One universal thorn in the side of developers the world over in adopting AJAX, jQuery (and other cool JavaScript frameworks) and more complex CSS, not to mention looking ahead to HTML 5 is the abomination called IE6. This Microsoft non-standards-compliant train wreck of a browser has been the unwelcome guest that has just refused to leave the party.Dumbing down our sites and applications to support for this blemish on the web has been the bain of the web developers/designers existance for far too long.

At last! Let's have a good Ol' Irish wake and party it's passing!

Recently Google announced that it will no longer support or worry about compatibility with IE6. This follows on the heels of Microsoft announcing the same.

The cool thing here is, the biggest block of "hangers on" to IE 6 has been large corperate and government IT departments, and them not allowing users on their networks to update.

NOW with two of the largest players in the market saying "IE6 is dead and we are moving on" the playing field has officially shifted in our favor. With major business and employers being pushed forward there's no reason to not tell users to update as well.

If one of our clients says "my site looks funny" and we find they still have IE6 we can, with authority, tell them they need to update their browser and back this up by saying even Google and Microsoft have abandoned all support for IE6 and for this reason we no longer developed with it in mind. The update is free, there are many choices, just do it. All said with a reassuring head nod and smile of course.

Google's formal announcement

OH YEAH!  What a glorious time this is. All together now...

<Munchkin voice> Ding done the 6 is dead, the wicked 6 is dead!!!</Munchkin voice>