It’s not common for me to think about Internet Explorer (IE) and feel happy at the same time. For years it’s been a thorn in my side, as I know it has for web designers all around the globe, so I greeted the recent news that Microsoft was to end support for IE versions 8,9 and 10 with much excitement.
The latest versions of the Mozilla and Microsoft browsers, Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 respectively, have both been released within the last couple of weeks and it appears that the latest incarnation of Firefox has been downloaded significantly more than IE in the first 24 hours of release. Around 7.1 million downloads for Firefox with 2.35 million downloads of the Microsoft browser.
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Just headed over to StatCounter to check the latest browser stats.
As I write this IE6 has had an average of 13.7% market share for the past year *puts head in hands*, on the upside the market share in Europe went under 5% in Europe and under 6% for North America for May 2010.
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Google logo
Modern browsers for modern applications
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 2:00 PM
The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible…Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites.
I’ve been watching with some interest how much market share Chrome has been gaining, this could be a tactic to gain a greater user base for the Google browser, although plenty of big players have already dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. Either way, I’ll be glad to see the back of IE6, it’s really holding back progress in web development and has become sucha pain to support.
I didn’t even know that a new version of Safari was coming out, way below the radar on this one. Looks like they’ve pared it down much like the Google Chrome browser, with some more classic Mac style visual interfaces for browsing history, favourites and tabs.
In other browser news: “Microsoft to Offer Competing Browsers in Windows?”
The latest European Commission ruling could force Microsoft to offer alternative web browsers within Windows so the computer giant avoids breaching EU competition rules. According to the Commission, Microsoft are exploiting their dominant position to constrain the web browser market.
I couldn’t agree more, they’ve already been made to unbundle their media player from the Operating System and I think this is a positive move for browser advancement.
Death to IE 6
Got an email from iStockphoto today saying they are withdrawing support for Internet Explorer 6 from 2010. This reminded me of a statement I read from 37signals some months ago that they were phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6.
I read this initial article with much interest as this browser causes me an enormous amount of stress, unbelievably however, it still has a market share of around 20%, although I wouldn’t be surprised if half of that is developers and designers looking at page views over and over until they’ve fixed a problem.
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