Are you using a 9 years old computer or mobile phone? I guess probably not. So why using a 9 years old browser, which is notorious about security problems, lack of features and incompatible with modern standards, while the other modern alternatives are free to download?
Released in 2001, Internet Explorer 6, a.k.a IE6, turns 9 this year, and sadly yet there is still a column for it on our support list. However, Google said they are going to phasing out their support of IE6 from March 2010, starting with Google Docs and Sites. Later on this year, Google will phase out support for IE6 for GMail and Google Calender, according to Google’s notice email to all Google Apps administrators.
Dear Google Apps admin,
In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.
Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.
In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.
Thank you for your continued support!
Sincerely,
The Google Apps team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Appsproduct or account.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
This is an aggressive move on the part of Google that advances the field and will ultimately benefit everybody.
Facebook also started to phase out IE6 by displaying a “You may want to upgrade your browser” message when someone using IE6 wanted to access the new Facebook design.
IE6 visitors to YouTube are now confronted with a red warning bar with download links for alternative browsers.
We believe there will be more websites following these internet giant to abandon the sinking IE6 ship.
So if you’re using IE6, we think it’s a good time to upgrade it or choose an alternative browser. There are numbers of choices: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. All these browsers support bookmarks/favorites migration, that you can use to easily import your bookmarks/favorites from IE6. They have more decent features and are better compliant with modern web standards, which means you will have a better web browser experience.
Free free to leave your comment, no matter if you agree or disagree with us. Share with us what do you think of the sites prompting with upgrade messages, or maybe tell us about what you love about IE6 if it’s a choice or you’re restricted by your IT department. We’d love to hear from you!