^ don't play nice together...

IN ABOUT A YEAR, there will likely be a three-way tie among the three major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome. As you would expect in today's dysfunctional world, each one renders web pages just a little bit differently from the others, just enough to keep any web designer from developing any normal sense of self-esteem. There are a couple of other browsers [Mac's Safari and the costly Opera] but the users of those two wouldn't fill the town market in Keokuk, Iowa, not that Keokuk is irrelevant or anything.

But there is a browser, one known to ANY web designer that is the worst in history. And one of the reasons it is the worst in history is that it just won't die. It's Internet Explorer 6.

Without going into specifics, Internet Explorer 6 [IE6] doesn't render modern web pages in a very modern way. The core of its failing is its inability to parse what is called a Cascading Style Sheet [CSS], which just happens to be a style sheet the controls how a modern web page looks. CSS has been on the scene for nearly 10 years but has gone through more versions than Louie, Louie. It's been a race between those in charge of CSS standards and those in charge of web browsers to see who catches up with whom. But IE6 never did want to catch up. It just wanted to come and roost. Since it's introduction in 2001, it instantly made the "most hated list" of any web geek. At one time, a majority of all users used IE6 to the great dismay of all web developers worldwide. But here we are, 8 years later, it must be in the same refuse heap as the original IPOD, right?

Today, nearly 15% of all users use IE6. Web developers like to tell their clients that it's more like 2%. Then, when the client says that the page looks crazy and the web developer learns the client is using IE6, well, ...have you ever tried to walk someone over the phone on how to upgrade a browser? It IS simple for some people just like some people do their own taxes.

So, how did this worst browser of all time linger on in double-digit usage after nearly 8 years, which is 128 years in human terms? The short answer is opportunity, and in this instance, opportunity for sloth. Back in the early 20th century, Netscape was doing a very slow circle of the drain...it was trying to get to that milestone of Netscape 7. At the same time, a related group, Mozilla, was trying to launch its "standards compliant" browser Firefox. In 2001, IE and its various previous versions owned nearly 95% of the browsing world. Because of the Netscape problems and Mozilla launching problems, it had NO COMPETITION. And as we know from the health industry, no competition leads to sloth. Microsoft didn't really care if their product was "standards compliant" or even if it worked particularly well and didn't see a need for a new version anytime soon [IE7 was launched in October of 2006, 5 long years after IE6 was introduced].

Fast forward to today, with Firefox taking up nearly 50% of the market, Chrome coming up on 10% after only one year and IE is now on version 8. Because of competition, Microsoft today has to have a browser that works. But the state of the economy is what has kept IE6 going, like an iron lung with a nuclear power plant attached. Not as many school districts, corporations, government entities are upgrading at the regular pace that they have in the past. Plus, they are dialing down the staffing support, the part that would take care of going into all the offices and computer labs and upgrading the browsers. Home users aren't buying new computers as they have in the past. So, until the government comes up with a "cash for clunkers" program for new computers, sales are likely to be flat for the foreseeable, keeping alive the worst browser in history for another year or two.

When IE6 finally falls into the single digit category of market share in mid-2010, it will have left a legacy of contempt and hatred among web developers unseen by any other web-based technology since the dawn of the world wide web. There will be no funerals, no parades of triumph over adversity, no toga parties to celebrate its demise into single digits. Just the emotional scarring of trying to come up with IE6 code workarounds that never seem to work.

Tim Corwin
August, 2009

Editor's note: As of February of 2010, IE6 usage has slid below 10% [source: w3schools.com]. This along with the fact that YouTube no longer supports IE6 has led us to finally take it off our production computer and we no longer support it as well. When the big dogs like YouTube say good-bye, it's time for everyone else to say sayonara. We expect IE6 usage to drop by at least a percentage point from March to April as millions who cling to this crappy browser realize they can't cruise YouTube anymore. We further predict that by the end of 2010, usage will be below 5%, maybe well below.