YouTube Phasing Out Support For IE6

Oracle Goddess sends word that YouTube is presenting IE6 users with a banner exhorting them to upgrade to a modern browser, and TechCrunch is reporting that YouTube will be phasing out support for IE6 soon. This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net at the imminent demise of this most despised and non-standards-compliant browser. The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

Comments

I *WISH* it was down in the single digits

[BlueBoxSW.com]

My experiences with large corp and gov't clients tells me otherwise.

Re:Market share

[amicusNYCL]

That doesn't justify that many people browsing the reference site using your test browser. People aren't mistakenly using IE6 to look up the HTML reference, they're using IE6 because that's what they always use. Look at the usage numbers, Firefox is almost at 50%, Chrome is already at 6%. That is indicative of web developers, not using a browser that is 9 years old. Web developers might be more likely to have IE6 installed, but they're not going to browse with it. Web developers are more likely to have a favorite browser to do all of their normal tasks in, and they'll use that one.

Also, I'm a web developer and don't have IE6 installed, on any of my machines. I have access to it, but not on any computer I use on a regular basis. The debugging tools in IE8 are much better for web developers than having IE6 available to test on.

Re:I don't know...

[vux984]

IE6 was a decent browser, aside from the fact it was a pain to code for and insecure.

Car analogy:

IE8 is your your new car. It runs smooth, and there are no real complaints about the reliability. The seats are little on the hard side, and you'd like more leg room.

IE6 is your old car. It broke down every other week, belched poisonous black smoke into the cars around it, and the doors didn't close properly. But the seats were soft and you had more leg room.

Your old car was 'decent' the same way IE6 was decent.

And lets face it, IE8's UI isn't terrible. You might not be used to it, or like it as much, but its objectively not all that bad. They've moved things around, and hid a lot of stuff almost nobody used. But the tab support and integrated search alone make the UI superior. I don't find it slow (but I have lots of RAM). I still prefer Firefox, but I no longer loathe using (or developing for) Internet Explorer.

Re:Market share

[wjousts]

I agree. That number must be completely made up. Lot's of corporations still have IE 6 as their "corporate IT approved" browser. I know we do because all our corporate web apps are such shit that they don't work in anything else.

Re:Praise Jeebus!

[martas]

quit. now.

Re:Market share

[whoever57]

IE7 and IE8 have both been declared critical updates by MS, so only home users who really hate IE7/8 and know enough to manually deselect that update, or users whose automatic updates are disabled or broken would still have IE6. This number probably isn't zero; but it isn't huge.

And Windows 2000 users.

Twitter

[Pulse_Instance]

This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net

All that twitter search shows is that people who use twitter are commenting on it. It does not show jubilation breaking out all over the Net.

Re:If you get rid of IE6, you will rid also Win2K

[mike260]

You refuse to use XP, Vista, Linux, Opera and Firefox, but IE6 is peachy-keen?
Lol.

Re:Market share

[eobanb]

You're complaining about a supposed need for multiple browsers and then your example is a site that YOU built that only works with IE7? Seriously?