With the recent beta release of Chrome – Google’s new web browser, there has been plenty of talk about how fast it is and also how standards-compliant it is. Built as an open source project using components from Webkit, Safari and Firefox, it certainly hits the ground with a good pedigree and so far it appears to be a good performer (although I personally think it’s a bit ugly).

But that’s not the point of this post.

Whilst reading what others had to say about Chrome I found Ross Brown’s post “Google Chrome and why I hate IE6” in which he rather amusingly states:

For the uninitiated, I’ll put things in simple terms: building a web site is like constructing a sentence in English. Put everything in the right order, and people will understand what you mean.

Firefox does. Safari does. Even Internet Explorer 7 does – albeit with an occasional lisp. But Internet Explorer 6? It speaks English in the same way that Dick Van Dyke speaks cockney in “Mary Poppins“.

Later the same day I happened to read a mail from published in issue 180 of .Net magazine complaining about the lack of support which designers give to IE6, the writer concludes:

IE6 will be phased out in time, but designers still need to realise that IE6 is still pretty much out there and should not be ignored. Some have to use it if their employer’s IT systems have not been upgraded yet, or they have computers more than two years old. Others, like myself, choose to use it out of preference. If I was disabled, accessibility means I should be able to access a website: well why can’t an IE6 user access the same site?

Maybe it’s just me, but from this I got the impression that we should treat using IE6 as a disability and implement our hacks as an exercise in providing accessibility for those impaired by downscale-browser syndrome.

Like most web designers and developers, I understand what a thorn in our sides IE6 has become, requiring significant investment of time in order to hack and tweak our code in order to have IE6 display it correctly, usually long after we have pages which work fine in all other browsers. However it still commands a significant user base (approximately 25% of users) so we can’t dismiss it completely.

I would like to raise the question, “Do websites need to look the same in every browser?“, the answer of course, is “No”. If we want to hasten the demise of IE6, then I suggest that whilst making sites accessible in IE6, we avoid adding unnecessary markup and css/javascript hacks for purely aesthetic reasons. Let the IE6 users see how badly their browser of choice renders perfectly good, standards-compliant websites.

The monster deserves to die, whilst we have a moral obligation to feed it, we shouldn’t be giving it treats.