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Internet Explorer hate rant

londonweb

londonweb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2005
260
0
london
I'm not sure why I'm writing this post, I suppose it's the closest I'm probably going to get to therapy for this particular problem and I just need to blow off some steam: I ******* hate Internet Explorer 6!!!!!!

The amount of time I've spent in the last few days trying to fix things that work fine in all browsers except IE is ridiculous, I've seriously spent about 1 hour a day actually building the site and the other 7 trying to fix things that don't work properly when I test it on my pc. I've had to use so many hacks my code looks like computer-vomit, and I'm also much balder than I used to be.

The problem is not just lack of support and standards-compliance, it's that so many things are treated incorrectly by IE - Z-index, width and height values, border styles, hover classes, rollover behaviour, even colours sometimes appear differently, etc. etc. etc. So you end up fixing things to work in IE because that's the browser that 104.9% of the world uses and then your site doesn't work in other decent browsers like Firefox.

I wonder if there could be grounds for sueing MS for loss of earnings on the part of so many web developers who have had to work into the small hours trying to find ways around the trappings of the most evil browser ever to gain undeserved widespread popularity. I know this is all a bit late in the day since IE7 appears to be much better, but it'll still be at least a couple of years before people bother to upgrade - look at the number of people who were up in arms not long ago because MS announced it was ceasing support for Win 98...

I feel a little better now, and I'd like to end with a positive comment:

www.alistapart.com

This site is a godsend, run and contributed to by very talented and sensible people, and has got me out of a hole on many occasions. Highly recommended.
 
It won't be long, XP is autoupdating the IE 7 over the next few months, all you are doing at this point is stopping Windows 98/2000 users from accessing your site.

EDIT (Unless they use Firefox)
 
Yeah, I know how it feels. Nothing like spending a lot of time coding your site and discovering that IE fails to render it properly. Hate rants about IE are completely understandable.
 
im sick of ie,

i tried to redesign my site, and it looked great on safari, it looked great on Firefox, hell it even looked great in opera!!!

But it didnt work in IE 5, IE 6, OR IE 7!!!!!!!


I HATE YOU M$!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I can't tell you how much I agree with you.

I work at a small website, and some of the people here use Internet Explorer. We're supposed to cater to this awful, and inexcusably horrible web browser just because ~90% of our users use it? Especially since fixing it for IE ruins it for the people who use real web browsers. Maybe we should give them a link to something at least remotely decent (FireFox). But seriously, it's just Microsoft's way to make it a bit more difficult for people to use other web browsers and platforms, and that's what really gets me.
 
Well, thank you all for your kind words of shared hatred. I feel a lot better about it all now I know that it's not just me. The world of the freelance web designer can be a very lonely one....See, therapy.
 
You can definitely add me to the list of:

"If I were to ever meet one of their developers, or Gates, in a dark alley... I'd kick em in the junk."


Yep, IE sucks. I will give props, at this point, for IE7. It's still junk, and it's still IE mind you, but at least it's better than 6. So I won't trash effort for improvement, as small as it may be. But hey, at least it supports png's.

IE7's still going to need some additional styling, but the amount of it required should be reduced.

Unfortunately, we're probably going to still be fighting IE6 for a while longer. You'd laugh, but there's still a lot of people on win98! How they manage, I don't know.
 
How about you add a "Best viewed with Firefox" link prominently at the top of all your sites? Half your customers probably aren't even aware it exists, so let them know about it.
 
dynamicv said:
How about you add a "Best viewed with Firefox" link prominently at the top of all your sites? Half your customers probably aren't even aware it exists, so let them know about it.
Click to expand...

As a professional web designer i think that's the WORST thing you could possibly do.

Write well formed, compliant code. the use of things like ie specific style sheets, or the /IE7/ library will resolve the issues with MSIE, the other browsers all support enough of the CSS2 spec that there are very few things you will implement that do not work properly.

sure, suggest people use Firefox, its a good browser, but dont make claims about what its best viewed in. write it properly and ALL the good browsers will be fine.
 
Is IE7 going to be more standards compliant? Will this result in fewer websites that are "IE only"? (not that you often see them these days anyway)

.

.
 
MSIE7 does handle a lot more compliant CSS than previous versions, but only in strict mode. in quirks mode it falls back to the old rendering mode, so its a bit finicky still.
 
make a table.

put a table within the table.

IE goes f***ken bat***t insane.

