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Microsoft celebrates the death of IE6 with a cake
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By Chase Kell | The Right Click
It might seem odd for a company to celebrate the dwindling use of their product, but Microsoft has done just that. With a cake, and a little of the bubbly.
"Time to pop open the champagne because based on the latest data from Net Applications, IE6 usages in the U.S. has now officially dropped below 1 per cent," shares Roger Capriotti, director of Internet Explorer marketing in his blog.
And with this in mind, Microsoft seems keen on killing off the old version of its iconic browser, a move it hopes will persuade users to upgrade to IE8 or IE9.
"We hope this means more developers and IT pros can consider IE6 a 'low priority' at this point and stop spending their time having to support such an outdated browser," explains Capriotti.
An outdated product makes the celebration a little more understandable, but Richard Edwards, principal analyst at Ovum, believes there's more to it.
"I think it was rated one of the worst software products of all time by one tech magazine at the time of its release," explains Edwards in a BBC story.
Edwards goes on to detail the browser's security issues, stating that "in many ways, corporate computer networks have been locked down since partly because of the vulnerabilities found in IE6."
The U.S. now joins a healthy list of countries where IE6 usage has fallen below 1 per cent - Poland, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. We're not sure how much usage has dropped in Canada, but chances are, you're not reading this from the outdated IE6 browser.
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