Funeral For A Fiend

Most web designers and users despise Internet Explorer 6, especially now that it has been hanging on for nearly a decade. So there weren't a lot of tears shed at the recent funeral for IE6. But is it really dead, or will it live on in a zombie-like existence?Support for IE6 is fading fast. In January, Google announced that as of this month it would no longer support IE6 for its Google Docs and Google Apps services. The blog entry said that other Google services will also drop their support for IE6 over the course of the year. Some services may not support it at all, and others may only work with reduced functionality. (Given the already-meager functionality of IE6, users might not even notice that.)

Inspired by Google's move, enterprising web designers at Aten Design Group decided to hold a funeral for IE6. Some of the videos and guest book entries at the IE6 funeral site are hilarious, with subtle digs at the browser and its many bugs. Example: "I loved the way you wore that sexy grey-blue background on your transparent PNG." Even Microsoft got in on the fun, sending flowers to the funeral.

Although IE6 is definitely fading, it may be a bit too early to bury it. Even the funeral directors at Aten Design Group had this to say: "Back in reality, we still develop websites that support IE6, along with every other browser. ... While Google discontinuing support for IE6 has very little impact on the way we work, it does mark an important step in the evolution of the interwebs. It's also a great excuse to get together with our local web design community." The only way that IE6 will be truly gone is for the hangers-on to switch to another browser and stop demanding support for their obsolete one.