In the course of my daily interchange with other denizens of the web, I was informed that my blog looks like poo in Internet Explorer 6. More specifically, the lower content in the main column – the Highlighted, Overheard, and Randomized modules – moved up and overlapped the rotating Featured content. I had established a fix that should have prevented this, and it did – in modern browsers. Frankly, I hadn’t concerned myself with IE6, and why should I? Who still uses a browser that is insecure, that doesn’t comply with modern web standards, that has prompted the creation of a veritable cottage industry of hacks and workarounds by developers? Who still uses a browser that is now close to being two versions obsolete? Prison inmates, perhaps. People toiling in workplaces too glacially-minded to upgrade their software once a year. And the lazy, of course. Mustn’t forget the technologically lazy.

“Whatever,” I thought, and went about my business.

Today, however, I had occasion to remember. Checked it out on a computer still using IE6 and sure enough – looked like poo. It bugged me enough that I decided to fix it.

A web search yielded a solution (thanks, Dustin Diaz!) that seems to work for the ancient IE6 without compromising other, savvier browsers. All well and good – except that this is the last time I’ll waste a second of thought on accommodating IE6 users. Sorry, good people, but the astonishing 27.3% of you (as of last May) who haven’t upgraded need to get off the pot. Life is too short to spend time devising workarounds for outdated software. Heed the pleas of web developers everywhere. As the man said years ago, even before the creation of IE6: to hell with bad browsers.

Stop using IE6