Could the Global Economic Crisis finally mean the end of IE6?
The reports of Internet Explorer 6’s death have been widely exaggerated. However, with clients tightening their financial belts and looking for costs to be cut, could ignoring IE6 save money and the sanity of thousands of web developers?
Jobs are being lost, house-prices are crashing, the end of the world is surely nigh? Of course, as gloomy as it looks at the moment, the economy will recover and the world will carry on. Wouldn’t it be great though, if during the crash, we could rid ourselves of a web-worker’s greatest headaches?
Internet Explorer 6 has had a long life, it’s now almost eight years old, and in its time was extremely popular. It’s still widely used and installed in hundreds of thousands of PCs around the world, at home and – more likely – in corporate workplaces, where restrictive IT policies mean it’ll be around for a while longer yet. But what if we were to usd the current economic climate to our (and our client’s) advantage and finally ditch the creaking browser?
Time saved is money saved
It’s been estimated that making websites look exactly the same in every browser has wasted around $10 billion USD and caused the premature greying of many thousands of web designers, developers, managers and site owners around the world.
OK, so this estimate might have been mine, made at the peak of another frustrating hour spent in front of that browser but it does waste time. Thanks to Jeremy Keith at clear:left, you can now calculate the amount of time you’re wasting on IE6 and you might find it enlightening to do so. Even if you don’t, make sure you read his article for a great discussion of supporting IE6 (or not).
However in these lean times, when clients come to you asking for the world by the end of the day, maybe one quiet suggestion we could all make is: let’s not support IE6.
Now don’t get me wrong, websites should be accessable by all browsers, now and in the future and for all people. But they don’t have to look identical. But don’t just take my word for it: http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/.
So go on – try it! Challenge your clients to drop “perfect-look” support for their CEO’s old browser and save them the money, your company the time and yourself the price of the Just for Men.
And if you do, make sure you let me know how it goes.