Anigel blogs

The old dinosaur of IE6 has taken another step closer to its final demise

On Friday Google announced that from 1^st of March 2010 it will no longer support IE6 and from that date, users of older browsers (IE6 included) may find that key functionality in Google Docs and Google Sites will no longer work properly. Other parts of Google will also stop working as changes are made without the excessive amount of effort required to make web2.0 sites work in a web 0.5 browser.

Google go on to recommend upgrading to one of the following:-

• IE – At least Version 7
• Firefox – Version 3+
• Google Chrome – Version 4+
• Safari – Version 3+

I would go further and recommend that you install the most current version of your chosen browser as IE 7 is already outdated with IE 8 being the current version of Internet explorer.

With Google now running as much as 13% of all active internet sites either directly or on behalf of one of the various services Google provides, this is going to make it very difficult for people to put off upgrading for much longer.

Sarah

We have been reminded again of the importance of developing according to web standards rather than to support a single specific web browser.

There have been reports emerging over the past week that a major security breach at Google leaked a lot of private data to Chinese hackers. The hackers were able to exploit security vulnerabilities in the 10 year old browser and operating combination of IE6 on Windows XP.

This was a 0-day exploit, which means it was a new found vulnerability that the vendor (in this case Microsoft) and antivirus / security companies were unaware of. Meaning there was no security fix for this issue.

The main reason many companies including high street names and government organisations  are still using this browser is because of applications that were not written to be standards compliant and instead were specifically written to work in IE6. This means that despite the fact we have already gone through IE7 and now onto IE8, the old dinosaur of IE6 will not die.

Make sure you future proof your applications and investment by ensuring you are compliant with the most current standards rather than tying yourself to a single browser or vendors’ technology as that will always end up holding you back in the future.