Those not familiar with web design probably won’t know that we routinely have to ‘break’ code to make it work in this old browser, yet people still refuse to upgrade — mainly corporates who lock down desktops for fear of security issues. The irony here, of course, is that IE6 is a security vulnerability in itself — as one bright spark once remarked about Windows “its not like theres a load of back doors its more like the back of the house is missing”.

As we previously posted, Google launched “Chrome Frame” back in October 09, which essentially replaces Internet Explorers rendering engine (ie. the main bit inside the window) with a Google Chrome-based replacement. A stealth-like approach if ever there was one.

Next, Google roundly blamed Internet Explorer for the Chinese hackings. The French and German Governments followed this with a warning to their citizens to stop using the old browser. The UK Government did not issue a warning. Microsoft have since released a patch.

Google then announced dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 on its widely used GMail webmail service “this year”.

Yesterday, Google upped the ante by announcing it is dropping support for IE6 on YouTube – its video sharing site.

Our own web stats are showing a startling demise in the use of Internet Explorer in general.

In the last Month:
Firefox – 46%
Internet Explorer – 38%
Safari – 6%
Chrome – 5%

Of the Internet Explorer traffic:
IE8 – 52%
IE7 – 32%
IE6 – 15%

So, farewell IE6 – you won’t be missed.

For those looking for an alternative, try Google Chrome or Firefox.

Read more about FXRecruiter here or call us on 08000 199 737

In fact, even Microsoft’s own site will apparently not work properly using IE8 right now.

Read more here.

Read Microsoft’s own blog on the subject here.

We will unfortunately not be offering free fixes!

For the techies, Slashdot readers had lots to say on the subject

We felt it was about time our FXRecruiter product had its own website.

You can see the results here: http://www.fxrecruiter.co.uk

We will be adding more content as we add more features to the product.

Any feedback gladly received!

Thats about to change as Google has announced improved indexing of Flash-based content.

However, as e-Consultancy quite rightly point out, designers should not see this as a reason to build websites totally from Flash: Google still cannot use the tag structure as it can with HTML to work out the importance of keywords through their use in titles, headings and links, so Flash should still be used sparingly.

Also, designers often create Flash-based sites that “re-invent the wheel” when it comes to user interface design, often making sites difficult to use and usually in-accessible to those with disabilities. You also often cannot link to a page within a Flash site as they are all essentially part of the same page.

Advanced Javascript and CSS effects can often help create a feature-rich interface without the need for Flash, but Flash does still have it’s place in certain areas of presentation, not least in streaming video where it is now the most popular format (as seen on YouTube).

Firefox has a long and distinguished lineage, all the way back to the Netscape browser which grew out of the Mosaic Browser — one of the first browsers I ever used back in the early days of the web in about 1993. It took Microsoft by surprise then and they took a while to catch up with what was still an inferior offering. Fast forward a few years and fed up with Internet Explorer’s rapidly aging features, lack of support for modern web standards and major security flaws, those of us who use the web a lot moved to the Firefox browser from the Mozilla Foundation. Most of us still use it to this day, even since Microsoft belatedly joined the web standards table with Internet Explorer 7. There is a tremendous community behind Mozilla and also a lot of great add-ons that extend Firefox functionality and make our jobs as web developers and SEO’s a lot easier.

According to BBC News “New features in Version 3 include automatic warnings when users stray onto webpages booby-trapped with malicious code. Also in Version 3 will be “Smart Location Bar” that lets people return to places they have visited even if they have not bookmarked them or cannot remember the full web address. ”

I highly recommend checking it out if you use the web a lot. Get it here.

My favourite add-ons:

Ebay Companion – Ebay features integrated into the browser
Fireshot - take and annotate screengrabs. We find a picture tells a thousand words. Much easier than trying to explain what changes you want making in words!
Web Developer – lots of tools for looking more deeply at website code: one for the geeks (this must be popular as it is #1 in Google for the search “Web Developer”!)

I would also recommend SEO Quake but unfortunately that does not yet work with v3. I’m sure it will soon and it integrates a load of useful SEO tools into the browser so they are just a few clicks away.

Loads more add-onscan be downloaded here.

Any other Firefox users like to share their favourite add-ons?

Your website – and particularly your business website has got to strongly motivate people to do something before they click away.  Some people can spend literally thousands of pounds on state of the art sites, Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click, but when someone gets there, they just go out through the same door.

Great blog post on this here containing 34 incredibly strong Calls To Action.

We always recommend these tips as best practice but good to have at hand in a concise article:

Best Practices When Moving Your Site

This dummy text generator now allows us to fill text areas on draft web page layouts with things like… Kafka

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment.

or Pangram

The quick, brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. DJs flock by when MTV ax quiz prog. Junk MTV quiz graced by fox whelps. Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymphs. Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex!

Fox nymphs grab quick-jived waltz. Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox. Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack. Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim. Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.

The very, very last thing that any web designer or developer should ever think of putting into a draft webpage design or layout is text that may relate to the actual client. As soon as they see text that they may think is even slightly relevant to their business, their eyes are immediately diverted from the layout or design, and you’ve lost their attention.

Other resources, and fair play to them for helping out over the years, include the Lipsum Generator

Calls to Action come in all shapes and sizes and you don’t often know when you’re looking at one. This is One for example (HTML text in anchor tags – ‘click here’) Text links like that are also essential where Search Engine Optimisation is a consideration – they are useful for search engines, which can ‘read’ the text held in anchor tags and help them understand the ‘context’ of a link (search engines can’t understand an image ‘button).

Buttons, however, do have their place. Sometimes, the call to action is so simple and clear that a well designed graphic is essential. This could range from an all-singing, all-dancing Flash advertisement banner, to a simple, ‘Add to Basket’ button.

Read more about Calls to Action in this great blog article.