Today is November 29th, 2007. 2,285 days (well over 6 years) have passed since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), and it is still one of the most widely used browsers on the internet today.

This is the case, despite its age, the security risks it poses to the computers it's installed on, and the fact that web developers across the globe unanimously agree that it is the single most fucked up thing they have to deal with on the job, if not their lives.

This is the case, despite the fact that a plethora of much faster, much more feature packed, much more secure, and FREE web browsers exist for the Windows platform. Including Microsoft's own Internet Explorer 7, which has been available for more than 1 year.

This is the case despite all the web developer blubbering, tutorials on how to hack your site to work with the browser, and marketing campaigns spawned by the browser's deficiencies.Internet Explorer 6 is a fart in the mouth of the internet.

This needs to be common knowledge. Those of us who are web developers have the power to make it common knowledge, yet we pander to its every whim because our clients need to reach the broadest audience.

As client demands become more complex, it is becoming more difficult to efficiently meet these demands and apply them across the two desktop web platforms: IE6 and web browsers that comply with the agreed upon standards.

All these years of complaining, and politely educating internet users about web browser choices hasn't done enough.

It's time to step it up, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to make the need to upgrade as painfully obvious to the IE6 user base as they have made developing websites painful for us. It's time to degrade the IE6 experience to a level that is blatantly obvious to the people using it. Let it show it's true colors. Stop using your IE hacks.