Web Designer Petitions UK to Scrap IE6

Frustrated with the U.K.’s continued support of an old and insecure Web browser, a Scottish Web designer has taken to the Internet to curry support for an upgrade. The online petition calling for government migration to Internet Explorer 7 or — better still — version 8, has already garnered more than 4,000 signatures. Datamation has the story.

Tired of waiting for action and anxious to block security hacks against government Web sites, a Web designer in Edinburgh, Scotland, has started an online petition to request that the UK government stop using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).

The petition is short and to the point. It urges U.K. government offices to leave Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) eight-year-old browser behind and move up to either IE7 or, even better, to the much more recent IE8.

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6,” it said. The petition was filed by Dan Frydman, managing director of Scottish Web consultancy Inigo Media Ltd., and has a year to gather signatures.

Filed Monday, Feb. 1 and running until Feb 1, 2011, the petition already had garnered 4,262 electronic signatures after being online for only two days. All a petition has to gather are 500 signatures to ensure that it is sent to the Prime Minister’s office for consideration, according to a FAQ on the petition site.

Read the full story at Datamation:



Petition Urges UK Government to Drop IE6