Good Riddance: IE6 Usage Falls to Under 1% in U.S.

According to the latest data from Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6, the browser that overstayed its welcome for many years, is finally in its last throes. Usage of IE6, which officially launched 10 years ago, has now fallen to under 1% in the United States. While American users hung on to IE6 for longer than other nations like Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, it's good to see IE6 usage drop from 4.2% in December 2010 to 0.9% in 2011. As Microsoft itself notes today, this hopefully means that "more developers and IT Pros can consider IE6 a “low-priority” at this point and stop spending their time having to support such an outdated browser."

Just about nine month ago, Microsoft launched its own IE6 Countdown site to track the demise of IE6. Over the last year, the worldwide usage of IE6 has dropped 6 percentage point. It's worth noting, though, that around the world, 7.7% of all Internet users are still using this completely outdate (and insecure) browser.

The majority of these users come from China, where IE6 still has a whopping 25% market share. In virtually every other country, Microsoft's old browser now holds under 5% of the market.