The following table outlines current browser usage across several sites for which I have analytics access. This represents the trailing 30 days, ending yesterday, 2008-06-25. While not a full cross section of the Internet there's a reasonable spread between the sites in terms of age and technology experience, so this sample should be reasonably interesting to those of you who care about such things. It's interesting enough for me to post about

As you can see, while it's now third, Internet Explorer 6 is still hanging on with unfortunate tenacity. Which means we still have great pain to deal with when trying to develop cross-browser web sites in this rich, interactive era.

I also means there's demand for people like me who know how to handle the beast, so I guess I should look to that as a silver lining…

Still, die IE6 die.

So sayeth the IEblog:

IEBlog : IE Automatic Component Activation Now Available

The IE Automatic Component Activation (IE ACA) update is now available as part of the April 2008 Internet Explorer Cumulative Update. The "click to activate" behavior, formerly required for ActiveX controls embedded in some webpages, is now permanently removed from Internet Explorer. For detailed information on IE ACA, see our blog post from last November announcing this update.

This update replaces the IE ACA previews released in December 2007 and February 2008.

Which means I can stop using SWFObject and just dump Flash into the page like I used to way back when. SWFObject is really a nice piece of code, but I'm a lot happier when I'm not relying on JavaScript for something as basic as getting Flash embedded into a page. It's just an added layer of complexity and an extra download* that I don't need in my life and I'm damn glad to be rid of it.

Want an example of the complexity I'm talking about? check out this post I wrote a few months ago:

Belt and Suspenders- Flash Embed With SWFObject and Conditional Comments

While it works, it's WAY too complicated for anyone's good.

*although I do wrap all JS into a single file now, just appending SWFObject to the bottom of the file. Even doing that it adds a few KB to the download, so even in a single file situation it's overhead I'd rather be rid of…

SaveTheDevelopers.org :: Making The Web A Better Place

Say no to IE 6! Our current campaign focuses on assisting users in upgrading their Internet Explorer 6 web browser. This campaign will result in former IE 6 users having a more enjoyable experience on the web while (hopefully) creating a less stressful and complicated environment for web developers by hastening the retirement of an outdated browser.

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Screen Shots

These were done with browsercam, so the test may or may not have fully run its course by the time the 15 second delay was up. Still, it's not like any of these browsers were close, so a few seconds isn't going to save them if, in fact, they were cut off before the rendering was over.

As a note, I tried to do the Capture in Konqueror and it pretty much made Browsercam cry and/or vomit ("Do NOT Try The Capture Again!") I'm going to log in shortly to see what the actual damage is.

[update]It's a known bug and some commentors were gracious enough to take screen shots with updated versions.[/update]

Reference Rendering:

And now the Fail parade:
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If you're using Flash and you want the best possible coverage (meaning it works with users who don't have JS turned on) while still using something like SWFObject where possible to get around the "click here to activate and use this control" ActiveX message in Internet Explorer, then take a look at the ridiculous pattern below.

Warning- not for the squeamish…
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