I can guarantee that anyone who has worked in web design and development has at some point wished Internet Explorer 6 a swift yet horrible death.  Yes, we hate it that badly and it would take another entire blog post for me to lay out all the reasons! IE6 appeared on the scene some eight years ago and was able to capture a major share of the browser market by shipping with Windows XP.  Since then, several superior products have emerged vying to take it out of the picture.  However, IE6 has proven to be harder to kill off than Rasputin and Keith Richards combined!

To put it in perspective, Rankmark.com is the most highly visited website that Gulf WebDev handles averaging about 840 visitors a day.  A whopping 15% of all visitors show up using Internet Explorer 6.  This is more than Safari (Apple’s browser with 7.94%), Chrome (Google’s browser with 2.02%), and Opera combined!  The IE6 market share is so large that it can not be ignored.  Therefore, instead of developing web content using the latest and greatest technologies to create a better user experience, we are stuck in the Stone Age supporting an outdated, eight year old IE6.

I am of the opinion that if IE6 users were going to upgrade or switch to a new browser it would have happened by now.  Those users will continue to use IE6 until their computer dies.  Therefore, their hands need to be forced for the betterment of all mankind and I applaud YouTube for their efforts.  Now if only Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, and the other big fish would follow the example set before them we might be able to stomp out IE6 like the cockroach it is.

Not sure if you are part of the solution or the problem?  Head on over to ThisMachine.info to find out which browser you are using.  If you discover that you are in fact using Internet Explorer 6 then run (don’t walk) to Microsoft’s website and upgrade to Internet Explorer 8.