As a web designer and developer, no other news could make me happier then hearing that my nightmare experience with IE 6 will be over soon. I guess this is as relevant to myself as to all web designers and developers out there. We all know about the clients and commercial applications development being limited to Internet Explorer 6 compatibility.

This is at some point understandable, because any website has to serve the audience and have to display things properly and render our code properly under the visitors browser.

I hear many web designers moaning about IE6, but try to imagine updating the whole network in the office. We are not talking about 1 single update, but about global corporations trying to update the entire network. This is not cost effective at all in terms of upgrading the entire network.

I guess this fight will still take place especially when Microsoft gave its share by taking away all support for IE6 with the launch of IE7.

What’s the news?

Though Google has been intimidating its users for long to stop using IE6, it finally declared to set its foot down, saying:

“In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.”

This is great news! We all know about Google being a ruler of World Wide Web with the maximum of market share.

Great News! No IE6. Is it?

This is great news for developers, wasting time and trying to fix IE6 bugs in terms of CSS. We all know this! Different CSS styling dedicated for IE6, transparency fix using JavaScript, invalid CSS code to fix margins and padding’s under IE6 and all other tricks and fixes.

In my opinion IE6 stopped progress of the web at some point. We can not apply some of the CSS 2.1 features not mentioning CSS 3.0 and HTML 5. Yes! I know! We could use JavaScript fixes, but is it really a proper way of developing? Knowing we have to fix, before we even started?

This is I guess great news for users as well. (not only for developers). They can surf the web more securely and can welcome new technologies and this will enhance their browsing experience.

If it comes to Google statement about IE6, I believe it is way more important to support Google in their efforts against IE6. I say, be it developers or designers, we should all follow the footsteps of these great leaders and from this point, stop any and every support and fix for IE6.

You can find many programs encouraging visitors to upgrade their browsers. One of them is <a href=”IE6 no more” title=”IE6 no more”>http://www.ie6nomore.com/code-samples.html</a>. You can check them out if you like and display the info for website visitors to upgrade the browser if they still use IE6 or older.

I know it is very brave statement and many of you don’t have to agree with that. I personally still develop thinking about IE6 and I probably will in 2010, but just think about it! If Google and Youtube do not support IE6, why should you? They are the leaders!

What are your thoughts about this news? Share your views below by commenting or share it with others, so we can see even more opinions about it.

About The Author:

Pawel Martuszewski

Pawel Martuszewski the founder of Web Design Tutorials - PM Design is also a Web Designer and Developer, SEO Expert, Marketing Specialist and Internet Guru, working as a Senior Designer for media design company, and Freelancing from home. You can follow him on Twitter or check out his Linkedin profile.