I.E. rant

[bol]

I've heard people ripping into Internet Explorer many times. I assumed that the complaints were about 40% justified 40% Microsoft conspiracy theorist and 10% nerds deliberately supporting obscure and defunct browsers......but! Shoot me I was wrong!

I¡¯ve just been running my site through multiple browsers, like a good boy and hang me if the latest two or three versions of Netscape, Opera, and Firefox don't display my css in exactly the same way. Were I not an IE user myself I might assume that because these three competing market followers display the site the same way - IE probably will too.

Not so! IE has a different way of calculating the widths of borders etc, or at least different default settings and therefore displays edges one pixel off center, borders a little bit this way or that, or just won't conform to what the other three browsers are doing or what my calculator says. I¡¯ve even tried screen dumps from the different browsers and overlaying them in Photoshop to see where the exact problems lie - but dang it all to skut! I can't get them all to match up.

Needless to say I had to alter the site so it looks correct in IE, as that's what the majority of people who view the site will be using, but it really really really hacks me off. Who's to say the other browsers are wrong, when in my (hideously limited) experience they usually require stricter and more accurate coding.

So if I ever felt a twang of animosity towards people who dumped IE for one of it's niche competitors I apologize sincerely. I.E. is annoying and full of misleading convenient default settings, which could very well be attempts to make peoples sites look crap on competing browsers.

</rant>

[Mr Initial Man]

Ah, yes... Internet Exploder, and it's related "browser" MSN'S A Horror (Basically MSNIM turned into a web browser). *Shudder*

This, I think, is why other browsers are becoming more popular.

Like the Model T, IEvil is behind the times, and ain't interested in catching up soon.

[Stephen Philbin]

Yup. I was the same. Thought that "nobody" used non IE browsers and anyone that didn't was just a jealous M$ hater or an elitist geek.

12 months down the line I'm on over 5 browsers, almost always on Linux and refuse to open IE (when on Windows) for anything other than testing a page. Even when I do use IE for testing I still cringe every time in thought of what IE might do to my work this time.

Granted I'm not too proficcient on Linux, but the point is I'm well and truly out of that "don't bother with non MS" things and well into the "sure, why the hell would I not give it a try" phase.

Trying other stuff though really does show how many short comings there are with the common M$ range of products people use.

I suppose with no IE 7 in sight, we can live in hope that IE will die off as more and more people get better browsers.

[bol]

I suppose better marketing is in order.

If a few retailers could be convinced to include other browsers in their standard software package, which comes with a new computer, the advertising on those browsers would be worth a lot more. At the moment I expect most people download alternative browsers... That's what I did. That's not good marketing really. You can't wait for people to come along and got to all the trouble of downloading your product - you have to spoon feed it, like Microsoft do, with a very long handled spoon right down the throat.

Some alternative languages would make a difference too. I couldn't find a Chinese copy of most versions I downloaded and there's a pretty big/growing fraction of the worlds net users here.

[Stephen Philbin]

I always encourage people I meet to use Firefox if they start talking about the net. In fact I forgot. The folks PC downstairs STILL doesn't have it. Better go and fix that now.

[Jupac]

*Points to SIg and laugh*

[buntine]

Referring to Lakers sig.

You mean, The team of hundreds who developed IE to their given requirements. Why make the best browser in the world if a half-assed one is all that was needed to secure the market share?