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As of December 2009 Shape 5 will be discontinuing its support of the IE6 browser for new products. This browser will be 8 years old this fall and is still in use because web developers continue to bend over backwards trying to "Hack" their sites in order for this browser to display their designs. Per http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp the percentage of IE6 users in June of 2009 was at 14.9%. We believe this will continue to drop as it started at a usage rate of 18.5% this past January. Looking at current statistics of IE6 usage we at Shape 5 feel it is time to say goodbye to this 8 year long relationship and move on. This is a growing trend among web developers; larger sites such as youtube.com have already dropped support for IE6.
There are many reasons to move away from IE6, to name a few:
- The browser is 8 years old and within this time period has been succeeded by two new versions
- From the beginning it has been subject to many security vulnerabilities, such as spyware, adware, etc and it still contains vulnerbilities
- Support for modern websites is lacking and holding back developers
- Constant "hacking" must be implemented to get a website to display equally in IE6 as it does in IE 7/8, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc
- There are several free supieror browsers to choose from, firefox, safari, chrome, opera, etc
All this being said, past month we put together a little plugin to help move your users and the rest of the web away from IE6. If a user is running IE6 they will simply receive the below popup window that prompts them to upgrade their browser. You can choose to either show a close button or to force the user to upgrade and not view your site.
NOTE: This plugin will not make your site run slower or load any JS/CSS when IE6 is not running.
The following message is displayed for your users to see:
"Due to security risks and a lack of support for web standards this website does not support IE6. Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001 and it does not display modern web sites properly. Please upgrade to a newer browser to fully enjoy this site and the rest of the web."
Head on over to the free extensions area to download this plugin.
Note - this product is for paid club members only.
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