• In short, Internet Explorer 6 is an out of date browser that doesn’t recognise many modern techniques for building websites.  As a result, web developers tend to support IE6 at the expense of using techniques that could save them time and effort whilst allowing more creative design.
• IE6 is also less secure than it’s successors.  Although it is still patched with Windows XP Service packs, the latest of which was released in April 2008, support will not continue forever.  Internet Explorer 8 was released in March 2009, meaning that IE6, first released in 2001, is now 2 generations old.  Microsoft have enough to worry about without supporting an obsolete browser as well.
• IE6 has less features than its successors – most notably it lacks tabbed browsing, meaning you need a new window for every site you want to visit at the same time.  In IE7+ you can have multiple sites open in the same window.
• Less web developers are supporting IE6 all the time.  Sticking with this browser means you will notice more and more sites that look broken.
• It costs nothing to upgrade.  You can upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer, or try one of the other browsers on offer: Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome are just a few.

If you want a more in depth explination, read on…

HTML 101

For the uninitiated, let me first explain what html is.  Hyper Text Markup Language, to give it its full name, is the language in which websites are written.  It is how we developers create a website.  A web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, is the program responsible for reading HTML and displaying it as a website.  With me so far?  Good…

The World Wide Web Consortium

Once upon a time, the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C to those of us in a hurry, decided it would be swell if we had a set of standards which would define how browsers should render HTML.  The idea was that any browser on any machine could take a website and produce the same result, thus making the website accessible to the widest possible audience.

Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done.  Few browsers can boast 100% compliance to the W3C standards without some small bugs or quirks, but usually these are fairly minor issues that are easily solved.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with all browsers.  IE6 and its predeccesors are particular headaches for web developers, as they do not support newer techniques for styling content.  And while many point the finger squarely at Microsoft for this, the problem lies with the users who continue to create a need to support IE6.  Microsoft themselves have long since moved on, releasing 2 updated browsers since IE6 was released in 2001.  I’m sure they would appreciate the opportunity to stop supporting IE6 and concentrate on newer projects instead, but while so many people cling to an old browser, this won’t be possible.

A Time For Action

If you can, go and download the latest version of Internet Explorer or one of the other browsers listed above.  If you can’t install the new version yourself (for instance if you’re part of a network at work or school), talk to the system administrator and ask if they can do it.  If you already use Windows XP then upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 or 8 is easy and costs you nothing.  If you use Windows Vista or later then you already have Internet Explorer 7 or later – congratulations, you’re a part of the solution!