet explorer