Some time ago we published an article called ‘IE6 Must Die’, explaining the pitfalls of using 9 year old software. There have been numerous calls for IE6 to be buried, both from inside and outside Microsoft itself. The best so far was from Microsoft Australia who compared keeping IE6 with drinking 9 year old milk. Even Long Life milk wouldn’t last that long…
So you can imagine there were some deep, long groans in the office when we learned the UK Government rejected calls (a petition from 6,000+ UK citizens, no less) to dump IE6, no doubt mirrored by many a developer and designer who has struggled to ensure their brand new perfect looking application works well in a 9 year old browser. Of course it all comes down to cold, hard cash – and there’s no doubt it will cost money to upgrade to IE8. However I’m sure that some of the thousands of brilliant, helpful developers out there would be prepared to give some time up to help test Government applications work properly IE8 in order to encourage their employers and customers to do the same.
