So Internet Explorer (IE) is a standard web browser that is found on all Windows OS machines so allot of people use this browser. The truth is that they don't know that there's other browsers out there... better browsers.
This all started when I was forced to check my .mac account on a PC using IE. I got the error posted below from Apple. This prompted me to post it for all to see. Perfectly put, "has known compatibility issues with modern web standards." This has been the common theme throughout my years of web development - IE doesn't work with anything I develop! I also thought it was very polite of Apple to list optional browsers that WILL WORK with modern web standards... they even listed Firefox first...awww, isn't that nice?
What's the problem with IE?
Let me start by introducing The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - The main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. They have given us great standards in CSS, XML, HTML, and much more! These standards have given web developers the tools to code under a unified language that is viewed by all browsers... well... not all... there is this one browser. Ah yes! Internet Explorer! Does IE think they're too cool for standards? Quoted from W3C - "IE 7 standard does not completely conform to W3C". IE has caused me to add 2hrs to each quote for "re-coding" to actually break my code to look good in IE... is this right? IE is making me charge more on my websites because they don't apply current web standards.
Some reasons that make IE not cool:
* PNG support
* Security problems
* Layout mistakes
* Breaks under javascript
* Unclear error messages
* Lack of development tools
* Viruses
* Slow
* Supports only 54% of CSS standards |
The image above should be "knocked out" ... if you are seeing it in IE6 then you'd probably see a box around the image.
Currently 25.3% of Browsers are IE6*
26.4% of Browsers are IE7*
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Interesting Facts and Resources...
Currently IE has 51% of browser users while FireFox has 43%... we're getting there! Slowly but surely! In 2002 IE had 80% of browser users while FireFox didn't even exsist.*
"IE holds back the web by not supporting standards properly"
- http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/
"IE6 should not be used according to me."
- http://www.anujgakhar.com/2008/06/04/say-no-to-ie-60/
"Say No to IE6" (I'm for saying "NO" to all of IE... but it's a start)
- http://www.savethedevelopers.org/
So please download an alternative browser other than Internet Explorer - Save Web developers!
*Figures were obtained from w3schools.com |
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