37signals Is Phasing Out IE6

As of August 15th, 2008, future features and any improvements made to existing features may not work with IE 6. If you are using IE 7, Firefox 2 or 3, or Safari, you don’t have to do anything — everything will continue as is for you. However, if you are using IE 6, and you want to make sure everything works, you will need to upgrade your browser to either IE 7, Firefox, or Safari. All of these browsers are free and all of them will deliver a much better overall experience. The web will be a lot better for you.—Phasing out support for IE 6 across all 37signals products on August 15, 2008

Yes! I linked a post by John Gruber a few days ago where he was wondering when someone would release a modern browser only app and I thought it made a lot of sense. Seems the signalers agree. As they mention in their post, IE6 was out in 2006 and 7 has been out for almost 2 years. If you haven’t upgraded yet—or even better, switched browsers—, what the heck are you doing?? And screw the IT department upgrade lock excuse or the “built for 6” internal sites, if you still have teams for whom these are issues, they need some training or to start looking for a new job.

Another similar idea, do web sites need to look exactly the same in every browser? No, they don’t. They need to all work, they need to look good (as in not broken) but where did we get the idea that we need to use the lowest common denominator? TV shows exist in HD and yet some people see it in “normal D”. There’s been VHS, Beta and Super VHS, people were getting different experiences. Movies are released on normal screens and shown on Imax in some cases. Sound systems all sound different, phones sound different. Cars don’t ride the same. Etc, etc, etc.

The information and accessibility needs to be there because the info online is more and more essential but the obsession with having an identical site for every browser is ludicrous and is weighing us down.

1. Support only modern browsers

1. Embrace the advantages and variations of the internet and multiple browsers

   (Just to be clear : I’m talking about things like font rendering variations across platforms, not excusing sloppy work)