For years, this ill-fated browser has haunted designers, developers, and users. Is this reason enough to favor its extinction?

The drums are beating, a mob is gathering… The uproar about Internet Explorer 6 is gaining momentum. Once again, individuals and companies are uniting to actively promote the use of modern, standards compliant browsers. What to think of this issue, and more importantly, should we take sides?

Let’s have a closer look at the main arguments:

• security: IE6 is dubbed one of the worst softwares of all time. Eight years after its release, there are still critical security issues that can compromise your system and data. Many trojans and exploits have solely targeted IE6, partly because of its deficiencies, partly because of its ubiquity.
• user acceptance: IE6 was bundled with Windows, making it the browser of choice for users who did not know otherwise or did not wish to install additional software. The combination of Windows + IE6 dominated the browser market by over 90%, and much of this drama is still felt today
• corporate acceptance: for the same bundling reasons as mentioned above, as well as to follow corporate “everything Microsoft” policies,  IE6 became browser of choice, and many applications have been developed (and tweaked) for this browser only
• meeting user expectations: IE6 does not go hand in hand with the rich web experience everyone expects nowadays.  This forces web developers to come up with countless tweaks and still serve a sub par content as opposed to following web standards. Although the user should not be concerned by what happens behind the scenes, it becomes ridiculous to expect a 2009 experience from such an old browser
• web consensus: most if not all web designers and developers cry out loud for the pain and misery caused by non adhering to web standards. Tweaks increase the development time, complexity, and testing. Web professionals should not care about which browser the audience uses, as long as web standards are strictly followed

My conclusion is that for all points mentioned above, everyone should gain in upgrading, the sooner the better. Computers will be less vulnerable to attacks; companies could benefit from upgrading sooner rather than later; users would enjoy a richer and more uniform web experience; development time and costs would be reduced, thus enhancing overall productivity; developers would spend less time tweaking and more time producing quality content.

Stop stalling the web, upgrade now!