Facebook Chat to Get a Revamp, Drop Support for IE6

The Facebook Chat feature is undergoing a revamp. One of the most popular tools on the site, the app has been getting a number of fixes and upgrades for the past couple of weeks and is about to get even bigger updates in the coming weeks.

"We've already made progress, and we're taking some more big steps in the coming weeks. For example, in the past couple of weeks, we've already made Chat faster and more stable, fixed bugs and improved the technology on which it runs," Facebook's Rodrigo Schmidt, who works in the Chat team, wrote.

"In the coming weeks, we will be making important improvements in the way connections are established and messages are sent, so that Chat will be much more stable for you and your friends," he announced.

The Chat tool was launched two years ago and has since become one of the most used sections of the site. However, there were some issues with it and there were times when the service left to be desired.

The recent changes so far have been mostly bug fixes with the team working on improving stability. But bigger changes to the underlying technology will be implemented in the next few weeks.

However, all of these changes come with a caveat. Facebook says that making the necessary improvements involved technologies that older browsers don't support.

Specifically, the new chat tool won't work in Internet Explorer 6 and users are urged to upgrade their browser or move to an alternative one, if that is possible.

Facebook will be dropping Internet Explorer 6 support on September 15. After that date the Chat feature will no longer work with the ancient browser.

The irony is that, some companies are said to stick to Internet Explorer 6 precisely because sites like Facebook are no longer supporting it. The idea is that this will prevent employees from wasting too much time on social networking sites.