Can Google Kill Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6?

On Friday afternoon, Google announced they will be discontinuing their support for “very old browsers.” They said, they will stop supporting Internet Explorer 6, commonly referred to as IE6, on many of their applications. Starting on March 1st, Google Docs and Google Sites will no longer be officially supported on IE6.

Google said:

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. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.

This is a major move by Google for several reasons, here are just a few:

(1) There are many companies forcing users to remain on IE6, those people won’t be able to fully utilize Google Docs and Sites.

(2) Many people who have no idea what a browser is, still uses IE6 – what do you think they will upgrade to when they are forced by Google to upgrade?

(3) Webmasters have been trying to kill IE6 for years, can Google make that a reality?

(4) Google is not saying not to use Internet Explorer, just don’t use IE6.