A Request From Microsoft

By .     What do you think of this article?

Today’s computer tech tip comes directly from Microsoft. They are requesting everyone to stop using Internet Explorer 6. That’s right, Microsoft is requesting people to cease using one of their products.

Internet Explorer was released 10 years ago (August 27, 2001), and at one point had over 83% market share. Now with only 11.3% of the world using IE6 (source), Microsoft is making a push to drop usage below 1%. They setup a website called IE6 Countdown to do just that with informative graphics, a tool for web developers to encourage users to upgrade, and information for IT departments to also switch.

It’s no secret that Internet Explorer 6 is severely flawed. Secunia reports 227 vulnerabilities yet to be patched. It’s poor support of web standards created by the W3C have cost web developers many hours trying to modify code in order to render web pages properly. I, for one, don’t even bother coding for any version of Internet Explorer exclusively because of poor web standards of IE6, 7, and 8. Hopefully version 9 will make it so such special modifications or hacks are unnecessary, but I’ve read conflicting reports.

There is no shortage of alternatives to Internet Explorer, with 4 others totaling 41% market share (source):

While looking at statistics of Computer Tech Tips, I’m happy to see Internet Explorer not at the top of the list. The website is coded with Firefox in mind.

What are your thoughts on IE6? Do you use it on your home computer? Do you have to use it at work? To the web developers: Do you modify your site to accommodate for IE6 or any version of Internet Explorer?

Posted in: Web Browsers

Related Articles

is the site owner of Computer Tech Tips and is passionate about computer technology, particularly Windows-based software, malware removal, and web development. He enjoys helping people troubleshoot computer problems and providing technical support to family, friends, and people around the net. Xps wrote 78 article(s) for Computer Tech Tips.

 Subscribe to comments: this article | all articles
Comments are automatically closed after a period of time to prevent SPAM.