David Flynn30 January 2010, 2:02 PM
Google says that Internet Explorer 6 has reached its use-by date, and as of March 1st will support only version 7.0 or 8.0 of the Microsoft browser on its Google Docs service.
Slowly but surely the world is marching beyond the once-mighty Internet Explorer 6.
Following the
China vs Google browser hack attack which relied on a previously undocumented ‘zero-day’ vulnerability in
Internet Explorer 6.0, Google is dripping support for IE6 from its Google Docs online app service.
In a blog post titled
Modern browsers for modern applications, Google Apps Senior Product Manager Rajen Sheth says that “from March 1, key functionality (and new features) in Google Docs won’t work properly in older browsers.”
IE6 tops that list of ‘older browsers’, with IE7 now considered the baseline for Microsoft.
“The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively” Sheth says.
“Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.”
The revised minimum platforms for Google Docs are Firefox 3.0, Safari 3.0 and Google’s own Chrome 4.0.