Despite Microsoft valiantly committing to support the old and massively buggy IE6 web browser until 2014, other big players in the web world have opted to drop their support.
As of 1 March, Google will no longer support IE6 on its Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs services. This means that many functions in those products might not work properly any more.
Google's announcement came after the company admitted that China-based hackers had breached its network and stolen intellectual property.
“The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice.” said Google Apps senior product manager Rajen Sheth.
“Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively.”
Gmail is the world’s third-largest web-based email service, with an estimated 146 million global users.
In a similar vein, online business software vendor Salesforce.com has also announced it will implement a full de-support for IE6 by the end of 2010.
Salesforce.com said in an email to customers that its software releases, updates and additional features released throughout 2010 would not be supported on IE6.
"Multiple security vulnerabilities in IE6 have been exploited over the years. The most recent attacks against Google, Yahoo, and other companies specifically targeted vulnerabilities easily accessible in IE6 but much more difficult to exploit in IE7 and IE8--leading the Microsoft Security Response Centre to recommend that users of IE6 upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer," the email said.
"Of all of our supported browsers, IE6 provides the slowest and least rewarding user experience for our customers."
Facebook had also publicly prompted its users to upgrade to newer versions of IE, while a petition was submitted to the British Prime Minister this week, urging government agencies to drop the use of IE6.
The petition has already gained over 5,000 signatures in only a few days.
Do you still use IE6 (or are you forced to at work)? Leave us a comment and let us know.
3 thoughts on “Gmail, Salesforce.com Drop IE6 Support”
IE6 is no great loss. Let’s move on!
My company, which deals which highly sensitive clinical trails information and patient details, still insists that we use IE6. From what we can gather, around 50% of our total users are using IE6.
It’s time to move on I think. I mean, you wouldn’t keep using Netscape Navigator would you?
haha @Graham Perry’s post. this is true. Better to have salesforce users safe than sorry. Upgrade!