37Signals says IE6 sucks

In a recent blog post, 37 Signals, originators of Ruby on Rails, and a series of extremely popular web applications, reminded users of their intent to stop supporting Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.

Jason Fried, President of 37Signals blogged yesterday:

"We will not intentionally break IE 6 compatibility, but we will also not invest significant time or resources into making sure we are backward compatible with IE 6 after October 1, 2008."

What's a poor IE6 user to do?

"In order to continue using the products without any hiccups, Internet Explorer 6 users should upgrade to a newer browser..."

... like Firefox, or Safari, or maybe even Google Chrome (if you can work around their EULA).

Why drop support for a browser you've invested so much work in already?

"Continued support of IE 6 means that we can't optimize our interfaces or provide an enhanced customer experience in our apps. Supporting IE 6 means slower progress, less progress, and, in some places, no progress. We want to make sure the experience is the best it can be for the vast majority of our customers, and continuing to support IE 6 holds us back."

This reflects strongly on the culture of 37Signals and their customer base. In the original post, it was noted that, "..IE 6 usage has finally dipped below a small minority threshold of our customers...". This is contrary to browsers overall, as w3Counter still reports IE6 as the top browser in their August '08 stats, accounting for 29.91% of all browser hits. 37Signals is an amazingly successful, forward-thinking, and arrogant set of developers. Their customers, by reflection are mostly the same, and I'm proud to be counted among them. I just hope Firefox 2 isn't next on their hit list...

Of course, if you're using GNU/Linux or a Mac, this doesn't effect you anyway. ;-)