For some reason it seems that 80%* of Guernsey businesses seem to be stuck using Internet Explorer 6 despite it being named number eight in the worst 25 tech products ever made, being in part responsible for the recent Chinese attacks on Google, being wildly out of date and incompatible with the latest web techonologies and a whole host of other Internet sins. Even the German and French governments are advising people to stop using it.

Google have joined a growing list of companies in ditching IE6 support. In Europe the EU is forcing users to be given a choice of web browser with the Browser Ballot screen, so it looks like IE6 might finally on the way out. If you must stick with Internet Explorer upgrade to IE8 — it’s free, or even better ditch IE altogether and get Firefox.

Sadly the graph for Guernsey looks nothing like the global browser trends above — we’d probably see IE6 happily sitting with a 50%* advantage on the rest. The rest of the world is moving forward, but it seems most local businesses are stuck in 2000 and if you don’t change soon you’ll not be able to view any websites or take advantage of what the Internet can offer. Of course you can stick with IE6 and enjoy being responsible for holding back the greatest human invention since the printing press.

*My figures are made up, but to illustrate a point. Each month I look at the visitor statistics for many local websites and they show in Guernsey are still using IE6 more than we should be.

Related posts:

1. Channel Island Browser Wars. You’re at Risk.
2. Firefox 3.5 Web Browser Released
3. Who broke Google?
4. The life and times of Internet Explorer
5. BW launch first HTML5 website