Do we write websites for Internet Explorer 6?
14 March 2009
At the time of Windows XP, Internet Explorer 6 was the newest web browser.
Internet Explorer 6 was later out-dated when Internet Explorer 7 was built in time for Windows XP Service Pack 2.
For a lot of people who upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2 they also upgraded to Internet Explorer 7 and so started the phase-out of Internet Explorer 6.
Internet Explorer's web browser rivals, Firefox, triumphed Internet Explorer 6 with their first Firefox web browser application.
From the start of Firefox it has only grown and become a more popular web browser for a lot of people.
Windows Vista was built with Internet Explorer 7 as the default web browser and so the Internet Explorer 6 phase-out continues.
Internet Explorer has been found to have major security breaches (as shown on the BBC website below)
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm
If I still haven't convinced you to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 then - try looking at some websites in Internet Explorer 6 and then try again in Internet Explorer 7 - notice the difference?
This website I've tried to build for Internet Explorer 6 and above, although there may be a few little design elements that look different.
PNG image files are high quality images (like JPEGs), and also allow transparency (like GIFs). Internet Explorer 6, however, doesn't display the transparency correctly and so will display a coloured background instead of transparency - unless the website has a PNG fix script for Internet Explorer.
The file is usually called something like "pngiefix.htc" and is included in the style sheet using a "behavior" property.
These days when building a new website, the developer will often try and build the website for only Internet Explorer 7 and above, and also for Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome.
Out of the visitors to this website my statistics show that only 21.38% use Internet Explorer as their web browser and of the 21.38% only 18.64% use Internet Explorer 6. As you can see this is a very, very small percentage.
I myself would add a few small tweaks to make a website still visible in Internet Explorer 6 - but at the same time it's not worth spending a lot of time on this as so few people would ever see it using these style sheet tweaks.
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