IE6: The Methuselah of Browsers

Developing for the internet has its ups and downs and one of the major downs is styling sites to work well in a wide variety of browsers. This task is made even more difficult by the internet gremlin and bane of web shops' existence: IE6.

Since its introduction in 2000, IE6 has dug itself in and still holds nearly 20% of the overall market share. Recently, Google made headlines by refusing to support IE6 past March 1st (for YouTube) and has made it no secret that they wish the little bugger would just die already. I can't say I disagree with them as styling sites to code exceptions for IE6 is a major hassle due to the browser's incompatibility with well... pretty much everything.

There are lots of reasons why we recommend people keep their software up to date (including browsers) but there are some compelling excuses for why this clunker of a browser retains such a large market share after 10 years. Popular Science detailed a large number of these in a recent article.

What do you think? Should web companies try to drive the proverbial stake in IE6 by ceasing to support this decrepit dinosaur of a browser?