Usage of Internet Explorer 6 declines to twelve percent

As of February 2011 – that’s right, just last month – the usage of Internet Explorer 6 has dropped to 12%. A majority of Internet Explorer 6’s usage is in China with a whopping 34.5%, followed by South Korea with 24.8% and India with 12.3%. The US comes in with 2.9%, Canada at 3.3%, the UK with 3.5% and Australia’s around 3.2%. These numbers may represent users who are unable to upgrade to a more secure Windows OS such as Windows 7. Less than 1% of users surfing the web are on a legacy Windows OS such as Windows 9x/ME or Windows 2000. Approximately 90% of people surfing the web are using a modern Windows OS such as XP, Vista or Windows 7.

What does this mean? That thankfully people are using more modern browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome and even an updated Internet Explorer. This is great news for all of us. It shows that users are keeping their systems up to date and trying alternative browsers. In the end that means a safer, more secure browsing experience for web surfing.

Microsoft wants to get Internet Explorer 6 usage to less than 1% worldwide. This will not just help users but web developers as well. A modern, up to date web browser means web pages will display with correct standards. Pages will load faster and more efficiently and this will reduce the workload for web developers. On March 24th, Internet Explorer 9 will be available for download. However, only users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 will be able to install and use the newest web browser. For those of you still on Windows XP it is highly recommended to upgrade to a more up-to-date Windows.

Want to track Internet Explorer 6’s decline for yourself? You can do so at the IE6Countdown page.