You can help web developers make better websites for you to use. If they aren't wasting their time fixing their sites to work in IE6, they can spend it on making better sites. Do your part by installing IE7 or FireFox on your family's computers.
Internet Explorer 6 is old. IE7 was released over a year ago, but the usage share of IE6 is still at 48% according to thecounter.com. IE7 is even included in Window's Automatic Update, and it still isn't gaining enough ground.
But what's the problem? If someone wants to browse the web with a dilapidated browser why should we stop them? Well, because it affects everybody. In many places, you can't just drive any car you want to. Your car has to meet emissions standards. If it doesn't, it pollutes the air more than it should and makes breathing difficult for everyone. Laws were set up to make the air a little better for everyone's lungs. Likewise, if you are using an old browser you are putting off emissions. These emissions are additional work for web developers. IE6 has a number of CSS problems that don't exist in IE7, Firefox, or Safari. All browsers have some rendering problems, but IE6 has more and worse problems.
The good news is that IE7 is much better. The bad news is that not enough people are installing it. IE6 is at 48% usage share, while IE7 is at 32%. IE5 is finally obsolete with only 1% market share.
The simple easy thing you can do is to abolish IE6 in your own sphere of influence. When you go to your parent's house for Christmas this year, bring IE7 and FF on a flash drive with you (or download it there). Here are the links:
Installing IE7 should be your first choice since it completely obliterates IE6 (of course you could also install FireFox, but please make sure to get rid of IE6, that's our goal). However, you can only install IE7 on XP SP2 and Vista. If your mom's computer is running Windows 98 or some other old OS, the next best option is to install FireFox, make it the default browser, and delete the Internet Explorer shortcuts. Better yet, buy her a new computer.
Perhaps if we all work to wipe out IE6 this Christmas, we can enjoy a more standards friendly web next year. Merry Christmas!
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