Earlier today, I got an email from Google Apps Development team stating that Google Apps will not support Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) starting in March 2010.

I think this is a good move.  After all, how long do we have to suffer the wrath of Microsoft's decision not to honor web standards way back in 2001 when the IE6 was launched?  Most of us are quite aware of the security vulnerabilities & compatability issues posed by Internet Explorer 6: IE6 issues.

The downside to the move is that still way too many people use IE6 even today.  As such, we, web designers and web developers alike, have to pay very close attention to IE6 issues and have to modify coding to get our websites to work better with IE6.  Thus, Google's move may hurt them a bit with users accessing Google Apps with IE6 today.

Personally, I am just happy that the big boys are starting to make bigger stands to gradually move us away from IE6 and its security vulverabilities & compatibility issues.  After all, it is a possibility that IE6 security vulnerabilities were behind Chinese hackers to sneak into Gmail servers (Google vs China).

Without further dues, here is the email I received in my inbox:

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team