IE6 Must Die: The new On-line Movement!

Look at this screen shot from Twitter. I was so surprised to see the slogan "IE6 Must Die" trending on Twitter, yesterday. I think the trending began on Twitter with Ben Parr posting 'IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On' on Mashable.

Ben Parr wrote on Mashable:

Just six years ago, the web was dominated by one browser:Internet Explorer, specifically Internet Explorer 6. Without Netscape to compete against it and the ability to bundle its browser with Windows XP, Microsoft experienced superior market share – up to 95% at the peak. Today though, we have far superior browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome, as well as Internet Explorer 8. So why is 15 to 25 percent of the world’s browsing still done in a browser created in the digital Stone Age (aka 2001)?

Long ago, in 2007, David Walsh gave '6 Reasons Why IE6 Must Die'. Even at that point, I don't think anyone disagreed with him. But the post did not see the whole World Wide Web rising against IE6, probably because many end users could not really see the difference. Most of what David wrote was technical. Probably people didn't care what programmers went through. David wrote:

"millions of ignorant internet users will stick to using IE6 which will result in programmers dedicating valuable time to fix IE6-caused bugs and will hamper pushing websites to the next level."

I took a look at how browsers are used across the world on Wikipedia. I found that Internet Explorer owns 65% of the browser market share. And according to Wikipedia's June 2009 Report, IE6 owns 12.78% browser market share. According to w3schools.com, by June 2009, IE6 owns at least 14.9% browser market share. 12% or 14%, why is the internet all of a sudden showing a trend against IE6?

All of a sudden we have major websites like Facebook and You Tube trying to force users drop IE6. All of a sudden we have Internet trending on "IE6 Must Die". "What the Trend?" is asking for an On-line Movement against IE6, encouraging people to tweet the Mashable post title "IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On". I think it is all because, HTML5 is on the way. Its first draft appeared on web in January 2008. Now, WHATWG is working hard to make HTML 5 a modern reality. I think once HTML 5 is a reality and all major websites drop IE6 support, we'll see the death of the browser. Asa Dotzler, predicts that IE6 will die by the end of next year if the present trend continues.

Let us all join our hands together to help Internet Technology move and grow further. If IE6 does not die on its own, we must kill it. I thought, as a part of that I would provide a list of links to help you find the new-age browsers. You can choose the one you think you will like. Here is the list:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Chrome
• Internet Explorer 8
• Safari

Of all the browsers, I prefer Firefox and Chrome. I prefer Firefox for the kind of cool add-ons it gives you to make your browsing experience great. I prefer Chrome for its simplicity and security.