“10 years ago a browser was born,” Microsoft's  says. “It's name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we're in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it's time to say goodbye.”

Worldwide usage of IE6 was still an astounding 12% in February, lower than the previous year but too high given the security risks associated with using such an ancient browser.

In the United States, usage of IE6 is only 2.9%, but the ten-year-old browser accounts for more than a third of all users in China, a quarter of users in South Korea, and more than 10% of users in such countries as Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and India. The stats published on the IE6 Countdown site come from usage tracker Net Applications.