1. It’s old.
2. It’s outdated.
3. It doesn’t support new technology.

What does this mean? It means that it’s a  pain for developers, and that means an increased charge for you to have us work around it. So, we do have some mutual interest in you upgrading your browsers regularly.

I totally get that some firms have invested a lot of money in certain technology. Upgrading that technology might not be financially viable.

Those people probably aren’t your target market anyway, unless you’re a “B to B” business. Still, I don’t believe that IE6′s market share of 9.6% are government workers, or people browsing websites at work. The relatively newer IE7 has 11%, while the newest version of Internet Explorer, IE8 has 14.7%.

Why is the market share for IE almost evenly spread throughout it’s 35.3% (down almost 1% from January) market share? I’ll tell you why. Because IE doesn’t encourage you to upgrade your browser.

I logged on with Firefox the other day, and I got this message asking me to download version 3.6. Note that it doesn’t require you to update if you don’t want to, but it does tell you why you should: It’s faster, more secure, with thousands of add-ons. As a bonus, it lets you do all of that in one easy click of the mouse. In less than 5 minutes you’re updated. You can even browse the web while it downloads in the background.

Aside from the visual and security updates, what’s important for web developers are the back end updates that come along with upgraded browsers. Features that support new technologies like CSS3 and HTML5 make coding your site easier. They help your website to load faster and more efficiently, in the long run helping your online sales or business to grow.

Microsoft doesn’t do this. Microsoft makes you find the update, download it, and install it. That’s why we still have 20% of users using outdated browsers. That’s why most (awesome) web designers hate Internet Explorer.

So, do yourself a favor. Switch to Firefox. When you notice that the web is a lot prettier and loads faster, you’ll leave me a comment and thank me for my advice.

A screenshot of our website in the Adobe Browser Lab.

I’m talking about a tool that makes it easier to troubleshoot the peekaboo bug, three pixel text jog, double float-margin bug, and the myriad of other browser bugs that plague web developers. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking… BORING! But hear me out here. When we develop websites, we start by making sure it looks perfect in Firefox, which is the most standard-compliant browser available. Ok, I think Opera has it beat, but it is not used much in the United States. But seriously, you have to be a REAL geek to use Opera. Next we look at it in Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), which is the most widely used web browser. Unfortunately, this is where things start to go wrong. It’s not usually catastrophic, but it does require some attention. When we start to look at it in IE 6, a thorn in all web developer’s side, this is when the real headaches start. In our office, we have a computer that is solely used for IE 6 testing. However, this computer is not located on my desk. So, when I attempt to fix a browser bug I have to physically get out of my chair and walk over to the “IE 6 computer” to hit refresh, shake my fist and see if my hack/solution has solved the issue. Generally, I have to walk over to this computer at least 2 dozen times to make it look presentable in IE 6. I’m no fitness enthusiast, hence my excitement when I found Adobe’s Browser Lab.

This ingenious tool now allows me to test several browsers (including the dreaded IE6) from the comfort of my chair. It’s got a really cool “onion skin” feature which allows you to lay one browser rendering on top of the other and toggle transparency for faster browser bug troubleshooting. Did I mention I don’t have to get out of my chair to do browser testing anymore?

Check out the new browser tool at – https://browserlab.adobe.com/. You know you want to do it.

This is unfortunate, because that 17% is missing out on a whole new world of interactivity, design aesthetics, functionality, speed, security, and quite frankly, I can’t understand why.

Internet Explorer 6 has been criticized by web standards experts, internet security firms, and designers since it’s launch in 2001.

In June 2004, the U.S. Government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) urged readers to use ANY browser other than IE6, because of security flaws. Read the article here.

As of 2009, the security firm, Secunia, counted 142 vulnerabilities, of which 22 remained unfixed.  Some of these 22 are classified as moderately critical in security. Read the article here.

In 2005, PC World magazine rated IE6 as one of the 25 worst tech products OF ALL TIME.  This list is going back 30 years.  The list included some older products, but also included AOL and Windows Me, which turned out to be a complete dud.

On top of all the security flaws prevalent in IE6, there is much criticism from web designers and web standards experts regarding the functionality of IE6.

The problem is that IE6 does not support CSS2, unlike most browsers.  This means that developers must write hacks and other coding workarounds to ensure proper display.  This means a longer turnaround time and extra costs that are then passed on to the client.

Jeff Zeldman, author and leading web standards guru says

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

IE6 does not support transparent PNG files, which are smooth transparent images, that allow for shading and depth on a web page.  Designers must include hacks that display less attractive transparent GIF files that leave a choppy, hard edged outline.  This option certainly lends itself to a less  fulfilling web experience.

Even social networking leader, Facebook, has decided their users using IE6 will receive an inferior user experience, by not allowing many features when using IE6.  They bluntly explain why, and encourage the user to upgrade their browser.

The thing that escapes me the most is the reasons for not upgrading your browser.  Aside from some large institutions and government bureaucracies, that require certain software that will only run on IE6, there isn’t much reason for a normal user to stay with such an antiquated piece of software.

Imagine you got a car in 2001 (internet explorer 6).  This car was comparable to other cars at the time.  It wasn’t the fanciest, it wasn’t the most secure, but there weren’t many other options, and it got the job done.

Now, imagine five years later, you were offered a brand new car. This car was fancier, quicker, safer, and it was FREE (internet explorer 7). You decided to turn it down.

After nearly ten years, you were offered a newer, faster, even more secure car, with side impact air bags and anti-lock brakes, all wheel drive, and stability control (Mozilla Firefox 3)… Completely free. But still, you turned this car down for your ten year old jalopy that was falling apart, had proven safety issues, and frankly was ugly as sin.

The logic escapes me.

As an IE6 user, you may not even know what you’re missing out on.  But, do yourself a favor, download a newer browser.  One of my personal favorites is Mozilla Firefox, an open source browser with lots of add-ons and extras. Google Chrome is a new kid on the block.  If neither of those entice you, you may want to try Microsoft’s replacement for IE6, IE7 here.  However, you shouldn’t get attached to IE7 too long, because version 8 was just released.

Trust us folks, you’ll be happy you did.