There are many-a people who would like to see Internet Explorer 6 bludgeoned and beaten quit gruesomely to its death, but there is another group (less than 10.2% of web users) that would like to see IE6 continue lumbering on. Instead, IE6 will be quietly put to rest in a somber funeral service on March 4th, 2010. The funeral will be held in Denver, CO and you can RSVP and leave memory notes through the site IE6Funeral.com. From that site:
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.
The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, for Internet Explorer 6 was the announcement by Google that Google Docs and Google Sites would be phasing out support and key functions may no longer operate correctly in the aging browser. March 13th is also the drop-dead date, pun intended, for IE6 users to expect support of advanced features at YouTube. Those holdouts would still be able to watch videos but other features would not work.
Google is certainly not the only site that has had it out for Internet Explorer 6 as there has be a general clamor for people to abandon that sinking ship for at least the past year by web developers everywhere. Digg has also been investigating and hoping to drop support for IE6 but has found that most users don’t have the option to upgrade. A Microsoft engineer on the Internet Explorer team expresses his point of view and wishes that people would upgrade to the latest version. Microsoft will support IE6 because they agree to support Windows XP until April 8, 2014 and as IE6 ships with Windows XP, they then also agree to support IE6 until then.
From the related YouTube help page:
Surfing the Web on an old browser can be a lot like running a steam engine along the tracks of a bullet train–it may still work, but it doesn’t take advantage of the speed and security of the new technology.
I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.
— Mark Twain