NetApplications tracks and monitors tons of information on the internet and you are free to use the information in your own reports. For example, here is the month of October 2009: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2. That’s a lot of browsers! Older browsers like Internet Explorer 6 (common with Win2k-XP SP1) and Internet Explorer 5 (pre 2k) are hanging in there.

But how do such old browsers rear their heads a decade or more after their release when newer versions exist? How does Internet Explorer 6 persist?

On the one hand, you have a majority of people who buy a computer and never update it, either the software or the hardware. In such case, these people typically are ‘light’ users, where they generally check email and the news and not much else. Now that computers are available practically everywhere, including Walmart, many of these people will find it harder and harder to not get a new system. They are cheaper, faster, and more affordable than ever before. Those systems will be preloaded with Windows 7, OSX 10.6, or Linux and the newest browser available at the time of manufacturing. ‘Power users’ may not have the latest hardware, but they always have the latest software and keep their current system up to date with operating system updates. Most of them will be running Internet Explorer 7, or the more savvy will have Firefox, Chrome or Opera.

On the other hand, you have lots of public service offices like libraries, police departments, public schools and government offices. These institutions have IT departments, and those departments have budgets. A lot of custom software developed in the late 90s and early 2000s (even some still) were tailored directly for Internet Explorer 6. A lot of public school systems cannot afford to upgrade, and upgrading large companies with thousands of people may break the custom software that was developed in IE6 (which would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars in a rather tight economy). Nine times out of ten, desktop upgrades are voted down unless the situation is pretty dire, and also the current operating system needs to have had at least one service pack out. Company-wide upgrades to software will typically require some level of training as well, which means more time, and more money.

In that perspective, even though 23% of all internet users are using Internet Explorer 6, you could probably assume that half of them are institutions that cannot control their desktop environment (as mentioned in the previous paragraph). From there, you could do some more research and analyze data for the website you are working on and determine what kind of visitors they have. Typically we’ve seen numbers between 3-7%.

Well, now what?

The big debate on the internet now is how to handle users who continue to use outdated browsers. Do we leave them in the dust, unable to browse a website? Do we add in conditional code to handle specific older browsers so they have optimal experience? Should a pop up or page be loaded requesting them to get a new browser to view the site? The answer to that is not so simple. The issue is too big for any one developer or designer to make on their own, as most of us are not making sites for our own use, but rather we make them for clients. It’s bad business sense to say oh, you 10% of clients with Internet Explorer 6, you can’t use my site anymore. That could mean a few thousand dollars or more in lost sales, lost business, lost leads. Sure, fine tuning CSS and HTML or proper browser testing in general may feel tedious, but a few extra hours of work is a small price to pay to make clients as successful as they can be.

At least on the upside, it’s trending downward.