Internet Explorer 6…Time to call it a day?

As web developers, we all know IE 6 is a major PITA. It’s CSS support is horribly broken (google “CSS IE hacks” and enjoy browsing through 4.7 million hits), with the CSS box model being the biggest culprit. It was released in 2001, when most of the technologies we use today were in their infancy, if they were being used at all. These days, it’s really starting to show it’s age.

Which is why, effective today, I’m not supporting it any longer.

It may seem strange coming from someone who develops web sites for a living to drop support for one of the most widely-used browsers on the market, but let’s face facts. According to Net Applications, IE 6 has been losing market share for at least the last year. and it now barely ranks number 2 behind IE 7; with only a scant 3.28% lead on my recommended browser, Firefox 3. This tells me that the majority of Windows users have either upgraded to Vista (which comes with IE 7), or have finally upgraded their XP install to IE 7. Either way, it seems that IE 6’s race has been run, and it’s time to move on.