Companies don't typically cheer the demise of their products, but in an effort to get Internet Explorer users to upgrade to more current versions of the browser, Microsoft has launched a death watch of sorts for IE6.
The software giant on Friday unveiled ie6countdown.com, a site that will keep tabs on the dwindling use of the now decade-old IE6. "It's time to say goodbye," reads a message on the site.
"Now that it's 2011, IE6 is officially a ten-year old browser. According to Net Applications, IE6 still has 12 percent share worldwide. Our goal is to get this share under 1 percent worldwide," Roger Capriotti, director of IE product marketing, wrote in a blog post.
Microsoft selected 1 percent because that number "will allow more sites and IT pros worldwide to make IE6 a low-priority browser – meaning you don't have to invest as much time in updates or fixes," Capriotti said.
The IE6 countdown site includes IE6 usage share data on a country-by-country basis, provided by Net Applications. At this point, the browser is most popular in China, at 34.5 percent. In the U.S. it's at 2.9 percent.
The majority of people on IE6 use it because that's what's installed on their work computer, Capriotti said. As a result, a section of theie6countdown.com is dedicated to convincing IT pros about the benefits of updating to a more modern browser. "We're encouraging developers around the world to spread the word by placing an upgrade notification to IE6 users on their website," he wrote.
Microsoft has been pushing for the demise of IE6 for some time, and others have joined the call. Last year, the Aten Design Group hosted a funeral for IE6; Microsoft sent flowers. In January 2010, Google said it would begin withdrawing support for IE6 and Facebook stopped supporting its chat service in IE6 on September 15.
On Feburary 10, Microsoft unveiled the release candidate for the next version of its browser, IE9. It secured 2 million downloads in its first week, and has since hit 11 million downloads, Microsoft said in a Tuesday blog post. In total, the IE9 Beta and IE9 RC has been downloaded more than 36 million times since September, said Capriotti.
According to Net Applications, about 0.59 percent of worldwide Internet users are accessing the Web via IE9, up from 0.50 percent in January, and 0.46 percent in December.