IE 6 falls below 1 percent in the U.S. Delicious.

Microsoft is throwing itself a little party to celebrate the demise of Internet Explorer 6. Based on the latest data from Net Applications, the much-maligned browser recently fell below 1 percent in the United States, which prompted the IE Team to celebrate with a cake on IE 6′s grave, as it were.

Roger Capriotti, director of Internet Explorer marketing, writes, “IE 6 has been the punch line of browser jokes for a while, and we’ve been as eager as anyone to see it go away.”

The U.S. joins Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway in the less-than-1-percent category and several more nations are not far behind. Microsoft also recently announced that it would begin forcing IE updates for those that have opted into automatic Windows Updates, which should help further reduce the number of both IE 6 and IE 7 users.

Unfortunately for web developers the worldwide browser market share picture is not quite as bright. Internet Explorer 6 still has a considerable user base in China, where it tops 25 percent, and much of the rest of Asia hovers in the 5 percent range.

The other bad news is that despite the demise of IE 6, compensating for the shortcomings in both IE 7 and IE 8 remain necessary parts of a web developer’s job. And, given that Windows XP users will never be able to upgrade beyond IE 8, IE 8 will likely take IE 6′s place as the official pain in the ass of web developers everywhere.

Photo from the Windows Team Blog

The new auto-update feature will only apply to users who’ve opted into the automatic updates through Windows Update. Those that have opted in will be upgraded to the latest version of IE available for their system. If you’re still on Windows XP that means you’ll be updated to IE 8. Vista and Windows 7 users will move to IE 9. The Windows Blog notes that when upgrading, your home page, search provider, and default browser settings will not be affected.

Internet Explorer updates have been offered through Windows Update previously, but unlike other “important” Windows updates, users needed to initiate the actual installation of IE updates via a dialog box. The only real change for most users in today’s announcement is that you’ll no longer need to mess with all those notification windows and dialogs. Instead IE will just seamlessly upgrade.

If you don’t want automatic updates, you can turn off Windows Update (though you should be aware that doing so could leave you with a insecure browser and operating system). Enterprise customers can opt out of the new auto-update mechanism using the IE 8 and IE 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits available from Microsoft.

The new auto-updating will ensure that users have the latest, most secure and stable version of IE, and web developers may be able to enjoy a fringe benefit as well — fewer IE 6 and IE 7 users on the web.

According to Microsoft IE 6 usage is currently at 8.4 percent worldwide, with some countries already under 1 percent while others, like China, remain high at 27.9 percent.

Microsoft has previously launched a campaign to kill off IE 6 and many large websites — like Google and WordPress — have already dropped support for the aging browser.

Web developers still supporting IE 6 may not need to do so much longer if Microsoft’s auto-update strategy pays off. Since the new auto-update mechanism will apply to IE 7 as well, it too may not need to be supported much longer. Of course, even in the best case scenario where IE 6 and 7 users drop below 5 percent worldwide, web developers would still need to contend with IE 8. While IE 8 was a huge step up from its predecessors, it still lacks support for most of the HTML5 and CSS 3 features found in modern web browsers.

Microsoft’s move to silent, automatic updates for Internet Explorer means that Apple’s Safari web browser is now the only browser that doesn’t default to automatically updating. Microsoft says that the auto-updating will roll out regionally, starting in January with users in Australia and Brazil and “scaling up over time.”

The popular blog publishing tool WordPress has joined the growing cadre of sites dropping support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 web browser. The recently upgraded WordPress.com brings a handful of new features and a revamped, cleaner design in the admin pages, but perhaps the biggest news in the release is that the admin pages no longer support IE 6.

Users visiting the admin section of WordPress.com with IE 6 will now see a message to upgrade their browser (the same message will appear in the self-hosted WordPress 3.2 when it is released in June). The WordPress blog says it’s dropping IE 6 because, “it has required increasingly complex code trickery to make the WordPress dashboard work in the IE 6 browser, which was introduced 10 years ago and does not support current web standards.”

WordPress is just the latest in a long list of sites that have abandoned IE 6, including Gmail, YouTube, Basecamp and hundreds of others.

Indeed you’d be hard pressed to find a web developer who wants to keep supporting IE 6. Even Microsoft has set up a website that essentially dances on the grave of IE 6 (after WordPress announced it would drop IE 6, Microsoft actually said “thank you WordPress“).

