Web Design with HTML and CSS

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Why browser testing is important

Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom

The special case of IE6

As noted earlier, Internet Explorer 6 is a 10-year-old browser, Internet Explorer 7 and

Internet Explorer 8 have been released, and by the time this book is published, Internet

Explorer 9 will likely be on the market. For the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph,

you should be prepared to support IE6 if required. However, there is a trend in the world

of web design to stop optimizing for Internet Explorer 6. Companies such as Google have

publically stated they will no longer support IE6. For large companies, this means they can

free up resources to improve their websites, rather than spend resources to solve the layout

and other problems that can add time to the development of a site.

A visitor to Youtube (owned by Google) will fi nd a targeted message stating that Internet Explorer is not supported.

Additionally, the capabilities of web browsers have improved since 2001, when Internet

Explorer 6 was released. Modern browsers are faster and support new features that users of

Internet Explorer 6 will not see. Still, for many website builders, it is often a business decision.

If a client asks for a site that works well in Internet Explorer 6, you will need to deliver.

Even Microsoft itself has gotten into the business of phasing out their own browser.

http://www.ie6countdown.com is a site launched by the company to help designers and developers

track the decline of the browser.