gogogadgetearl . my thoughts on IE

2005.06.08

  • as most of you can tell from some of the posts on the main page, i've been doing a little bashing on IE [and microsoft]...as well as some research on IE7.  i've had a few people make the assumption that i secretly have it in for microsoft and that i hate IE.  i assure you, i don't.  IE used to be a great browser.  back during the "browser wars", netscape's developers made the irresponsible mistake of assuming certain web standards before they were ever officially released.  they assumed wrong.  this caused all kinds of compatibility issues, in turn causing major headaches for web developers who now had to write their code to look good in both netscape and IE.  since IE stuck with the actual standards [and since it was automatically available on nearly all windows desktops], IE quickly rose to the top.  that said, i'd like to stress that IE used to be a great browser.  but, at present time, IE is still buggy with web standards...and it's gotten extremely stale.

    now, i can understand why MS uses quirks mode and strict mode -- they have a lot of consumers that want to have their undefined code to display how they would "expect" it to.  fine.  however, in strict mode, there is no excuse for IE to not be standards-compliant.  the final CSS2 specifications were released in 1998 - and IE6 SP2 [released 2004] still  only supports some  of them.  and of the ones it does  support, a few of them still  aren't supported correctly!!  heck, since IE6's release in 2001 [with the launch of winxp], it has had no rendering engine updates or standards-compliant patches made whatsoever [4 years!!].  i'm sure they've been busy keeping the browser secure - as they should.  i can understand that IE is the world's most widely-used browser; therefore, it's the most prone to malicious exploits - they need to keep it secure.  but that's still no excuse for making it's intended objective [rendering web content, correctly] take a backseat to security.  i know MS has developers who are capable to bring it's rendering engine up to speed -- in the mean time, dean edwards has made a product called [facetiously] 'IE7'. it's a javascript that renders CSS2/CSS3 selectors/properties correctly in IE.  if someone has had enough time and devotion to build such an elaborate external extension, then there is no reason MS could not take care of it internally -- other than pure neglect.

    personally, i use firefox.  it's a wholly free and open-source browser available from mozilla.  i've found firefox to be much faster at rendering pages, and much more customizable than IE.  there are all kinds of useful [and spyware/adware free!!] extensions, plugins, and themes that you can download.  it's also much more secure than IE [mostly because IE is generally the target of most exploits - for it's larger user base].

    i still use IE every now and then -- when i visit the MS site [it doesn't always render well in FF], and whenever i need to use a page that uses activex controls [most web developers have written their code to assume that if it's not IE, then it can't handle activex].  once MS releases the real IE7, i'll be one of the first to try it out.  i've always loved how MS integrates their products, and, therefore, i've always been preferential to them.  but, IE is no longer a good product.  given the speed, customizability, and security of FF, IE has a lot of catching-up to do before it can top it.  even if IE7 has tabbed browsing and fully [and correctly] supports CSS2, then it will only be an average product.

    i don't hate IE.  i just like FF better.  i'm frustrated because i would like to produce a standards-compliant site that looks the exact same across all browsers without having to force a bunch of hacks just to get it to look right in IE.  i could write it to look fine in IE, but then it would take many, many more hacks just to get it to look right in the other browsers.  i wouldn't be frustrated at all if IE would just support the standards that MS participated in creating!!  ::sigh::   now, i'm not a firefox fanatic.  if IE7 ends up being even close to as good of a product as FF, then i'll go back in a heartbeat.  but, i'm not holding my breath...

    Firefox 2    

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