I have never been one to bash Microsoft, I am just sick of IE, it is such a piece!

[macsrules]

I have never been one to bash Microsoft in the past, I am just sick of IE, it is such a piece! I always felt needless attacks where pointless. After going to the Library today to check out one of my designs I just completed, IE CSS was way off! I just wish IE browsers where more in-line with CSS Standards.

I have never cared one way or the other about Microsoft until subjected to using one of there products, IE. Unfortunately they have dumped this product on many people that use it on PC's.

As web design goes, there browser is always a problem! There CSS usually never matches up. I can get Safari and Firefox to pretty much act the same but IE never likes to plays nice, it is always like the red headed step child. Don't let me start on the older versions of IE.


I think the problem was in there hurry to beat-up and destroy Netscape they put out browsers that where not standard compliant. Yea, now they have a higher market share which means more money for them, yet when creating stuff for the web we have to suffer because of this.


Then you have the legacy companies that are still stuck using Microsoft Server Software and other stuff that runs on ASP. Why, when all the cutting edge stuff is Open Source and mostly written in PHP? Did I mention a lot of it is FREE, ZERO, NADA! and much, much, better!

Back to IE, again, what a piece!


If you feel like this and want to express your thoughts, go for it.

 

[InLikeALion]

I'm right there with you. I don't join in on fanboi style attacks and do see that PC's and even Windows have their value for certain users. But IE gets me livid.

Sometimes I make conscious decisions to not worry about png's or coding for IE's screwed up DOM, and just mention that users should use FF or Safari, and let the ones who visit with IE get a bad experience. I understand that isn't necessarily the best business decision, but honestly, I don't want to bend to MS in this regard.

There are three things I hate in design:

1. QuarkExpress - I just can't even type my thoughts about it.
2. Internet Explorer
3. Ballet Magnificat - the most anal-retentive, design-by-committee client EVER.

 

[Hankster]

I've been a long time PC user and I hate IE. What really ticked me off recently was I had to take a few online courses from Homeland Security and I did them all using Safari. Turns out none of them saved or showed correctly because I had to use IE. Firefox didn't even work. So, I ended up taking the courses four times to finish it up... I hate that the government only codes for IE, it's ridiculous.

 

[angelwatt]

Yup, I've actually gotten sick enough of IE that I've dropped support for it at my personal web site. With enough time I was always able to make my site work well with IE, but I just got tired of the extra overhead and extra bloating required to support it. Now I just do a quick test for IE < version 8 and if so give them a message link at the top of the age saying IE isn't supported. The link goes to my FAQ page and explains why and encourages them to get a real browser.

Of course that isn't always an option when doing pages for clients, but at least at my own site I can take a stand. One of IE's problems is that it's just so old and became stagnant. It didn't always completely suck, but then they stopped doing development and web designers started really getting interested in implementing standards once CSS got some grounding and Firefox came out. We'll see if IE8 can truly change MS's approach to standards. I want IE8 to succeed simply because I'm aware of how many people that still believe IE is the Internet on their machine, and if IE can get behind standards we wen developers/designers will be able to live a little lighter on stress, and maybe WYSIWYG applications will improve.

 

[jSunbeam]

Much as I agree that IE is complete horse, as a professional web designer you simply cannot refuse to support it. It has a huge market share and you're going to be losing your clients an awful lot of potential site hits if you don't bother catering for it.

Is there anything in particular you're having an issue with? I have a lot of experience 'fixing' websites for IE so perhaps I could help you out...

 

[clevin]

I think the problem was in there hurry to beat-up and destroy Netscape they put out browsers that where not standard compliant. Yea, now they have a higher market share which means more money for them, yet when creating stuff for the web we have to suffer because of this.

in fairness, during first browser war. ie was doing better in css than netscape.

w3c changed alot through the years.

i managed through those days with nc 4.7 and subsequently mozilla. avoid ie was sometimes quite difficult at that time.

thats why firefox's rise has been so important. as long as internet remain a large and significant part of ppl's daily life. it not only reduces ppl's depedence on ie, such that all non-ie browsers get more chance. its cross-platform also encourage many users (including me) to switch to osx or linux. and now ie8 ultimately decide to operate in "standard mode" by default.

im really glad the internet is moving towards open-ness now.

 

[ChicoWeb]

Let it all out!!!

Unfortunately, like everyone said it is a piece. BUT you can't just not support it. Thats like telling 40% of your visitors I really don't care about you. There are things you'll learn when doing more layouts as to what will work and what won't. I chalk it up to gaining experience. In the past I had a huge struggle with it as well, but over the years, and just getting more time it, you'll see it's not too bad.

