One of the biggest struggles that website development companies have is managing the plethora of browsers that are being used today. Three versions if Internet Explorer (6, 7 & 8), various versions of Firefox, Safari and Chrome add to the complexity of every website development project. Fortunately many large web websites are finally ending support for one the most difficult browsers to develop for, Internet Explorer 6. On January 29th, 2010 Google announced that they will soon end support for Internet Explorer 6 on their Google Docs and Google Sites. Their reasoning is very sound. According to a post on the Google Enterprise Blog by Rajen Sheth:
“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.” SOURCE
They also argue that they will phase out supporting browsers that are not even being supported anymore by their own manufacturers. Overall this type of stance is good news for our website clients. It adds considerable time and cost to the development of a website to get new website technology to run, look and work well on very outdated browsers…especially those that were never designed to run these types of websites.
What are IE6 users encouraged to do? The following are some modern browsers that SaberLogic recommends upgrading to:
If you would like more information on SaberLogic’s website development services, please visit our website or contact us at sales@saberlogic.com or at (330) 335-6442.
Tags: custom programming, e-commerce, Joomla, Website Design