On the death of IE6
I have seen many funeral services in my life. Of the ones I have seen it seems there basically are three kinds. Those that are sad, a lamentation for something taken to early, something stolen from us. At these types of funerals we see the greatest sorrow. Next is those that are quiet. This may sound like an odd term but at these services we either see that no one is there or those that are there don’t care. The services are usually short, and devoid of any sadness or joy. They are something bland and people are glad to have them over and out of the way. The last type of funeral service is Happy. Strange though it may seem at this service a celebration is had for a life well lived. Celebration is also given that the person or thing was worn out, suffering, ready to move on to whatever realm or sphere awaited them. These are often full of laughter, and although there is some sadness, it is usually overshadowed by a great sense of joy.
I am sure that the funeral of Internet Explorer 6 will be something like the last one. A celebration that the old, worn out, overused and under-supported browser will be gone. I know that I will be ecstatic when I can look at my stats and see that the number of IE6 browsers visiting my sites has diminished to the point that I don’t have to support the buggy and hackish code to make things look even semi right.
This has been a long time coming as we have watched IE6 wane. Like the hospital patient that the doctors don’t bother to stop by anymore I am sure IE6 felt this coming. If we watch closely we can trace the timeline of the ever growing demise.
First, Google drops IE6 support. Chine attacks google using an IE6 security hole and France and Germany encourage the discontinued use of IE6. Youtube follows suite and will stop support March 13th. Possibly the last nail in the coffin is Microsoft. Even though the creator of IE says they won’t discontinue the support of IE6, it is subverting itself by encouraging people to upgrade to IE8 with tricks like helping the hungry.
Truly, I am excited to see this spiraling death of IE6. I understand that some of the market share that the browser still has are people in large corporations. Where upgrading or using something else just isn’t an option and their IT staff just doesn’t seem to care. Maybe they are all fixing the PC Load Letter ticket requests or cleaning viruses. Who knows.