When I first saw this thread, I thought it said "At last! IE7.0 is cumming!", and thought that all those porno popups had finally been too much for IE.

Strange. But it must be installed by default of at least 90% of all the whole world computers... So there

I'm just glad I never had a computer which came with this piece of crap pre-installed. The Windows 98 I had didn't have it by default

I am pretty sure a need to have a kind of free software which allows you to surf on internet is the cause of all this. I also beleives that the fact it is already installed in so many computer the first time they are ever used also contribute to the fact a lot of people don't know better.

Yes, I think that's very strange, too, because I don't see the reason why anyone would have started using IE in the first place

Even if IE wasn't buggy, I love the firefox plugins.

It seems like every board I visit have a thread about switching browsers...

I myself have played extensively with my IE 6.0 security options and, along with programs which block malware and sometimes whole pubs, I don't have any problem since half a year now.

IE 7.0 released? Why would I switch? I don't see a reason. If I have to switch browser then I'll try Firefox first since everyone seems to talk about it. But that probably won't be in at least half a year either...

If you like options, try mozilla. The majority of options in mozilla are hidden or removed in firefox (to make it more appealling to the idiot public, who panic at have too many options). All of these are still in place in FF (although they're hidden), but not all work. There are a couple ways to access them in FF. You can either get an extension such as "the things they left out" if you want a GUI, or you can go to about:config and you'll be presented with a long page of options and settings that you can configure manually.

dregenrocks: As I said here:That design was made a year ago. It's intentionally 'broken' in ways which I know don't cause trouble with decent browsers, but 'fix' problems with buggier ones. You'll notice that the errors are basically just the non-standard body attributes and a few non-encoded & (the latter is just laziness, of course ). It was a pain to make it 'work' this way (completely ignoring the recommendations, as opposed to the rules), and I wouldn't go through this again for sure. In fact, all my newer designs are validating perfectly. Just because you don't know these sites doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere on the net

Even that specific 'display problems' link is already present on one of them, although that is not a public one, but rather a database of personal stuff intended just for me which I'm using as my little technical play- and testing ground

Edited by Mr Creosote at 00:23 on February, 16th 2005

Like this one? Just kidding.


Well, good idea but if there are display problems, the visitor may not even see the 'display problems'-link...
Seriously: You're right of couse. In general you if you expect a visitor, who is aware of this, you can nearly always expect that he will use a browser, which is able of disabling the site-css and maybe be able to use it's own client css-files.

I'm currently using Firefox and I like what I see, nicely done interface, lots of features I don't even know they exist yet and ist fast. I just need to get used to tabbed browsing (I constantly want to ALT-TAB to the next browser ).

There are (even now) people that use netscape 4.7 browsers for surfing the net. And I ask myself why not, if they are happy with it then let them. Even if it doesn't support a lot of nice features.

But does the webdesigner need to take them into considiration? Like Mr Creosote pointed out, if you are selling stuff and would like to make some money then, yes you need to. But this is not the case here so no need for supporting browsers that ask for special effort (unless you have too much free time).

IE is in a very bad shape when it comes to security and standards support. So its partly true that they are updating it for the security reason. The second part is the loss in market and that is most definatly the other (and possibly bigger) part of the reason.

The main reason FF 1.0 is such a hit over previous versions is twofold: 1) It's the first full, numbered version. All previous versions were still considered beta. 2) FF 1.0 is the first version they've gone to any effort to market. Because of these factors, FF 1.0 is the first version most people have been made aware of.

What I would do for IE users is put a thing at the bottom of the page "Does this site look messed up? It could be because you're using IE. Here's a screenshot of the site in IE (link to shot). Here's how it's supposed to look (link to shot of FF or whatever). Get yourself a good browser (link to FF or some other decent browser) and see what the web really looks like."

Yep, it's about time version 7 was released. But, be honest, the only reason they do it is firefox. It has nothing to do with security, otherwise a new version of IE would be out every month.
I strongly doubt that it will be fully w3c compatible...

Yes, I know. There a lot of people that I've switched over that still use it. Just that there will always be that part of the population who will just never get it.

If I was trying to sell something, I'd have to care about users who refuse to leave stone age. I don't. I also don't plan to lock anyone out with stupid browser id checks like so many sites do. What I consider the best way to design a site these days is to do it completely according to the standards and recommendations. That way, only browsers with buggy CSS support will have problems while those with none at all will work fine. To catch even these last visitors, there's a simple way: a 'display problems' link on the bottom of every page enabling an empty style sheet -> site showing. Nobody loses anything this way, and truly everybody can get the information.

Tuss: There have to be people who think differently, though. Since Firefox 1.0 has been released, it has taken 25% of my browser statistics. Not that 1.0 was such a vast improvement over previous versions, but it still shows that apparantely, lots of people have 'switched'.

It doesn't matter. People tell me their computers run so slow (and they do!), so I go over and remove all their spyware and adware for them, download Firefox, and tell them, "Use this, if you use Internet Explorer your computer will get infected again, and become slow again. If that happens I won't fix it again, you're on your own"
I come over a week later, and they're using Internet Explorer. I don't know what else to say!

In my opinion it is way to late to regain a good reputation. IE is an archaic piece of software that caused millions $ of damage. There was a time when their market share was close to 100% - that means they had a kind of responsibility. And what did they do? Nothing, for years. Therefore I won't believe a single catch phrase ("better security"...) until it is proven.

You can stop caring about the IE, but sadly not about 90% of www-consumers, who don't have the knowledge and interest to care about their browser and www-technology. And they are right, if the whole www-thing is meant as an improvement to mankind and not just an extension. So what makes me glad is, that Microsoft maybe starts to care (somehow) about it's IE-users and give them access to those above stated standards and makes it a lot easier and comfortable for web-developers, who still must care about the IE (sadly).

Edited by dregenrocks at 15:50 on February, 16th 2005

Forgive me if I'm laughing Seriously: I stopped caring. The current TGOD design is the last one I took the time to do in 'broken' ways just to make it work with that piece of crap.

See one of many articles.
Hopefully it will support standards like W3C, Alpha-PNG, SVG or MathML. It's about time. A full CSS 2 support wouldn't be bad, too...

Edited by dregenrocks at 15:49 on February, 16th 2005