Curb Innovative Blog
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IE6. Bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Dear reader,
It's time to role-play. You're currently viewing this blog entry in Internet Explorer 6. Walk to the kitchen. Open the fridge. Grab some lunch meat, cheese and a piece of bread. Okay, now make a sandwich. Were you successful? Congratulations. That's exactly how ridiculously easy it is to upgrade to IE7/IE8.
Now go pull out your old VCR. Place the new special edition Blu-ray version of First Blood in the disk drive. Disk drive? Damn. Your VCR only plays large shitty-quality cassettes. Why? Because it's dated technology. Catching on?
IE6 was released in 2001. Now clocking in at over eight years old, it's about 5 years older than the average IE user's Sports Utility Vehicle. You wouldn't let a surgeon operate on you with dated technology. You wouldn't let a psychiatrist prescribe you a medication that has been replaced by a more effective prescription with less side effects. You wouldn't send your colleagues a link to the Hamster Dance if you had an ounce of respect for them.
I know, tough love. But it's time to stop being so scared of the internet. If you're truly terrified of viruses and spyware, switch to Firefox. Its faster, better, and its not IE6. It's really not helping that Microsoft still actively supports IE6 like they're the No Child Left Behind act.
Okay. Back to reality. Last but not least, live and let live. But don't get left behind. Every day, another fed up designer makes an oath to never support IE6 again. As for those of us on the other side of the lines, we'd love you IE6 users to cross over. The grass is way greener on this side of the fence.
Chicken and Egg
For a long time businesses refused to support IE7 or IE8. Banks, online software-as-a-service providers, and companies such as Stamps.com advocated against upgrading due to compatibility issues.
So consumers didn't upgrade.
Then, since consumers weren't using it, other businesses decided against becoming compatible with it.
Nice Analogy
Great analogy for IE 6. I'll be sure to pass this on.