It’s time for IE6 to die. Seriously. The funeral’s been arranged for March 1st, yet about 20% of the web still use this wretched browser.

Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc. Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as “IE6,” is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight.

As much as I’d like March 1st to be the last day that people browse the web with this browser, that’s not how it’s going to be. Despite being horribly out of date, people still use it.

Let’s play the blame game. Who’s to blame? Well, a lot of people are:

• Microsoft: Every single XP CD or DVD sold by Microsoft, right up to its demise, contained IE6. While users could rely on service packs to update the OS, the browser didn’t get an upgrade.
• Enterprise: For building houses of cards on top of the browser with no thought for the future.
• Web developers: For spending too many years making IE support paramount.

The problem with IE6 isn’t so much that it’s not dead, because functionally it is, but that it lives in a zombie-like state on too many systems, either because people aren’t aware of the risks of using it (if you work for a company like that, make sure to keep your resume up to date), or they enjoy playing Russian Roulette with their systems.

My guess is that for as long as Windows XP remains relevant (and remember that through XP Mode on Windows 7, Microsoft has given the OS a reprieve), we’ll still be talking about IE6.