 

[Darran]

As much as I love to bash Micro$oft on their pathetic claims for a browser, we can't ignore IE 6. Poor PNG support, setting their own CSS rules, unecessary list gaps ... etc. With that being said, we can't ignore it. When I looked at my analytics, a good half of my users are using IE and 70% are using IE 6, I had no choice but to make sure my site looked nice on IE 6 at least.

 

[Makosuke]

IE (IE6, specifically) is sort of the ultimate example of why monopolies are bad. IE5 Mac was actually a very good browser when it was new--ran rings around NS4, that's for sure. And even IE5 has drastically more advanced standards support than NS4.

Except then MS "won" the browser war, and just plain stopped caring. Anyone here knows that IE6 is a complete, total, utter disaster when it comes to longstanding bugs (the 3px gap?!) and it stayed that way for YEARS, stagnating, without MS so much as pretending to care.

And of course the only thing that finally got MS to bother doing anything was Firefox chipping away a sizable portion of IE's marketshare and putting the fear of no longer owning the world into them.

Ironic, then, that they managed to win the undying, virulent hatred of nearly every person who works on web development using anything other than FrontPage, so even if IE8 supported every single feature in CSS3 I, at least, would STILL hate it.

Comes down to this: I've wasted a LOT of frustrating, often unpaid, hours of my life working around bugs that in any remotely competitive environment MS would have fixed in 2002. They obviously were able--even IE7, as weak of an improvement as it is, fixes most of the glaring stupidity in <IE6. So I can guarantee that for the remainder of my professional career I will do everything in my little corner of the world to take what I can away from MS.

Windows, I dislike on principle; MS's desktop monopoly, I dislike because of what it's done to the world as a whole; IE, now that's personal.


Actually, it was kinda liberating; I was working on a design recently and instead of trying to hack around the lack of PNG alpha, I just said "You know, screw it; IE6 and below get a more boring design. The people who haven't even bothered to run Windows Update aren't worth it to me anyway."

 

[jng]

Actually, it was kinda liberating; I was working on a design recently and instead of trying to hack around the lack of PNG alpha, I just said "You know, screw it; IE6 and below get a more boring design. The people who haven't even bothered to run Windows Update aren't worth it to me anyway."

Well maybe liberating for you but certainly not your visitors.

Ugh, can we get a ban on these "I hate IE" threads? They don't really add ANYTHING to knowledge or contribute to discussion. They're just repeat rants.

 

[angelwatt]

Well maybe liberating for you but certainly not your visitors.

Ugh, can we get a ban on these "I hate IE" threads? They don't really add ANYTHING to knowledge or contribute to discussion. They're just repeat rants.

What's wrong with ranting and venting every now and again? It can be liberating and reduce overall stress. As a psychologist I say it's OK and no one here is expecting a useful discussion so there's no harm.

 

[jng]

and no one here is expecting a useful discussion so there's no harm.

True. But I feel like it's getting to the point of excess and too many people chiming in may make it seem like it's okay to ignore IE, which it's not. Yes, we shout that back but I still feel like the rants drown us out.

 

[InLikeALion]

True. But I feel like it's getting to the point of excess and too many people chiming in may make it seem like it's okay to ignore IE, which it's not. Yes, we shout that back but I still feel like the rants drown us out.

The "DON'T IGNORE IE!" warning has already been inserted into this thread, and probably every other similar thread that has come up in the past. Voice that concern and help us learn. But saying there should be no more of these threads aloud is ridiculous.

Ban xMac threads, "does anyone know if I should buy product x now? - I haven't bothered to look at the Buyers Guide yet" threads, "Windows sux and we're all better than other people for using OS X" threads, and the like... Since we are all forced to read every single thread that gets posted to the forums, we should lock them all and sticky the definitive arguments in each subject to the top and end them with "screw questioning, dialog, superfluousness , community input... and you." [/sarcasm]

I for one benefit from venting and hearing other's takes on the subject.

 

[Makosuke]

Well maybe liberating for you but certainly not your visitors.

Why? The people using IE6 can see and use all the content, and it looks fine. It just doesn't look AS fine as it does for people using IE7 or almost any other browser.

A while ago it occurred to me that it's not the end of the world to have different viewers see somewhat different versions of the site--my motto has become "fail gracefully" rather than "make it look identical in everything." That way I spend far less time (and therefore money) on many layouts, and the only downside is that it is less attractive in older browsers.

As people upgrade, they too will see the prettier version, and I'm not at ALL convinced that, say, an extra drop shadow is going to translate into increased sales in proportion to the cost of implementing said drop shadow in IE6 as well. Seriously--how many IE6 users are going to say "Aw, no drop shadow? I'm buying somewhere else."? If I were designing Amazon.com, maybe enough, but for a small business site I'll bet "not enough to be worth the cost."

