Interne Explorer 6 (IE6), the browser that shipped by default with the Windows XP operating system – back in 2001 – is a piece of software many would like to see fade away. Not Microsoft, who will continue to support the browser for as long as it supports Windows XP. But Yahoo! for example would like IE6 users to drop it and move on to a modern browser. As Yahoo! Mail Program Manager Andrew Molyneux explained earlier this month, you are not getting the most out of Yahoo! Mail if you’re still on IE6.
Mountain View-based search giant Google does not like IE6 any better. Google announced back in January that it would start phasing out IE6 support on its Google Docs and Google Sites services as of March 1. “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,” explained Google Apps Senior Product Manager, Rajen Sheth.
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But before that the Google owned video-sharing site YouTube announced it would drop support for IE6 – that was in the summer of 2009. We’ve known that YouTube doesn’t like IE6 for some time now. The only thing we did not know is precisely when YouTube would say farewell to IE6. Now we do thanks to an article buried in a YouTube Help item. The article clearly says the following:
“On March 13, we are dropping support for your [IE6] browser. You’ll still be able to watch videos after that date, but new features may not work properly.”
In related news, do you know what else will happen this March? Microsoft will start to roll out the choice screen. This is a browser ballot screen that will be presented to all Windows users that have Internet Explorer set as the default browser. The browser ballot screen presents – in random order – the 12 most popular browser out there, including Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera Software’s Opera and the socially oriented Flock browser.