Internet Explorer 6 kthxbye

: Image via Wikipedia

Internet Explorer 6 should be given a respectful and speedy burial according to Shane Richmond in the online Telegraph. He encourages you to tell an IT person that Internet Explorer 6 must die.

If you’re not familiar with online chat shorthand, “kthxbye” is a slang term generally used sarcastically as a condescending and dismissive insult (“Thank-you for your useless contribution to this discussion, now please go away”).

Richmond writes that:

IE6 was never a top-notch product. And these days it’s even more of a nightmare to work with, resulting in extra time and money being spent ensuring that websites are compatible with the damned thing. Digg, Facebook and YouTube are all about to end their support for IE 6 and are recommending that users switch to a browser that works.

Among those speaking out against IE6 is a group of more than 70 developers who have banded together to form a project called ie6nomore.

Despite this clamor, according to the BBC, Microsoft is backing a long life for IE6. Indeed the software giant now says it will support IE6 until 2014, four years beyond their original deadline. Their reasons may be more bound up with strategy versus Google and its cloud computing initiative than with what is best for customers.

The opposition as documented in the online Telegraph is virulent:

A crueller person might say that any IT manager who forces his company to run IE 6 in 2009 is dangerously incompetent and should probably not be in charge of anything more complicated than buying biscuits. However, it’s possible that they’re doing this because their company uses an intranet – or some other custom-built web service – that was designed to work in IE 6 and is useless in any other browser.

It is suggested that victims locked in by corporate policy should use one of the range of posters produced by the helpful people at Hey IT!

hey it ie6 poster

It is suggested that you should print it out and stick it on your computer, around the office or on your IT manager’s forehead. The Internet as a whole will be much improved when we all have said kthxbye (or should that be kthnxbye) to the worn and weary Internet Explorer 6.

Woah, People Really Don’t Like IE6 (techcrunch.com)

Sphere: Related Content

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May 5, 2008 -- Microsoft should KISS more often (5)

Technorati Tags: BBC, browser, Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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3 Responses to “Internet Explorer 6 kthxbye”

Ventrilo Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Goodbye IE6 according to this article. It may be difficult to fight Microsoft on this but not impossible. Keep it up.
tilaa lehti Says:
August 19th, 2009 at 10:34 am
We canceled our support for the program we have worked on the net. You can still use IE6 but when have trouble should update to the latest IE or equivalent and no more support before you do. It’s for everybodys benefit that everybody upgrades those ancient IE6 browsers today!
Catalog Printer Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
I agree that it’s a good idea for everyone to move away from IE6. But the reality is that the majority of internet users simply use the browser that came with their Windows computer, and if they bought that computer a few years ago they are likely to still be using IE6. Website usage stats confirm that it still has a surprisingly high usage rate.