I’ve just read an article saying that Google is going to stop supporting Internet Exporer 6 – the ancient, badly coded security risk that never obeyed the standards of the web, thinking it knew best. Good, I’m glad!
If I was Google then I wouldn’t just stop supporting it so that some of it’s services won’t work “properly”, I’d use browser detection to display a message saying they are using rediculously outdated and insecure technology that is putting themselves and millions of others at risk – along with a link to Windows Update. I’d also not take the cautious approach by starting with Google Docs – I’d start with Gmail or even the Google Search Homepages.
Microsoft has been unable to fix the IE6 problem and the spam, botnets and other problems that the legacy software has unleashed on us all – mainly because they decided that updating the software would be done by the novice home user, not automatically. This now means that those PCs with dangerous software will be sitting there sending out spam emails until the day they die. Microsoft won’t fix the issue – they’d rather the customer bought a new PC. The owner won’t fix it – they obviouly don’t know how or don’t care. But Google can fix it.
Anyone who has an internet connection (and the ones without internet aren’t really part of the problem) will at some point use a search engien and the chances are it will be Google. If Google highlights the risks to the IE6 users and tells them how to upgrade and patch their PC then the spam, phising and other internet scams will start to be resolved. And hopefully Yahoo, Ask and Bing will follow suit and help remove IE6 from the face of the earth.
I'm a web developer based in the East Midlands, UK and if I keep up the current rate, I might have developed 3 million sites by the time I retire