June 3, 2008 - 12 comments

When will IE 6 die?

As a recent Mac and Safari convert (I only use Firefox for development now), I just read with enthusiasm that Safari currently has a 6.25% market share. While welcome news, unfortunately it reiterates how important it remains to make sure our sites work in Internet Explorer.

After hearing about Safari's growth, I became curious about IE7's penetration. How close is IE6 to death?

Unfortunately, not close enough. According to http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0 (the same site that reports Safari has 6.25% market share), IE has 73.75% market share. The site does not differentiate between IE 6 and 7. thecounter.com reports that between 1 Feb 2008 and 31 May 2008, IE7 was used 40% of the time and IE6 still has a 37% market share!

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Published by: jeffreybarke in The Programming Mechanism
Tags: ,

Comments

eas
July 14, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Acutally, if you dig around on hitslink, you’ll see they do report on browser versions.

They show a wider spread between IE6 & IE7 in in June. IE6 is closer to 25%, and IE7 is 45%.

Comments are closed.

eas
July 14, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Acutally, if you dig around on hitslink, you’ll see they do report on browser versions.

They show a wider spread between IE6 & IE7 in in June. IE6 is closer to 25%, and IE7 is 45%.

Comments are closed.

Jeffrey Barke
July 14, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Thanks for the update and the correction, eas. I found the browser version report here: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Next time, I'll look harder!

Comments are closed.

Jeffrey Barke
July 14, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Thanks for the update and the correction, eas. I found the browser version report here: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Next time, I'll look harder!

Comments are closed.

Dean
February 5, 2009 at 5:41 am

Comments are closed.

Dean
February 5, 2009 at 5:41 am

Comments are closed.

Jeffrey Barke
February 6, 2009 at 5:42 pm

Lol! Thanks for the link, Dean! Glad to know there's an "official" countdown!

Comments are closed.

Jeffrey Barke
February 6, 2009 at 5:42 pm

Lol! Thanks for the link, Dean! Glad to know there's an "official" countdown!

Comments are closed.

seann
May 20, 2009 at 11:16 pm

dean…that link made my night…LMFAO!!

thank you 😀

Comments are closed.

seann
May 20, 2009 at 11:16 pm

dean…that link made my night…LMFAO!!

thank you 😀

Comments are closed.

Paul Randall
June 10, 2009 at 5:28 am

I tend to use Safari 4 now for web development. It gets 100/100 on the acid test. Also remember that there are a slew of new browsers using the webkit rendering engine that is in Safari. If you code for Safari 4, then when firefox gets 100/100 your site will look pretty much identical.

Eventually as IE’s share slips Microsoft will be forced to adopt W3C standards across the board if they wish to retain any decent share.

I tend to use conditional comments to link to secondary “bodge-up” stylesheets for IE. I say bodge up because trial and error is pretty much the only way you can get CSS to look ok in IE6 and IE7. Not got IE 8 so I can’t test for it I’m afraid.

We just have to convince the IT departments of corporations and governments that them sticking with IE6 is causing a nuisance for web designers.

So, how do we start that rebellion? Any ideas?

Comments are closed.

Paul Randall
June 10, 2009 at 5:28 am

I tend to use Safari 4 now for web development. It gets 100/100 on the acid test. Also remember that there are a slew of new browsers using the webkit rendering engine that is in Safari. If you code for Safari 4, then when firefox gets 100/100 your site will look pretty much identical.

Eventually as IE’s share slips Microsoft will be forced to adopt W3C standards across the board if they wish to retain any decent share.

I tend to use conditional comments to link to secondary “bodge-up” stylesheets for IE. I say bodge up because trial and error is pretty much the only way you can get CSS to look ok in IE6 and IE7. Not got IE 8 so I can’t test for it I’m afraid.

We just have to convince the IT departments of corporations and governments that them sticking with IE6 is causing a nuisance for web designers.

So, how do we start that rebellion? Any ideas?

Comments are closed.