IE6 Must Die

Youtube, viewed using IE6

IE6 MUST DIE

for the web to move on…

…finally, I can flush down the drain all the IE6-crap out of my small brain…

Finally, that Youtube is officially will be stopping their support of service for the old, bulky, untrustworthy, lame, kiddy-script-friendly, but was-money-generating browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.

Before this announcement, GMail has also announced that all the google-hosted services (gmail, calendar, etc.) will also no longer be tweaked for IE6. Users may be able to continue using the services (including youtube), but they will be very annoyed by things that are not working smoothly, or not at all.

A Brief History of Time IE6

IE6 does not have the best reputation among web designers / developers. Not anymore, that is. Okay, it may sounds all cliché, but it has not always been this way… let me share you what I know to date:

IE6 was released back in 2001. Damn it was one hell of a release: new ‘machines’ are installed underneath all the ‘new’ looking interface. The significant improvement of it was the ability to handle doctypes. Doctypes, or document type declaration, is a pack of instruction(s) that define the document to comply with certain standards which eventually will benefit everybody. One of the key feature is that a doctype let developers to build and develop sites without getting worried that his final product will be just looking and working good only for one browser. If there is no doctype defined, IE6 will just render the page in ‘lame mode’ (official name: quirks mode). That will stamp U-G-L-Y all over your screen.

The Big Battle of the Browsers back in the 90′s between IE & Netscape was to achieve the final goal as it was inscripted in Black Speech: One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. (eh, what? Scrap that!) to be the browser. With its release of version 6, Microsoft (sort of) won the battle.

2004: IE6 being used by around 80% of the web-community, but not without drawbacks: security holes. The big shift is there: tech-savvy users, heavy users, g33ks, and n3rds altogether starting to shift to another ‘new’ browsers: Firefox & Safari.

The most obvious and remarkable feature of these browsers are the tabbed browsing: more websites with just one window. No more cluttered taskbar. As for the technical point of view: better support for W3C-standards (not to mention the fancy look).

Why were the developers still supporting it ?

The problem is: if it’s so old and passé, why the hell developers still need to spend days to make their site works just fine in IE6?
Answer: user.

You have old-aged users, young-aged users, tech literate & not-so-advanced, using the office equipments with restrictions (so they can’t install a thing), old computer-users, and so on.

But the way I see it: IE6 was a money maker. I used to spend hours and hours to make a project that I worked on to be viewed just fine in IE6. Client’s request. Luckily, I got me paid by the hours I spent to finish that project. Wheeeeeee…. damn I was rich

But I was young and naïve (*cough*). Hell, nowadays, I don’t want to spend hours figuring out why something is not showing right on IE6. I do still have lots of better things to do, i.e.  spending quality time with my girlfriend. Okaaay, I won’t get extra money for it, but I got something better in return.

ANYWAYS, the agenda of today is:

• if you are a user, please, for the sake of all people using the internet: upgrade your browser, plenty to choose from
• if you can’t install a thing on your computer: use the ‘portable’ versions of the new browsers
• if you don’t know which to choose, go for Firefox, Opera, or Safari. You can’t go wrong with them.

Cheers!

PS: Tweeter users, you might want to consider putting the IE6 Must Die twibbon on your avatar.