Mainly in the last month or so there has been a growing movement of developers, webmasters, and blog owners, against the obsolete and outdated browser, Internet Explorer 6.

Internet Explorer 6 is the default web-browser that shipped with Windows XP ever since 2001.

Less than a year after its release, Microsoft realised that IE6 wouldn’t make them enough money, so they stopped supporting it. The result of that left security problems and browser bugs that have never been properly fixed: all of which produce a nightmare scenario for developers who are attempting to make their developments cross-browser compliant.

The inherent problems include: –

• Anyone using transparency in .png images will lose out if the images are viewed using IE6.

• Several css issues which mean that IE6 processes css code incorrectly.

• Frequent crashes caused by the code that the browser is attempting to run.

Like all ancient and obsolete technologies, IE6 must become extinct. I urge everybody to help devoted developers to hasten that demise, and stop this retarded relic from holding up progress on the internet.

I positively encourage all readers to show their support for the "IE6 Must Die" movement by displaying the anti-IE6 twibbon on their Twitter avatar: -

 http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die

There follows a download link to some code, which WordPress and other blog-masters can add to their blog, if they are happy doing so. This code will display a small line of text (Arial, font size 10) stating: -

"This blog does not support Internet Explorer 6 or earlier. If you are using IE6, please upgrade to a decent browser: – "

Immediately underneath this text will appear four tiny linked browser logos: FireFox, Opera, Internet Explorer 8, and Safari. The links allow the reader to download the latest version of any of those browsers.

You can see an example of this code in action in my header.

Download your code here. (.txt file.)

In conclusion, then, there are 2 things which I’m currently trying to get people to kill off through this blog: There’s 32-bit computing; which is not having a huge effect yet, but which comes with restrictions that stop users being able to use any more than 4GB RAM on their computer: Something which will prevent future development of large applications which require a huge amount of memory.

(You don’t think anyone will ever need more than 4GB RAM? : remember the 386-based computers of less than 20 years ago with 16MBs RAM? Try running Crysis on one. – You might get 1 frame per minute or, more likely, a BSOD. Bad example? OK. – Try running Google Earth on one of those then..!)

More importantly at time of writing, there’s also IE6.

Both must die: IE6 first, followed by 32-bit computing.

You can also help to kill off 32-bit computing by installing the 64-bit version of Windows 7 later this year; if your computer can cope with it.