So why make the client's site, given particular budget constraints, uglier than necessary for 70+% of their viewers? How is better design for the value bad?

Particularly when you consider that the percentage of IE6 users will only go down with time. Besides, as I mentioned, if you're using IE6 you're either running <XP, in which case you're used to things not working right, you're not letting Windows install recommended security updates, in which case you've probably got larger issues with your computer than a missing design element, or you're a corporate user locked into IE6, in which case you're either using company time to do personal surfing or you shouldn't be buying based on a little bit of visual fluff anyway.

I'm just applying the "why not use some shadow CSS that only Safari currently renders" theory of design to a larger subset of tools.

 

[angelwatt]

A while ago it occurred to me that it's not the end of the world to have different viewers see somewhat different versions of the site--my motto has become "fail gracefully" rather than "make it look identical in everything." That way I spend far less time (and therefore money) on many layouts, and the only downside is that it is less attractive in older browsers.

I have that same feeling. I've been liking some of the stories that have been coming out this year about progressive enhancement. With my site where I've dropped IE support, I should clarify that IE visitor's aren't banned or redirected, I just have a casually noticeable message about it being unsupported. Also, all content is still accessible by IE, they simply don't have my intended layouts and they miss out on some of the visual niceties. So as IE hopefully improves, visitors will get an increasingly better experience.

I'm also a big supporter of making a site accessible to those with disabilities as I have a disability myself (though doesn't affect my Internet experience in any way), and if your site meets accessibility standards, IE will still very likely be able to offer the same content, just not necessarily as pretty looking.

 

[jng]

Why? The people using IE6 can see and use all the content, and it looks fine. It just doesn't look AS fine as it does for people using IE7 or almost any other browser.

I think the best designers can make it look just AS fine and without necessarily investing more time. The trick is to design properly from the outset, which I think most designers don't understand.

As people upgrade, they too will see the prettier version, and I'm not at ALL convinced that, say, an extra drop shadow is going to translate into increased sales in proportion to the cost of implementing said drop shadow in IE6 as well. Seriously--how many IE6 users are going to say "Aw, no drop shadow? I'm buying somewhere else."?

Personally I think drop shadows on website designs are overrated and so pre 2008.

Particularly when you consider that the percentage of IE6 users will only go down with time. Besides, as I mentioned, if you're using IE6 you're either running <XP, in which case you're used to things not working right, you're not letting Windows install recommended security updates, in which case you've probably got larger issues with your computer than a missing design element, or you're a corporate user locked into IE6, in which case you're either using company time to do personal surfing or you shouldn't be buying based on a little bit of visual fluff anyway.

I don't think it necessarily has to be visual fluff like your shadows.

Also, I am actually currently working as a sort of teacher at a school that has a mix of windows 2000 and xp machines most of which run IE6. Yes, they do have security updates installed and the machines function perfectly. It's not broken, so why fix it? Oh yeah, that's called Vista.

Not saying that IE6 is wonderful or anything. Just don't assume that someone who has IE6 has a broken computer or is technically incompetent and not updating. Maybe it's a choice.

 

[Hankster]

IE isn't a "bad browser" per say. It's simply more forgiving for crap code. When it was only IE and Netscape the ONLY reason people preferred IE was because IE was more forgiving when there was an error on the page. Back then if you forgot a </html> the page wouldn't show up in Netscape because that browser reads all the code and then displays the page. IE displayed the page AS it read the code.

IE is too forgiving to be the standard for coding.

 

[jng]

In general, yes, it is more forgiving. But there are also certainly problems with it including gaps that were mentioned above. But these issues have largely been resolved among leading designers by using a proper DTD tag, which then results in a proper rendering of the box model. And even then as long as one watches out and doesn't define width, margin AND padding in any single given element, all should go well in IE. 6 or 7. i.e. no gaps.

 

[Makosuke]

I think the best designers can make it look just AS fine and without necessarily investing more time. The trick is to design properly from the outset, which I think most designers don't understand.

I'd like to think I try to do that; I disagree because I think it's more along these lines:

My graphic designer comes up with a nifty design that involves, say, a translucent gradient as a design element. I now have more or less three options. I can:

1) Do the layout in a couple of hours with a PNG with alpha and leave IE6 with a decent-looking fallback.

2) Spend a significant amount of time and effort coming up with a way to emulate the same look in IE6 (assuming a situation where a standard hack won't work).

3) Tell the designer "This project's budget doesn't cover that much; please modify the layout."


Again, this is just an example; I can come up with more involved real-world examples if I wanted to, but my point is that IE6 has enough severely broken things or missing features that it can significantly constrain design. Now, maybe I'm just not good enough to come up with something that satisfies 2 in the same amount of time as 1, but then I'm the one who's got the contract so that's all I can base this on.

