Petitioners urge Brown to dump IE 6 from government computers

An online petition has been submitted to the official website of the Prime Minister's office, asking Gordon Brown to instruct government departments to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6, according to Computer World.

Gregg Keizer writes in that publication that "calls for IE6's demise have been ongoing for at least a year, but have recently intensified. Last week, Google announced that it would stop supporting IE6 on Google Docs starting March 1, and would also drop support for the almost-nine-year-old browser as an editing tool for Google Sites".

The now-infamous attacks that targeted Google and other U.S. corporations are thought to have taken advantage of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6's code, and experts say that the browser is well past any reasonable expectation of longevity at nearly nine years of age.

Dan Frydman of Inigo Media Limited, the creator of the petition, wrote that "upgrading would be a massive task for government, but if the public is encouraged to lead the way and the government follows, that would create the momentum needed".