The woes of Internet Explorer 6

---

Internet Explorer 6 is about 8 years old, yet it is still used widely by many internet users around the world despite versions 7 and 8 being made available for free. Brightlabs discusses the issues surrounding this browser, and why you have to upgrade your software in the near future.

Internet Explorer 6 was released almost a decade ago in August 2001, bundled with the Windows XP operating system. It's been reported that at its peak usage in 2003 and 2004, IE6 held 90% of the total market share. Today, six years on, IE6 is estimated to still hold 11-20%, despite many security issues and its disregard for the web standards.

Developing for IE6 and web standards

There are official specifications (standards) which dictate how webpage code should be interpreted by the browser and how pages should be rendered. These standards are important for the evolution of the web; new standards are released, the browsers implement them and then web developers can use the features introduced by those standards.

Unfortunately, IE6 does not follow the web standards. If a developer writes perfectly valid code according to the standard, there's a good chance it will be buggy in IE6. Due to the fact that IE6 became so widely used, it became an unofficial standard. Graphical web development programs such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver had to ignore the standards in order to be compatible with the leading browser.

In 2004 Mozilla released Firefox. It followed the standards and included innovative features such as tabbed browsing and extensions. These features made it gain popularity. Some websites displayed incorrectly in Firefox because they were made for IE6, but these sites were forced to adapt for Firefox's growing market share.

Today, to develop a website we code it to the web standards, then test it in IE6 and fix any errors found. There are many web development resources that document IE6's bugs and quirky behavior, which are an absolute blessing to us developers.

Security issues

It's been reported that IE6 has more unpatched security flaws than any other browser. It's been labelled the "least secure software on the planet." It has a history of security vulnerabilities, many potentially allowing hackers to take control of your computer and use it to send spam.

Just recently Google was attacked using an exploit in IE6. The same exploit was used to attack other large companies including Adobe, Yahoo and Symantec. Microsoft released a patch for IE6 over a week later. Microsoft releases updates on the second Tuesday of every month, with exceptions for critical fixes. The patch for this IE6 issue was a critical fix.

Sites dropping support

As stated earlier, IE6 is estimated to still hold 11-20% of the total market share. There are a few reasons for this. Some organisations use web based software that only works in IE6, some organisations claim it's too risky or difficult to upgrade, and some people aren't computer literate enough to know they should upgrade.

Google is already phasing out support for IE6, visiting YouTube or Google Docs results in a warning about phasing out support. A visit to Google's homepage will suggest you upgrade. I've heard Digg has dropped support for IE6, however their site still displays correctly.

Do the world a favour. If you're still using IE6, upgrade. If you see someone else still using IE6, upgrade them. Web developers all around the world will love you.