However, according to Net Applications, IE 6 still has almost 12 percent user share worldwide. In the U.S. the number is just under 3 percent, but in China it’s still nearly 35 percent.

Compounding the problem are the number of corporate intranets that require IE 6. Microsoft is hard at work trying to convince large corporations to upgrade — if you’re still using IE 6, that means you haven’t upgraded to Windows 7, which is Microsoft’s real goal with the kill IE 6 campaign — but for Microsoft’s biggest customers, upgrading means investing millions of dollars in new infrastructure.

While developers may enjoy dropping IE 6 because of its subpar support for web standards, for end users that’s generally not a concern. What is, or at least should be, the bigger concern for users is that IE 6 is less secure.

If you’re part of the tiny segment of users that can — but haven’t — upgraded from IE 6, we suggest doing so. Grab a copy of Firefox or Chrome and join the modern web.

See Also:

• Microsoft Kicks Off Campaign to Kill Internet Explorer 6
• Google Drops Support for IE6, Firefox Goes Mobile
• Install Google Chrome Frame Without Admin Privileges
• Internet Explorer Isn’t Dead. And Wow, Look at China

Microsoft has launched a new campaign to rid the web of Internet Explorer 6. The company’s new IE6countdown website tracks IE6′s dwindling market share and encourages developers to paste a code snippet into their websites, telling any IE6 users to upgrade.

According to Net Applications, IE6 still has a 12 percent user share worldwide. In the U.S. the number is just under 3 percent, but in China it’s still almost 35 percent. That means millions of people are using a browser that’s older than Gmail, Ubuntu, Borat and even The Euro.

You’d be hard pressed to find a web developer that doesn’t want to get rid of IE6. In fact, many websites — including, for example, Google — long ago stopped supporting IE6, but having IE6′s creator jump on the “let’s get rid of IE6″ bandwagon is encouraging.

The problem is that some users have no choice but to stick with IE6. There are still some sites on the web that require IE6 and even more in private intranets. Telling users who need IE6 to access these sites to upgrade isn’t going to solve the problem. The problem is with the websites, not the users. The IE6countadown site has a section devoted to IT staff and corporate users looking to upgrade, but there’s little the company can do for those with sites built only for IE6.

The other problem with Microsoft’s upgrade campaign is that it directs users to install Internet Explorer 8 — already two years old and soon to be replaced by IE9. Why not hold the campaign until IE9 is here and users can upgrade to an even better browser?

Simple — IE9 won’t be available on Windows XP. And if you’re using IE6 you’re on Windows XP (or something even older). It’s a depressing thought, but if you’re still using Windows XP, IE8 is as good as it will ever get unless you switch to a different web browser.

If you’d like to join in Microsoft’s campaign, the company has put together a cut-and-paste code snippet that will display a banner telling IE6 users to upgrade. The graphic isn’t the prettiest thing around, and you’ll want to add some actual text to the alt tag. But the big change we suggest making is to the link — point your users to a more modern browser, say Firefox or Chrome, rather than the IE8 upgrade page. That way people can enjoy the modern web, but still keep IE6 around for those times they need it.

See Also:

• Google Drops Support for IE6, Firefox Goes Mobile
• Ten Things to do on the Web When IE6 Is Dead
• Internet Explorer Isn’t Dead. And Wow, Look at China

When it arrives later this year, Internet Explorer 9 will support most of the latest decorations and behaviors in CSS3. But until then, you’re stuck with the same old workarounds for IE users.

Here’s something that might make your life as a designer a little bit easier: CSS3 Pie is a new library written by Jason Johnston that lets you use several of the latest CSS3 enhancements and still have them show up in Internet Explorer versions 6 through 8.

It creates DHTML behaviors that IE can understand, and then it controls how they’re presented. The library can be used to translate a few CSS decorations: border-radius, border-image, box-shadow, multiple background images and gradient backgrounds.

Right now, it’s just a demo, and since it uses .htc files for DHTML behaviors, it causes a serious performance hit on some versions of IE. It will likely become more useful in the future as Johnston builds it out. Follow Pie’s progress on Twitter.

Is it a good idea? On one hand, it’s just another life support mechanism for IE6. But it also gives us an easy enough fix where we can continue creating modern designs without having to worry as much about alienating those visitors stuck using browsers that don’t have proper CSS3 support.

