It seems that every day that goes by, another one of the user interface developers that I work with talks about how Internet Explorer 6 must die. Granted, they have plenty of justification for why this browser should go away. For example, Internet Explorer (aka, IE6) is “ancient” — it was released in late 2001 (source). It has serious security flaws (source) and Microsoft has moved on to release IE7 and IE8.
And while plenty of social networking destinations, including Facebook, have stopped supporting IE6, the majority of users unfortunately can’t upgrade/replace IE6 because they have insufficient privileges on their machines/their company won’t let them upgrade (source). That’s a major “yikes” in my book.
Last week, six solid punches in one swing were taken at IE6. I am speaking about the announcement from Google that they’re planning to phase out support for IE6 (source). Google indicated that key functionality in Google Docs and [international] Google Sites will be disrupted starting on March 1, 2010. I applaud Google which owns 6 of the top 20 destination on the web and welcome them to the movement (source).
And while we really needed Google, the internet community can’t (for a second) think that we’ve won the fight. We need to convince several US-based companies, such as Microsoft (thank you @cubanx!), Yahoo! and Amazon, and Chinese companies, including Baidu, QQ.com and Sina.com.cn, to jumped on board. While it may feel like we’ve made progress, the short list below demonstrates that we still have a long road ahead of us.
Top 20 Companies that don’t support the IE must die movement:
IE6 Must Die Movement Requires More Than Google
It seems that every day that goes by, another one of the user interface developers that I work with talks about how Internet Explorer 6 must die. Granted, they have plenty of justification for why this browser should go away. For example, Internet Explorer (aka, IE6) is “ancient” — it was released in late 2001 (source). It has serious security flaws (source) and Microsoft has moved on to release IE7 and IE8.
Last week, six solid punches in one swing were taken at IE6. I am speaking about the announcement from Google that they’re planning to phase out support for IE6 (source). Google indicated that key functionality in Google Docs and [international] Google Sites will be disrupted starting on March 1, 2010. I applaud Google which owns 6 of the top 20 destination on the web and welcome them to the movement (source).
And while we really needed Google, the internet community can’t (for a second) think that we’ve won the fight. We need to convince several US-based companies, such as Microsoft (thank you @cubanx!), Yahoo! and Amazon, and Chinese companies, including Baidu, QQ.com and Sina.com.cn, to jumped on board. While it may feel like we’ve made progress, the short list below demonstrates that we still have a long road ahead of us.
Top 20 Companies that don’t support the IE must die movement: