Word Virus

A few days ago, on Twitter, I posted a link to this graph:

As you can see, IE6 still has +20% market share of internet traffic.  With the upcoming release of IE8, and the fact that there are other, and might I add, better browsers out there, that render pages correctly.  I would hope that IE6 would eventual die.  However, this does not seem to be the case.  There was a interesting article on Slashdot this week about the State of Colorado’s Office of Technology.  They posted a workshop, in which, they claimed that Internet Explorer 6 was the only secure web browser, and “It has been decided that Mozilla based, non-IE browsers pose a security risk.”  The site has been taken down, probably in response to the Slashdot article.  However, this sort of short sited IT mindedness, is the reason that IE6 will not die.  As most developers know, there are a long list of security problems in IE6.  I would never claim that Mozilla based browsers, or Webkit based browsers do not have security problems.  I would also be the first to point out that Microsoft has done a much better job of addressing security issues in IE7 over the last year or so.  However, there seems to be this sort of shortsightedness among IT professionals, trained in Windows based applications, to assume that Microsoft is the only way.  They also seem to make this proclamations without regard for the truth, or for how none tech people will take and use such information.

Once again, can we please, just let IE6 die.  It’s time.