IE 6 Death Watch gets a Funeral Service and at least a few more Nails in it’s coffin

Part 2.
Six Months ago I declared One Year to Go on the IE 6 Deathwatch

In the beginning of this year it was disclosed that Google (as well as and 20+ other companies) had been the victim of Chinese cyber attack, attackers called the operation “Aurora” . Microsoft had admitted that Explorer was used in Google China hack (via BBC), and it now known that the attack took advantage of a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 – CVE-2010-0249 – to drop malware onto compromised systems. (via The Register)

This has promoted France, Germany (and then Australia) to suggesting that its citizens switch from Internet Explorer.

Thomas Kristensen, the chief security officer for Secunia a company that specializes in looking for security vulnerabilities, commented :

“Currently it is evident that running IE6 on XP or Windows 2000 is a very bad idea, and any other browser would be a better choice for XP and Windows 2000 users,”

In other news :

Goggle has announced Modern Browsers for Modern Applications declaring :

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, 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.

But more importantly, Google-owned YouTube will end support for Internet Explorer 6 on March 13, just two weeks after ending support on Google Docs.

This will have the effect of getting many non corporate users to upgrdae their browsers off of IE6, and more than a few off of Internet Explorer altogether.

This has lead to the announcement that “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.”

Hence, a funeral services for Internet Explorer Six will be held at 7pm on March 4, in Denver, Colorado.

Can someone be sure to put a stake in it’s heart to ensure it does not come back? 🙂

It’s still the most dreaded 3 letters in a web developers life.

Beta New just published (March 1) Let the Internet Explorer 6 death watch begin will many amusing statements :

IE6’s heart turned evil long ago. .. During IE6’s reign of terror Website designers paid tribute by using a DOCTYPE .. Meanwhile, IE6 amassed a great group of worshipers — malware writers looking to exploit security vulnerabilities for profit. .. IE6 will be missed by malware worshipers and enterprise IT managers too dependent on ActiveX controls to easily switch browsers.

(and how soon till we can start the “Flash Death Watch”? It’s the IE6 of the 10’s!)

Update March 5th : Post ie6 funeral report: IE6 Laid To Rest. Pictures, Videos, And Flowers From Microsoft. and Protesters (!?!).

And see CSS Squirrel, Kyle Weems, for Goodbye, Six, and good riddance. So Say We All! and then read the related blog post.