Time to bury IE6 for good

24/02/10 posted by Annie

The tech media of late has reported much criticism of Internet Explorer 6, especially regarding its vulnerable security. Now the notorious browser, which just six years ago dominated the web scene, is facing a number of serious death threats from the likes of Google and YouTube. Companies around the world have been plotting about IE6's demise for no less than half a year now, in a powerful movement called IE6 No More. The aim is on both personal users and backward IT departments, to upgrade their browsers so the modern, rich content of websites can be properly viewed. The eight year old browser offers nothing but hindrance to the changing landscape of web design and web development, especially the budding world of HTML 5.

On March 13, YouTube is finally ending support for the antiquated browser, on top of Google Docs and Google Site, which pull their support on March 1. Google has also announced it will start to phase out older browser support for Google Mail and Google Calendar by the year's end. Google is pushing both enterprise and consumer users towards newer browsers on all fronts. If you're an offending IE6 user, you'll get targeted by YouTube with an interstitial in place of the video you came for, warning “On March 13, we are dropping support for your browser. You’ll still be able to watch videos after that date, but new features may not work properly.”

Aten Design Group has built a website to commemorate the IE6 death, and will hold a funeral service at the company's headquarters in Denver. The funeral itself is a little preemptive, but by no means undue. The epitaph reads: "Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc. Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as 'IE6,' is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight." Mourners are encouraged to wear funeral attire, or send flowers in lieu of attendance.

While IE6 has trouble viewing many web designs to their full potential, there are obviously still hundreds of thousands of websites floating around that not only support IE6, but are especially built for it. Microsoft itself is flaunting IE8's superiority, but even though IE8 is currently more popular, IE6 is still used by about 20 percent of surfers worldwide. For Google Docs and Sites, only Windows Internet Explorer 7.0+, Mozilla Firefox 3.0+, Google Chrome 4.0+ and Safari 3.0+ will be supported. Hopefully all these recent efforts will ease the moving-on process for users unwittingly holding on to IE6.