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.