Good Riddance: IE6 Usage Falls to Under 1% in U.S.
According to the latest data from Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6, the browser that overstayed its welcome for many years, is finally in its last throes. Usage of IE6, which officially launched 10 years ago, has now fallen to under 1% in the United States. While American users hung on to IE6 for longer than other nations like Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, it's good to see IE6 usage drop from 4.2% in December 2010 to 0.9% in 2011. As Microsoft itself notes today, this hopefully means that "more developers and IT Pros can consider IE6 a “low-priority” at this point and stop spending their time having to support such an outdated browser."
Just about nine month ago, Microsoft launched its own IE6 Countdown site to track the demise of IE6. Over the last year, the worldwide usage of IE6 has dropped 6 percentage point. It's worth noting, though, that around the world, 7.7% of all Internet users are still using this completely outdate (and insecure) browser.
The majority of these users come from China, where IE6 still has a whopping 25% market share. In virtually every other country, Microsoft's old browser now holds under 5% of the market.
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About the author
Frederic Lardinois founded SiliconFilter in 2011. Before starting this site, he wrote about 1,500 articles for ReadWriteWeb. His areas of interest are consumer web and mobile apps, as well as Internet-connected devices like cars, smart sensors and toasters. You can reach him at [email protected]
46 Responses to "Good Riddance: IE6 Usage Falls to Under 1% in U.S."
@PeteTheSadPanda if you pay close attention one could assume Mexico is part of tue US in that map
@ClarkleSparkle Thank goodness! I friggin hate IE6.
@imac4life you and me both.
@ClarkleSparkle Web designer’s nightmare.
@mlane thank god! finally!
@arielhernandez I know! I’m thrilled it’s finally happening 🙂
@hnbot @d_run It’s nice to see that IE6 has dropped to under 1%. I think people should stop developing to IE7 now. 😉
“@newsycombinator IE6 Usage Falls to Under 1% in U.S. http://t.co/U91JAM1g” – what a dark, scary 1%
thats good news, but we need to get rid of IE7 too.. hell, even IE8..
@drakej pretty sure the office dropping ie6 for ie8 (not even 9, oh well) helped contribute! haha
@byroncheng oo good idea. yeah i don’t understand why one would decide to upgrade but not to the latest version. kind of defeats purpose?
@drakej It has to do with compatibility. Turns out that SAP doesn’t like IE9 yet. At least, when I tried.
@LukeMaciak But it’s still too high all over the world.
@filipek992 China is totally ruining the curve. They are the only country left in double digits.
@LukeMaciak Even Poland isn’t? Hoooray for us! But IE8 is still popular, furthermore i think that 9 is nice and 10 Beta is even better.
@SergeantRob don’t forget the Arch Deluxe!
@KRTV The first rule of Arch Deluxe is we do not talk about the Arch Deluxe.
@sergeantrob I have no idea what you’re talking about. (heh)
@levigroker I’m pretty sure that the remaining 1% of IE6 usage is coming from corporate VCI.
@RobGibbens 😉
@benjreinhart what’s 1% of $1,000,000,000? Is that enough ROI?
@mikelikesbikes that’s not the point, it was at 4.2% last year and significantly dropped to 0.9%. It’s days are numbered
@benjreinhart ROI is certainly dropping.
@benjreinhart but it will never entirely die, and it still represents an opportunity cost.
@mikelikesbikes It’s opportunity cost is going way down and continuing to go way down, how is this not a good thing?
@benjreinhart i’m not saying it doesn’t.
@benjreinhart i’m not saying it isn’t a good thing. i’m just playing devil’s advocate.
@benjreinhart also… http://t.co/nFO7fBVq
@cereal_bars puedes revisar http://t.co/78PpbO8g, http://t.co/vkOBiKBO, http://t.co/BQt0RtCN, http://t.co/VyW8GeaJ y ya viene CES 🙂
@fayerwayer esos links son copy/paste igual que la gran mayoria del resto de lo que publican? si es asi, que paja. si no lo es, leeré 🙂
@eng IE6 under 1% in the US is definately better news. The Bears news just affects sports fans. IE6 is a drag to everyone on the internet.
@tallgreentree Good point. Although I was more thinking, which is better news TO ME? 🙂
@jcleblanc TEAM AMERICA! FUCK YEAH! now that we’re on IE10…
RT @sakamotoh 中国は海賊版で正規アップデートができず多し “IE6の使用率は米では1%以下、中国では25%（世界平均7.7%）http://t.co/5lWurgb5 中印のような新興国だと1）古いPCがまだ健在、2）ネットブックなどでXP使用率高い、からかな？
@rivermile – Oh boy, do you have many sad years ahead of you.
Most of these users are my former clients. RT @newsycombinator IE6 Usage Falls to Under 1% in US
@dunn_dan Looking for a better job? If so you can be your own boss and work from home making 4k a month moneyjournalonline .com
@gclarkmt dude, I say props to that…but what version are they on now (really have no idea) and are updates required? #ithinkwehadIE6atMSU
@patuffec IE 9 is the latest and greatest. IE 6 came out in 2001.
@gclarkmt interesting. I haven’t opened IE in years.
@LeftyDesigner You leave my grandparents alone!
@sixrevisions Woot indeed!
@johnnystorm0 Victory!
@jfloppy Ya no le ajuntábamos! Muerte al IE6 // @abysanchezp
@EuniceCorbin Happy New Year! Haha!
@mizko – you too! : )
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