Anti-IE6 campaign grows
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 has long been hated by web developers because of its HTML idiosyncrasies. So much so that many big name web companies, as well as governments, are urging users to dump IE6 in favour of a more modern browser alternative. Among these are Google, the British department of Health and the French and German governments.
Internet Explorer 6 was first released on August 27 2001 and yet, despite its dated appearance, IE6 simply refuses to slip quietly into the background and is still in widespread use around the world.
IE6 renders HTML pages in such a way that it is largely incompatible with most other browsers. The result, for Web developers, is that they often have to develop two parallel versions of their sites; one for IE6 users and one for other users with more standards-compliant browsers.
In the UK the Department of Health issued a directive last week to the National Health Service trusts to migrate immediately to a newer version of Internet Explorer. And in Germany and France last month the governments of those countries took it a step further and advised citizens to find a replacement for all versions of Internet Explorer. The move followed a security breach at Google in which IE6 was targeted.
Perhaps the biggest name to add its voice to the anti-Internet Explorer 6 campaign is Google, which last week announced it will be ending support for all versions of IE older than IE7. In a post on the Google Enterprise blog the company said that it would begin phasing out support for “older browsers … starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products – as well as new Docs and Sites features – won’t work properly in older browsers.”
Microsoft has also said that it would like to see the end of IE6 but that it is in no position to force the change on users. The company says that because IE6 was the default shipped with Windows XP, it can only wait until users upgrade to get rid of IE6. The company has, however, agreed to support IE6 until 2014.
Anti-IE6 campaign – give your views
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