A few weeks ago, we noted that the Denver, CO-based design company Aten Design Group was holding a funeral for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), the much-hated browser. The funeral took place last night. It wasn’t without controversy as there were protestors, and even a bouquet of flowers sent by Microsoft. But overall, it looks like it was a classy ceremony.
The blog Nonprofits and Web 2.0 was on hand and has posted several videos (a few of which I’ll embed below). There’s also a huge set of pictures in this Flickr album. As we noted originally, despite the funeral, IE6 is likely to live on for a few years as many sites are likely to still support it for the foreseeable future (though YouTube turns off support next week). And don’t forget all those pour souls in corporate jobs who are forced to use the browser because their IT departments won’t allow them to upgrade.
Microsoft itself is trying to get users to upgrade from IE6 (to their updated IE8), and the flowers that they sent to the funeral speak to that. The card sent with the flowers read: “Thanks for the good times, IE6. See you all @ MIX, where we’ll show a little piece of IE heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft“
[photos: flickr/atendesigngroup]
Wow, really?
IE6 has 15 times the marketshare of chrome.
What a PR stunt
All those people there are on the Google bandwagon.
This wasn’t a funeral, it was a lynching.
Like really? What a waste of f’ing time
I know… what is it with people and “jokes” and “having fun” these days?! It’s just plain ridiculous…
How much Microsoft paid you to tell this?
really? Do you know anything about browsers?
Like OMG, get the stick out of your arse and stop being such a prude. Life isn’t all work.
True that. I mean, can we just have fun watching these folks do their thing? It’s not like it will greatly affect our well being by doing this. Hahaha!
Are you kidding me–fun is a waste if time? It was a really fun satiric evening. It was a great excuse to have a bunch of people get together and have some fun.
Thanks Aten for putting on a great get together.
Kinda makes me sad, just cause I was hoping to see more funny splash pages for IE6 users like these, the best IE6 dismissal messages EVER!! http://emotify.com/acy149/
Thanks for that, those were hilarious!
really funny thank you!
its good to see microsoft has kind of humor too
Yes, IE 6 should be put to rest and IT departments should start using IE 8 (or even at least IE 7). The problem, I heard from a friend who manages the entire intranet website for a huge company, is not that the IT departments not want to upgrade, it is just that there are thousands of intranet applications which **might** break on IE 7/8 upgrade and they need to spend a considerable amount of time and money on testing it.
This finally is the management decision — whether you spend money on security and maintaining IE 6 based applications or switch to IE 7/8 and take a one time hit.
Just my two cents.
And this is news because?
TC used to have better news.
One day we shall say RIP to TC.
exactly my thoughts. Thanks
thumbs up to this comment.
i wish i could separate articles from michael arrington. they are much more interesting.
How I wish for the old times when new web2.0 techs would be featured here. I would be the master of the web at that point.
This is hilarious!
IE6 is dead huh? So if someone uses IE6 to browse the web tomorrow, will their web browser be a Zomb-ie6 browser?
IE6, I spit on your grave.
Forget the spit. Make it a lougie. Lol
We’ve celebrated ie6′s funeral in Spain too! ;)
http://www.sonesu.com/2010/03/funeral-de-internet-explorer-6-en-biko/
This so much reminds me of when the Diggers held a funeral for hippie in San Francisco, 1967. Same sense of fun and the same zombie-like persistence after.
Yay! Now that people aren’t using the standards abusing browser IE6 they will be using the standards abusing browsers IE7 and IE8 instead. Joy.
Hah! I totally agree about bringing back Comic Chat.
I would just like to point out that GOOGLE actually has IE6 installed on every machine I’ve used when visiting their campus. I know I’m supposed to be under NDA, but come on. Why is IE6 on all of THEIR machines when one of their biggest sites is about to stop supporting it?!
Maybe it’s just guest computers that still have them….I even have a screenshot.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Here’s a guess: Because they develop websites, so they need to test them on IE6. Of course with their recent announcement that they won’t be supporting IE6 I’m sure they’ll be uninstalling it.
glad they’ve killed it.
i laid IE6 to rest many years ago, back when firefox had just turned 2 =)
i never looked back, never missed any of the insecurity, slowness, lag that annoyed many IE6 users
firefox and google chrome shall unite the world
Brings a tear to my eye….
Read and weep: 1) most enterprise doesn’t want folks to watch YouTube or interact with “Friends” on company machines, and is happy if they stop supporting IE6; 2) doesn’t want to pay somebody to redo an intranet that was developed for and runs fine on IE6; 3) doesn’t want to buy new machines to run browsers that need more than the 25MB of RAM that IE6 uses.
What a bunch of saddos. Talk about having too much time on your hands!
I guess you haven’t heard. The “too much time on your hands” comment was laid to rest a year ago.
http://twitter.com/dwineman/status/1527341566
people still using that crap browser should be banned from using the Internet.
Also ban those using IE7 and IE8 for 24 hours until they learn how to change the browser.
+1 to comic chat
In ten years IE6 will be the most secure browser out there since nobody will be writing hacks for it.
None of our clients are stopping using IE6 in the near future. Some of them are still using it on Windows 2000 as well.
I want to see it gone too, but this browser is now one of the evil undead. Developers are going to be stuck with it for years to come.
Pour?
Some one says IE6 4 ever, lol.. RIP IE6.
You’re gonna have to pry my IE6 out of my cold, dead hands.
Que explorador es el mejor?
ie7 is the new ie6 … can we kill it? and w/ it ie 8 and future ie’s too? i’ll pay for all the funerals
I like IE6.It is better than firefox. Thank……
You guys should have dug a hole a buried the coffin with a headstone. That would have been sweet! That would have made my day. I hate ie6 with a passion.
It is so funny….