I spent ALL DAY at work figuring out WHY it looked the way it did in IE but not FF...

had to change my whole functioning design.

blow ** IE.
 
pengu said:
Write well formed, compliant code. the use of things like ie specific style sheets, or the /IE7/ library will resolve the issues with MSIE, the other browsers all support enough of the CSS2 spec that there are very few things you will implement that do not work properly.
Click to expand...

so, basically ignore that the internet is worldwide and free, and force yourself to do what M$ and IE ask of you.

blah. no way.

i shouldnt HAVE to do anything but write HTML and some CSS.

IE makes this impossible.
 
ok. firstly. dont use tables for layout. its just a bad thing.

now. did you read what i wrote? write COMPLIANT code. this will work in most browsers other than MSIE. then do what is necessary to make the same thing work in IE, and as i suggested /IE7/ js library makes it quite simple.
 
IE is like standard def TV. It sucks to develop content for it, but it's very important because [insert accurate number here]% of the general audience use it. Being able to deal with IE's faults is what separates the professionals from the amateurs and hobbyists.
 
pengu said:
as i posted in another thread. to resolve most MSIE issues, use /IE7/ from http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
it is a javascript "library" that will fix most of the major issues with MSIE as it renders your page.
i suggest checking out the "usage" page.
Click to expand...

It helps some, but as you mention, only most of the major issues.

The way I see it, personally, is if I'm still going to have to include a separate stylesheet for IE, why include the library at all?

OK, it does help with some issues, but it still is going to require some help from a CC included stylesheet.

While the js library is helpful, I tend to only include it if the combined total file size of the library, plus the additional css (even though it's less than without the js), is less than simply just the additional stylesheet.

Usually I find that the stylesheet alone, plus the 100 lines of the js function I use for png's in an image tag, is usually less of a total file size.


IE7 is better than IE6, but it still has a long way to go.


I will say that most of my clients haven't even heard of Firefox. Which is OK. I simply educate them along the way. Usually it's something like this, as I tend to leave IE tweaks until the design is finalized and in place.

"Can I see an online preview of my site yet?"

"Sure, do you have Firefox, Safari, or Camino?"

"Huh? What's that?"

"Alternatives to Internet Explorer?"

"There's something else?"

"Yes. Right now your project hasn't been tweaked to display in Internet Explorer properly. However, if you'd like to download Firefox, it's free. As a side benefit, it's also more secure than IE."

--
ensuing discussion about how IE doesn't
actually render websites properly
--


If they go back to IE, OK. But they at least know something else is out there.

It's no different than people knowing Mac's are out there. Some will use them, and some will follow the lemmings off the cliff.
 
pengu said:
do you even get the point of this thread being in the Web Dev. forum?

if you want to "force" people to use Firefox to use/visit your site, then you are no better than someone who "forces" someone to use MSIE.
Click to expand...

Forcing people to do anything is definitely not on, but there's nothing wrong with suggesting that people use something that's clearly better, like FF. I'll certainly be putting a Firefox link on my personal site once it's finished, but I wouldn't dream of putting it on a client's site. My attitude towards dealing with these situations as far as clients are concerned is that they don't (and shouldn't) need to know about all these issues. Time spent explaining the intricacies of browser behaviour to someone who just wants a decent website is not going to win any points (or future work). The problem I have is that we as designers in business inevitably have to pass on to the client the cost of this extra time spent fixing problems, and that's bad for everyone. I understand that IE6 is pretty long in the tooth and so has to be excused to a certain degree, but it sounds like IE7 isn't a whole lot better, and that's just lazy and possibly underhand programming. It's symptomatic of MS and their attitude that becuase they have a monopoly, everyone else can f- off and follow their way.
 
londonweb said:
Forcing people to do anything is definitely not on, but there's nothing wrong with suggesting that people use something that's clearly better, like FF.
Click to expand...

But then people using other non-IE browsers will also see your link. And regardless of how clear it is that IE7 sucks compared to FireFox (which it is), on the Mac platform it clearly is not better than, say, Safari.
 
dpaanlka said:
But then people using other non-IE browsers will also see your link. And regardless of how clear it is that IE7 sucks compared to FireFox (which it is), on the Mac platform it clearly is not better than, say, Safari.
Click to expand...

I would disagree, for me the measure of a browser is how sensitively it treats your mark-up and code both from the point of view of a user and a designer. Safari is a bit too forgiving, and while that's probably good for the end-user, I often find that certain mark up works in Safari fine, and then not in FF, or Opera, or IE or whatever, and then when I check the code I find that actually I've made mistakes or written invalid markup. If you use Safari as your main testing browser you'll find that it lets you get away with all sorts of things that other browsers won't tolerate, and that isn't in the spirit of web standards.
 
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