Microsoft Out Of Cycle Patch Highlights Anachronism Of Internet Explorer 6

Ask any webmasters working on fairly large projects what their biggest bug bear is and it is likely that they will come up with the words, IE6, short for Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft's long obsolete web browser.

The software giant has just announced that it will launch an emergency patch for the browser in the next few hours after it was revealed that it contained a critical vulnerability that was used by Chinese hackers to get access to sensitive information from a number of high profile companies.

Despite the fact that it is nearly nine years old, Internet Explorer 6 is still the most popular browser around according to Market Share, with 21 percent of the market, just ahead Internet Explorer 8 and more than four points in front of Firefox 3.5.

And it is this popularity that is making life for many webmasters worldwide a real pain in the backside especially given that IE 5.0 only accounts for a fraction of the total market share of Internet Explorer globally.

The browser lacks support for modern web standards which make it a real headache for those who must design websites that appeal to a very wide audience.