Google has announced that Google Docs will drop support for
Microsoft’s nearly nine-year-old
Internet Explorer
6 (IE6)
browser starting on March 1.


Ironically, if Google had taken its anti-IE6 advice to heart
before hackers broke into its corporate network last year, it might not now be
mulling whether to abandon the Chinese search market.


“We’re going to begin phasing out our support, starting with
Google Docs and Google Sites,” said the senior product manager for Google Apps,
in a Friday entry on the company’s enterprise blog . “As a result, you may find
that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs
and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.” Google Sites is
the search engine’s free Web hosting service.


Google’s new list of supported browsers
omits IE6, as well as other older programs, including
Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0, Apple’s Safari 2.0 and Google’s own Chrome 3.0. IE6 is by
far the oldest browser of the bunch, with an August 2001 debut. In comparison,
Firefox 2.0 dates to October 2006, Safari 2.0 to April 2005 and Chrome 3.0 to
September 2009.


People running older browsers should upgrade to a newer version,
said the Google represenative, who posted links to downloads of IE8, Firefox
3.6, Safari 4.0 and Chrome 4.0. The latter is available in final form only for
Windows ; Chrome 4.0 for the Mac is still in beta .


Google’s move is only the latest in a year-long string of major
Web properties dropping support for IE6 or urging users to ditch it for
something newer. The campaign began in February 2009, when Facebook prompted IE6
users to upgrade. It then accelerated last summer when Google’s YouTube did the
same, as Digg announced it would curtail IE6 support and as a California site
builder led nearly 40 Web start-ups to urge their users to dump the browser . An
“IE Must Die” petition on Twitter, meanwhile, has accumulated more than 14,000
signatures.

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