An alternate real-world example was a site where I thought a sort of faint "glow" effect for moused-over links would look nice. This is trivial to do with a browser that supports CSS text shadow, but would have involved any number of crazy workarounds or image-based solutions to try to emulate in other browsers. What did I do? "Well, the site looks fine as is 100% usable without, so I'll just put them in. People with a good browser get a visual bonus."

I don't understand why that's a bad idea.

Just don't assume that someone who has IE6 has a broken computer or is technically incompetent and not updating. Maybe it's a choice.

Actually, I think your school falls roughly into my "corporate user locked into IE6" overgeneralization, but I was speaking more to home customers, and generalizing. I had systems where I work running NT4 until just a couple of years ago, and I retired the last Win2K holdout just last month. But I'm specifically talking about small-budget websites; most home users using IE6, I'm willing to wager, fall into that category.

If I were making a large government portal, then I would code more specifically for IE6, because that's the audience.

What I'm trying to get at is that there are projects in which due to budget and target audience constraints it's giving the client more bang for their buck to not tiptoe around IE6 issues.

 

[jng]

1 - It's possible to do translucent gradients and support IE 6 too. Cheap way? Use transparent PNGs and then throw in an extra IE6 if statement and flip to GIFs instead. Same code, just 2 diff. sets of images. Extra time needed? 30 seconds to resave your images.
2 - Glowing text? lame. Was definitely trendy like 3 years ago.

 

[yojitani]

This is my favorite fix for IE. The only problem I've had is if you use transparent pngs it sometimes doesn't fix all of them. If there's only one transparency, then it's fine. You may not like using java either, but hey it's better than all that extra coding s&%t.

 

[InLikeALion]

This is my favorite fix for IE. The only problem I've had is if you use transparent pngs it sometimes doesn't fix all of them. If there's only one transparency, then it's fine. You may not like using java either, but hey it's better than all that extra coding s&%t.

I've seen this before. Does anyone have any comments on this? What are you opinions on the viability of this solution?

 

[Makosuke]

1 - It's possible to do translucent gradients and support IE 6 too. Cheap way? Use transparent PNGs and then throw in an extra IE6 if statement and flip to GIFs instead.

Actually, this is EXACTLY what I meant by "leave IE6 with a decent-looking fallback." My whole point--which you appear to be agreeing with--is that it's not always worth spending hours getting IE6 to look exactly the same as everything else; sometimes a decent-looking fallback (in your solution to my example, a dithered GIF rather than full alpha channel) is the better option.

You seem to think I'm trying to give IE a page entirely stripped of styles (like I do with NS4 now). That's not what I'm advocating (as tempting as it is); just that "100% the same" isn't necessary, and can be restricting.

2 - Glowing text? lame. Was definitely trendy like 3 years ago.

Maybe so for this particular example (though I personally think a subtle glow :hover can look kinda nice--like a soft version of bold without the reflow issues), but that's still entirely beside the point I was trying to make. My point, regardless of specifics, was that I don't see anything wrong with using more advanced CSS2 or CSS3 features, even if they're not well supported, so long as the page looks fine in browsers that don't support them.

Giving IE a slightly "degraded" (say, dithered GIF rather than alpha-PNG) version is no different from this, just with larger (but decreasing) percentages.

I'm just waiting for the day IE6 eventually drops below 1% share. I'll be almost as happy as when NS4 and more recently IE5.x dropped into the fraction-of-percent range where they could be safely ignored past basic usability testing.

 

[yojitani]

I've seen this before. Does anyone have any comments on this? What are you opinions on the viability of this solution?

Admittedly, I've not been doing much web work recently and I notice that it's now at version 2. But when I did use it, it worked extremely well. It takes care of a long list of IE irritations. I mainly used it for transparent pngs, but it also fixed some errors with IEs erratic positioning of divs. Sometimes it took a second for the script to kick in so you might get a flash of that IE 'transparent blue'.

The biggest problem I had with it was getting it to work! Once you put it in the right place and link to it properly, it's all good - especially with IE6 bugs, which are the WORST!

 

[jng]

Actually, this is EXACTLY what I meant by "leave IE6 with a decent-looking fallback." My whole point--which you appear to be agreeing with--is that it's not always worth spending hours getting IE6 to look exactly the same as everything else;

No, I do not agree with you at all. Hours? Please. Your example of transparent GIFs is an easy one. My point is that inexperienced designers need hours (esp. for layout problem) and they whine the whole time about IE6 when really it's just them.

Also replacing PNGs with GIFs actually makes the site look 99% the same. There really is no reason in my opinion why a site can't look the same IE6+.

Glows are lame. Period. I saw yours too. Yes, lame.