Microsoft Wants to Kill Off Internet Explorer



Internet Explorer 6, that is. In 2011, IE6 will be 10 years old and to celebrate, Microsoft has decided to kill it off.  Not before time frankly.

Surprisingly, IE6 still has a worldwide market share of 12%, though this fell in the last year from 21%, so Microsoft’s target is to get IE6’s share down to 1% or less. And to publicise this, Microsoft has setup  an Internet Explorer 6 Countdown website which monitors use and provides some interesting facts and figures about the use of IE6 round the world.

For example, the IE6’s share of the browser market in China is 34.5% with South Korea at 24.8%. China’s use represents nearly half (5.9%) of the global use on its own. At the other end, usage in Finland and Norway is down to 0.9% and 0.7% respectively, which is where Microsoft wants it to be. The USA and UK are at 2.9% and 3.5%. Looking back at the peak of its popularity in 2002 and 2003, IE6 accounted for 90% of the browser market.

Microsoft is encouraging organisations to put a banner on their website that’s only visible to IE6 users and to stop supporting the browser. There are few big names on the list such as msn and CNET.

If you know anyone who is still using IE6, encourage them to upgrade to something more modern. Both they and the web will thank you for it.


2 thoughts on “Microsoft Wants to Kill Off Internet Explorer

  1. Oddly enough, I’m working at a place that did not give up IE6 until late last year. We are up to…wait for it…IE7!!

    The problem is that the newer browsers don’t work properly with some business systems that are crucial, and these business systems aren’t being updated by the vendor at the speed they should be. Frustrating.

    Most of the geeks get around it all by using Firefox (which is not supported by our IT department) which works just fine in 99% of the situations, including with our business systems. Yes, that’s a “what the hell?” head tilt from me…

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