I've just installed a plugin on my wordpress blog that tells people with IE6 to [LIFTED] off and upgrade their browser.

I thought MS products were supported until 18 months after then next version came out?

Ah yes, but in the case of XP and apparently IE6, they've promised to plug security holes until 2011 for IE6 and 2014 for XP.

Can someone please explain to me what's so wrong with IE6? I use Firefox, but if I need IE, 6 is the one installed. What's the big deal?

Personally I don't like the way the newer versions of IE look and I prefer FF's cookie handling options. Plus NoScript os the most useful add-on on the planet.

It is a big security hole, it is buggy, it has more leaks than a Labour Cabinet and it cannot display web pages correctly, therefore web developers must develop the pages, then go back and deliberately break them, so that they will display correctly on IE6 (and to a lesser extent IE7).

Basically, if you aren't doing anything overly elaborate, you write the site once for Opera, Safari, Firefox, Netscape and IE8, then you have to go back and break it in places, so that it displays properly in IE7 and then go back and break it in other places, so that it will work in IE6. The sooner IE6 disappears, the better!

So essentially there's nothing wrong it. It's just that developers want an easier life and once again consumers are forced into decisions they neither understand or care about. Lovely. I'd like to think that I've got a bit of a clue about computers, but I haven't seen any benefit to IE7 or 8, over 6. Maybe I'm stupid

I'm not really sure where the problem is there - unless you're still using a pre-XP OS, then upgrading is hardly difficult. It's part of the update process. I'd have thought it would be more complicated to *not* upgrade - certainly, on all the office workstations, it upgraded to IE8 without even asking.

But no, there's nothing wrong with it. Apart from all the security holes, and the fact that web developers have to break their websites to be able to work with it.

If you're going to go down that road, what's wrong with IE4? I used to quite like that as a browser. Why should I have been forced to upgrade from that, just so developers don't have to keep redesigning their sites so IE4 users can access them. It doesn't seem fair really.

When a user base gets very small especially when teh browser in question is so non-compliant developers and their clients will simply ignore and not support it end of , thank god

From memory IE 4 doesn't support CSS

Company I work for is still using IE6, so obviously security is not an issue. And it's not like our IT dep. is in dark ages, for example all our desktop are virtualised and running on servers on different continent...

HMG still use IE6 too, that doesn't make it any less of a security risk, or a huge memory leaker.

If it was a risk they would upgrade, would they not?

Not necessarily, HMG are actually worried about compatibility with software/services provided by contractors. So rather than tell the contractors to get their arse in gear they'd rather risk infection of government computers and loss/theft of data.

I don't know about HMG, I was talking about my company...