Like a terminally ill dictator in exile, IE 6 has been hanging on for far too long, forcing legions of web developers to to relive the pain of its tyranny every day. Happily, it’s starting to look like the old bugger might finally pass away.

It’s no longer news that Google is phasing out support for the browser, and more anecdotally, a very tech-savvy client of mine has eliminated support for it in its next-generation web app—an app which is responsible for the entire business and is exposed to external customers as well as internal users. When smaller technology companies who lack the power to move the market are making decisions like this, it means the end is near.

A Denver area design consultancy has now gone so far as to schedule a wake for the dying browser. What a fun way to celebrate a laudable technology development and generate some positive buzz at the same time! My hat is off to you, Aten Group.

Everybody who makes software makes bad software sometimes, so I’m always hesitant to blast bad code when I see it. That said, IE 6 was for years a gratuitous drain on the flourishing of the web and the cause of more misallocated capital than a hundred failed dotcoms. It will be a relief to see it go. May the future of the web be more competitive and less autocratic.

Broken IE icon courtesy of Zakar.