Congratulations to Google for deciding to drop support for old browsers. The web cannot bloom without some pruning of dead wood every now and then. In a recent e-mail to Google App admins, Google announced they are withdrawing support for browsers prior to Internet Explorer 7.0, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0.
IE 6 was released nearly nine years ago in August of 2001. With how dramatically things have changed on the web in the past nine years, it is hard to believe there are still folks who do still support it. How long after a new product is released should an old product be maintained by the creators and supported by third-parties? An equally important question, in my opinion, is how long should software dependent on old technologies be maintained before getting an overhaul. Technical debt grows exponentially as the years go on, and it quickly becomes harder and less cost-effective to maintain old software than it would be to start over and do things the right way based on current standards and practices. Read on to view the e-mail from Google.
