We all love to hate IE. I think it is time web designers started to treat IE with a little more respect. IE9 is out, and although there is the major isssue around lack of upgrade routes from Window XP, Microsoft have got an excellent browser on their hands. As a result there are going to be plenty more people sticking with IE and we may see an end to the chipping away of IE dominance that we saw through the 2000s. Apple are great at getting all the press, and designers and increasingly developers love their MACS. However, I thnk web workers are in real danger of ignoring the fact that we still live in a Microsoft world and IE and Windows are what ‘ordinary joe’ uses. Take a look at my stats for this ecommerce Motoring Site.
| Month | Browser | Share | Of Which |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2011 | IE | 51% | IE9 = 2%, IE8 = 75%, IE7 = 16%, IE6 = 2% |
| Firefox | 25% | ||
| Chrome | 14% | ||
| Safari | 6% | ||
| Opera | 2% |
This site gets ‘ordinary joe’ visitors who are after motoring spares and you can see that IE, in its various guises, is still dominant. Therefore it would be very dangerous indeed to ignore IE.
It will be interesting in the months ahead to see how the stats change. I’ll keep you posted.