Dear Internet Explorer 6,

How are you feeling? How was your New Years? Probably a bit lonely I expect, what with people deserting you left and right for your ritzy sibling, IE7, or some of the even more attractive kids on the block like Firefox, Safari and Opera. I know we’ve spent a lot of time together, you and I, but it’s time that I told you something that’s been on my mind for a while.

I don’t think we should see each other any more.

I’m not going to go easy and tell you “it’s not you, it’s me,” because that’s just not true. At all. It is you. It absolutely is you. And I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. Along with thousands of other developers, I’ve spent hour upon hour, day upon day catering to your DOMands and have had my efforts rendered amok. I can’t take it any more.

We developers deserve better than you. We deserve browsers that can render a document according to the standards that have been in place for years now. We deserve browsers that can handle opacity properly, via CSS and via those wonderful image files that you so happily destroy – PNGs. We deserve CSS3 support, and we deserve to not have to add hacks or additional stylesheets to cater to your every desire.

You’ve controlled our lives for far too long as it is, and it’s time we took a stand against you. This may come as a shock to you, but we don’t like you. We haven’t for a long time. The only reason we even spend time with you any more is because there are a lot of people out there who don’t know any better, who haven’t met your alternatives to see how much better their lives could be. They still see you as their window to the Internet, and so begrudgingly, we come back to you, time and again, spend another sleepless night, trying to please you with just the right combination of CSS hacks and dumbed-down layout.

Well, not me. Not anymore.

You’re on your own IE6. I’m through with you. Unless someone specifically forces me to ensure that something works for you, I will no longer waste my energy on you. They’ll have to pay me to do it as well. I hope that makes you feel dirty. God knows you’ve made me feel dirty for long enough.

Yours in disgust,

Beau Lebens