Back in 2002 or 2003, when Internet Explorer reigned at the undisputed leader in browser market share, I was very outspoken over the need to support all browsers – even those with only 5% share or less. I argued about the need to provide a consistent experience for all users, regardless of what browser or version they decide (or as forced) to use. This ideology was all the easier to adopt considering how had market share at the time – I feel as though my strong feelings were just as much about not idly allowing the “evil” corporate browser to swallow even more share by helping make it the de-facto browser on the internet. Fast forward 5+ years and oh, how the tables are turning. A new generation is jumping online and they’re not just blindly clicking the blue ‘e’ on their desktop. Firefox 3 shattered the record for most downloads and, according to some metrics, is passing up 20% global market share and well above 40% in some European countries. The underdog is now the up-and-comer.

Which brings me to why I am writing this article. I am in the process of putting ideas and concepts together for the redesign of somerandomdude.net which has taken me down some very interesting paths. The problem is, many of these ideas are simply not going to work on older browsers – most notably, Internet Explorer 6. IE6 still comprises roughly 10% of the traffic on this site, which should be far too significant to ignore. Here is the conundrum – I just do not seem to care. IE6 is, by current standards, a train wreck of a browser. I have seen more web projects than I would like to remember use the majority of their production time just to resolve IE6 issues. Still, I fail to see the philosophical difference between supporting the Netscape 7′s in 2002 and the Internet Explorer 6′s in 2008. In fact, IE6 gets more share now than any of the browsers I fought to support did. All that said, I still am leaning towards not supporting it.

My argument towards not supporting IE6 for the new redesign would mean faster production time, and allow me to use publishing methods which would help me post much more frequently. So here’s the question – do ends justify the means or is this just an example of hypocrisy at its finest? My justification is continuing to support IE6 will limit what I can do to the blog (in the time I have to build it) in order to make posting easier – which should allow more content to be published. So, do I continue to give an equal experience to the 10% or give an improved experience to the 90%? This question is not new by any means, but I find myself on the other side of the argument this time.

What are your thoughts on this? Does creating a consistent experience trump a better site for the majority? Do the ends justify the means? Should a compromise be found?