

Browser Market Pollution: IE[x] Is the New IE6 - amaks
http://www.paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-the-new-ie6/

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3JPLW
(2011). But still relevant. Here's a more recent comparison of version
adoption rates from ArsTechnica: [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/09/window...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/09/windows-8-more-widely-used-than-os-x-ie-still-on-the-rise/)

Or as an album of just the charts:
[http://imgur.com/a/3UM4J](http://imgur.com/a/3UM4J)

~~~
barista
Can you really blame Microsoft here?

The slow rate of ie adoption is from corporate users who are reluctant to
update more frequently because of the risk of breaking their internal
applications. If this was any other browser I am guessing the chart would have
looked the same.

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ColinDabritz
Isn't IE now silently auto-updating by default, just like Chrome?

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2011/12/micros...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2011/12/microsofts-new-automatic-update-plan-could-finally-spell-
the-end-of-ie6/)

Hopefully that will address much of the problem.

~~~
amaks
Microsoft apparently can't do that because of all those corporate customers
which depend on subtle behaviors of a particular IE version they have apps
developed against. This is a vicious cycle. Auto-update would work if it was
the case from the very beginning.

~~~
emn13
Sure they can - just like chrome and FF can: you just add an option to turn it
off. IE has that option already.

~~~
amaks
Interesting. So, perhaps, it's because IE update usually requires OS restart
and Administrative privileges when Chrome for example doesn't.

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ancarda
>Windows XP still accounts for 46.6% of Windows users

And yet it's suppose to be retired in ~6 months.

EDIT: Newer data isn't so bad. XP accounts for between 20%[1] and 10%[2]
marketshare today.

[1] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-
monthly-201210-201310](http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201210-201310)

[2]
[https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOper...](https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm)

~~~
lowboy
> [Published] SEP 27TH, 2011

~~~
ancarda
See my edit. I only realized this was published in 2011 after reading the
comments.

~~~
lowboy
Yup!

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yuhong
Don't forget server versions of Windows. Server 2003's IE6 is going to be
supported until 2015 and Server 2008's IE7 is going to be supported until
2020. And worst of all, Server 2012's IE10 is going to be supported until 2023
and can't be upgraded to IE11 without upgrading to R2.

~~~
freehunter
Do people generally surf from Windows Server though? Or run webapps using
Windows Server? I could see someone using Windows Server to go to a website
and download a file needed for the server, but that should only affect roughly
no one. If your website supports SMB or enterprise customers and your
downloads aren't accessible on even IE6, you're massively misjudging your
audience (and putting too much into your web development).

~~~
yuhong
I agree that terminal server is the most common usage.

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ChuckMcM
It would be interesting if someone published the 'effective browser technology
guide' which defined the set of things that would look the same on all
browsers. It might end up with just CSS2 and tables though :-(

~~~
ceejayoz
[http://caniuse.com/](http://caniuse.com/) is pretty good for that.

~~~
lowboy
That is a fantastic resource that every web developer should be aware of.

But it can't tell you if things will _look_ the same, and it only goes back as
far as ie8.

Examples:

[http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-
margin....](http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html)
[http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/floatIndent.htm...](http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/floatIndent.html)

~~~
davezatch
FYI, if you click "Show all versions" in CanIUse it goes back all the way, to
IE 5.5, FF 2.0, etc.

