One of my least favorite aspects of the process of makin’ websites is cross-browser testing. It’s not that I feel it’s unimportant; nor does it really cause me too much stress. But the mere fact that it is a thing that has to happen can be cause for frustration. Fortunately, it’s 2010 and for the most part we can be content to worry about which browsers support which bleeding edge features. Unfortunately, it’s 2010 and we still have to test in Internet Explorer 6.

I’ll be honest and say that of all the headaches I’ve dealt with over the past few years, IE6 has decreasingly been the cause of them. I think more people are starting to come around to the theory I posted on Twitter this morning:

IE6 users either A) know their browser sucks and expect a degraded experience (corporate) or B) don’t know/don’t care (grandparents).

Everybody knows this is true. Any self-respecting nerd wouldn’t be caught dead using IE6 – we’re talking about software that:

  1. is nearly 10 years old.
  2. was never that great to begin with.
  3. stopped being supported 2 versions of Windows ago.

All of which begs the question: why are so many people still using it? The obvious answer is because they can. Massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly, which means there’s no incentive for the user (or the user’s IT department) to upgrade. And since they don’t upgrade, then massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly.

Which is totally insane; the burden then falls on the developers to build websites that somehow feature the latest technology and run in a browser that was built before most of that technology was invented? I mean, we can do it, but we don’t like doing it because it encourages bad habits.

As developers we can only explain all of this to the client in the name of enlightenment, but If anyone can pull the plug on IE6 it’s the enterprises. Google, bless them, is leading by example and we can only hope others take notice. We’ve got to get the IE6 users potty-trained onto better browsers instead of coddling them into adulthood while they’re still shitting their pants.