Hat tip to Rey Bango at Ajaxian, who notes that CSS3 Pie deserves a spot on your shelf next to those other two libraries that perform similar magic tricks, Modernizr and html5shiv.

Also, A List Apart recently ran an excellent tutorial on using Modernizr to smooth the transition to HTML5 and CSS3.

See Also:

• The Solar System, Rendered in CSS and HTML
• Using HTML5 Today With Modernizr
• Handy Guide to Detecting Support for HTML5

Every few months, we see a new set of statistics or a new report showing how Internet Explorer is losing browser share, becoming increasingly irrelevant or dying on the vine. This of course sets off ripples across the tech blogs, which gather into a wave of “Death of IE” posts that we all tweet, Digg and generally take pleasure in passing around and commenting on.

Which is not to say these blog posts are at all wrong or untrue. Internet Explorer is losing browser share, relevance and vitality. And more so lately than ever before — the most recent wave of “IE’s Dead” posts, which hit us this week, includes some sound analysis and stats that show IE is losing serious footing on the open web.

One key event was the inclusion of the browser selection screen for European Windows users, which Microsoft was forced to add following a recent ruling by the EU (We posted a preview of the screen last month). The browser choice screen gives users the option of downloading an alternative browser, and the immediate result of the feature’s rollout was a dip in IE’s market share.

Early data from Quantcast shows an immediate five percent decline. IE’s loss seems to have stabilized at around the three percent mark after a few days, though (maybe some of those who switched actually missed IE). The big winner among browser-makers seems to be Firefox, which saw around a two percent jump after the choice screen debuted.

Granted, these are small numbers. But the effect of the browser choice screen is disruptive and significant. Consider most people’s reason for sticking with IE in the first place — many non-technical users don’t think about the web in terms of the browser, and they may not even be aware that another choice exists beyond what shipped with their computer. The EU’s ruling has the power to change that thinking.

The browser choice screen may also push users to upgrade. Major web sites are also doing their part by refusing to support the ancient IE6 any longer — Amazon being the latest.

Also last week, Microsoft showed off the latest build of IE9 at its MIX developer event in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company received praise for finally beefing up its support for HTML5 semantic markup and other technologies like embedded video and hardware acceleration. It’s obvious that HTML5 is where the web is heading, so it’s good news that Microsoft is going to be there to play a part.

But the announcement underscores one of the main problems with IE — the next version of the browser won’t be ready for another nine months to a year at the earliest. Meanwhile, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and, most recently, Opera have already arrived at the crossroads of the next web, with support for HTML5, vastly improved JavaScript rendering capabilities and systems for video and audio playback in place.

Peter Bright at our sister site Ars Technica posted a well-informed essay about this topic Wednesday. An excerpt:

The current IE9 engine is already a huge improvement over IE8, but its preview status makes it irrelevant. We don’t know when IE9 will be finished — 2011 seems the earliest possibility, and there’s an outside chance that it won’t be until 2012 that IE9 ships. In the meantime, we get nothing from Redmond.

This approach sets Microsoft apart from the other browser vendors. Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all get regular updates. I don’t just mean security fixes, though they get those too — they get regular feature updates that improve their performance, improve their standards compliance, and improve their user interfaces. Firefox, for example, had release 3.0 in July 2008, 3.5 in June 2009, and 3.6 in January 2010. Opera 9.5 was released in September 2007, with 10.0 in September 2009, 10.10 in November 2009, and 10.50 in March 2010.

Over a similar time frame, Internet Explorer 7 was released in October 2006, IE8 in March 2009. And now nothing further is likely until 2011.

Microsoft’s dog-slow release schedule, and its unwillingness to support bleeding-edge web technologies at the same rate they are being adopted by its competitors are the factors leading to its browser’s loss of dominance. Users want the new features of the new web now, not in a year. And they can access those new features almost everywhere else except for inside Internet Explorer.

IE isn’t dead, and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon — its market share is still above the fifty percent mark worldwide. But Microsoft seems to be intent on continuing to drive its key web consumer product towards irrelevance no matter how fast the web continues to evolve.

See Also:

• Internet Explorer 9 Shows Up Faster, But Still Lacking
• Microsoft to Double Down on HTML5 With Internet Explorer 9
• New Opera 10.5 Delivers Speed, Windows 7 Tricks