There are no more excuses for using old browsers that are slow and prone to virus attacks. And anyone who has, or uses, the web pays the price. Those of us who design and maintain websites have to resort to all sorts of time-consuming (thus expensive!) tricks to make the sites we create work with IE6 -- a browser that is now almost nine years old, and which Microsoft strenuously urges customers to stop using. Learn more.

Even if you've upgraded your own browser, these extra costs, incurred by CHCS and every other web development firm on the planet, are passed on to you in one way or another.

Unfortunately, big companies are the main culprits. According to Forrester Research, "60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser." So in this economic environment, when every dollar counts, corporate and organization employees need to start asking why money is being wasted on old systems. And customers, donors to non-profits, and taxpayers need to ask whether IT departments are having to waste money by maintaining old systems.

So don't wait. There are many excellent alternative browsers available now, with more on the way. Here are some links:

UPDATE: Windows Update is now pushing Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP. Let's hope that will decrease the number of IE6 users. Unfortunately, it can take corporate users a long time to approve updates, so IE6 isn't going away anytime soon.

Yesterday morning, I got a rather breathless update from a friend who was actually counting the hours until Internet Explorer 8 became available. I got to thinking: does anybody care?

It's my experience that many users don't even know they're using a web browser ("I just go on the internet"). People like that aren't going to upgrade unless Microsoft makes it an automatic update.

And from what I read, they aren't going to notice much change, although it may feel slower. That's not going to make MSFT any friends.

Of course, as a web developer, I need to make sure that the sites we make look good in all major browsers and operating systems. Browsers have proliferated recently, so that job is getting increasingly complex.

I haven't experimented with IE 8 yet (where am I going to put it? It doesn't coexist with IE 6 or IE 7), but hopefully, it won't break anything. Let us know if you find any problems!