
Soon, Majority of Web Users Will No Longer Use IE - peter123
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/soon_majority_will_drop_ie.php
======
kaens
I doubt that there will be a mass defect from the people still using IE6, but
I'm always happy to hear that IE's use is on the decline.

That browser has been a thorn in my side for too many years now.

------
zmimon
At this point, it matters not what happens to IE market share. It will not
ever get lower than 20% and it will not ever get higher than 90% again. As
long as it stays in that range we can know with surety that a) all web sites
will still have to be coded to work with IE b) no web sites will be
exclusively IE. Those days are over.

The only remaining question is how fast we can vanquish IE6 and thus rescue a
small amount of sanity for web developers everywhere. The rest of the battle,
in as much as it can be won, has been won.

~~~
sounddust
Allow your site to gracefully degrade to a more simple version (for both
mobile users and IE6) or just reject IE6 users altogether.

I plan to drop IE6 support soon. From my experience, if someone loves your
site, and you make them choose between upgrading their browser and using your
site, about 90% will happily upgrade their browser (most of the remaining 10%
can't upgrade, but you can't please/support everyone). I know from experience;
I have forced this decision on my users several years ago for mac users
(dropped support for IE5/mac and older versions of Safari) and had no
complaints.

~~~
dangoldin
That may be a bit biased since I imagine Mac users would be more willing to
stop using IE for another browser.

A Windows user may not be as likely - especially since IE isn't the default
browser on a Mac.

~~~
mooism2
And on the Mac there was an alternative browser preinstalled.

------
RK
More mobile browsing = automatic market share loss for IE.

~~~
Raphael
But, surely mobile IE.

------
aneesh
Anyone know how they estimate the market shares of various browsers?

On an average day, I'll use Firefox 3, Chrome, IE7 and sometimes Konqueror &
IE8. How would that get counted?

~~~
michaelneale
I think you would be an unusual outlier ;) As are we all ! So I guess that
would end up as noise in the stats?

------
kin
The data in this article doesn't really tell me much. The decline is slow and
is based solely on current versions. There are way too many things to factor.
The increase of Firefox users, the uprise of Opera and Chrome. Then when
IE6(or was it 7) came out, the different layout had a learning curve that
caused users to switch. Then IE8 is supposedly the windows 7 of IE. There are
really too many factors to just look at a chart with no significant data and
jump to conclusions.

------
fuzzmeister
When this can be confirmed with reasonable certainty, web developers the world
over need to organize some sort of celebration. Proposals?

------
swombat
Until corporations upgrade from IE to something else en masse (unlikely in the
near future), IE's share will remain disproportionate. I think the vast
majority of people still using IE 6 are doing so because they have no choice
in the matter.

------
jseifer
This can't happen soon enough. I'm working on a web app right now that
requires ie6 functionality. This browser needs to die but I think it's still
got a ways to go.

~~~
tontoa4
Usually I'll finish an App, continue testing with FF, then cross my fingers
and load in IE. Then I fix the carnage over several hours/days and test then
revert back to Firefox to make sure nothing has broken. All the other browsers
usually just take a couple hours of tweaks to cater to.

I wish Microsoft would force an IE7 update.

