hello technical world !

most likely you already guessed what this thread is about , so i'm gonna skip the part where i rant about how crappy absolutely anything is implemented in IE from javascript , CSS to the Box Model and then of course the total absence of decent debugging capabilities unless you install additional mostly paid software from M$ that is equally crap .....etc.....etc....etc

okay let's cut to the chase,

i must say that what really raises my eyebrowns is NOT the incompetence of M$ , but how highly knowable technical folks in particular web designers are willing to put up with the mediocre sub-standard bullcrap that the latter cartel releases into the markets !

if you've been into serious web development recently then beyond any shadow of a doubt you would have encountered the ubiquitous(among devs) concept of "browser hacks" in particular if not even exclusively for IE !

browser hacks or IE hacks , although legit in theory are totally counter-productive if not even harmful to web development at large , because obviously it encourages M$ to NOT improve its reeking crappy browser nor its underlying horrid abomination of a layout engine the so called "trident engine".
i'd personally add the additional argument that M$ is both unwilling as well as incapable to improve anything given the fact that it has entangled itself in a web of its own creation made exclusively of corporate monopoly , manipulation , greed , exploitation , thoughtlessness , incompetence , backwardness ..etc

but i digress,

My Point is that since more than 70% of web developers , webmasters , admins and other geek-like personalities (as shown by this widely recognized statistic from w3schools )who happen to browse with anything but IE and who are de-facto "in charge" of the web ,

Then WHY aren't we the devs and webmasters reflecting this actively into the userbase ?
Why aren't we denouncing IE and point our users to the fact that they do have much much better options ??

now that said , i decided to initiate action on my behalf and lead by example , so here is the latest version of my site:

NiteCo.com

Please do take part in this experiment , browse the site using any major browser of its latest version (firefox , chrome , opera , safari) then check it again with IE8 (its latest version)
and you'll notice (aside from the almost fully consistent look and functionality in the first 4 browsers) an error notice that says in a politically correct language (i assume) that IE is crap and that a proper browser (i.e firefox with link) should be used to browse the site or the web in general...

you can try that out yourself or take my word for it , it's up to you

and you'll also most likely notice the hideous broken garbled mess that IE has butchered the site into !
btw , i didn't intentionally make the site to look like that in IE , i simply abided by the w3 standards and recommendations in all of xhtml , xml , javascript ,css , ajax ..etc , and that's how IE renders it !

btw , i do NOT intend to "fix" the site using IE hacks or any of that , instead i'm serious about exposing the flaws of IE rather than hiding it !!

so what i'm petitioning here is that , web developers , site owners/admins like me viralize this concept which can be summarized as:

Denounce IE for failing/refusing to comply with web standards and for torturing web developers to death!

you may cite my site as an example of how crappy IE is , for the lulz you see if you wish of course

a little side note for those who don't know yet , all other browser stats other than w3schools such as w3stats clearly show IE to be the most popular browser among the (pardon my expression) ignorant herd of the vast internet userbase , although all stats disagree with each other regarding the actual numbers and usage percentages , yet ALL stats unanimously confirm the obvious trend that IE usage is dropping month after month at a constant rate

i conclude with a positve sentiment of encouragement:

be ballsy and reward good code!

Cheers

Steve Balmer and friends agree with you.

Check out this link praising IE9 from the Web Standards Project:

http://www.webstandards.org/2010/06/...all-promising/

And, in all fairness, lets not forget that the IE team *invented* XMLHttpRequest and pioneered Dynamic HTML, which are the cornerstones of "Web 2.0".

IMHO .. PSM

Simple.

Web pages by and large are designed to attract traffic. Making your web page standards compliant and ignoring the browser the end users are using by default is a good way to insure they simply don't come to your site. For commercial web sites this just isn't going to happen.

What one might do is to say "this site has been optimized for Firefox" (or Chrome or whatever) and provide a link for downloading that. However as noted above the intent of most websites is to generate traffic - not preach the gospel as seen by the web master.

entz;

I share your view of IE and standards, but: A long-winded rant like that is a recipe to be ignored. You will get much better results with 1/10 the number of words.

I finally tried your site with IE.

What exactly was supposed to be so clever? (Maybe fact that you see someone come in with IE and then then you give them the cute (but wrong) message about IE being obsolete??)

None of this is going to put a detectable dent in the IE/MS machine.

Just in the interests of science:

• Dillo also makes a spectacularly bad job of rendering your site...maybe they have tried to emulate IE bugs
• Midori does OK
• konqueror does OK, but is a bit slow (although that may to do with caching)

Additionally, you seem to have relied on the browser ident which is fine until someone sets up their browser to lie. And setting your browser to tell little porky pies about being IE is not that unusual.

Also, I've been telling people that IE is bad for about fifteen years and the only noticeable effect has been that people think I'm mad (or a bit of preaching to the converted). Well, I am mad, in a way, so maybe that's not unreasonable. Certainly it doesn't seem to have directly reduced the market share of IE.

I think the dynamics of this are that Microsoft wanted to own the web (and these days, their objective may only be to stop Google from owning the web). To do this, they were happy to 'embrace and extend' which means, in practice, they were very happy to write stuff that wasn't at all standards compliant, provided that their authoring tools worked with their browser, hoping that their market share would force everyone else into the Microsoft Web.

well to honest i could not give a horse shoe about what steve balmer says about their IE9 , and do you know why?
because M$ has been talking straight out of their arse for the last 10 years when it came to web standards , i still remember when IE7 was hailed as the future knockout browser with everything supported ....fact is it failed evidently...and the same went for IE8 ...M$ has proved to the world that they are extremely good at cheap and empty talk and even when they bring something it later on turns out to a STOLEN IDEA !

so why should i or anybody for that matter take them seriously?

and as for the XMLHttpRequest object , well no M$ did NOT pioneer it and not even ajax , fact is that the original idea of asynchronous requests came from java applets and we know that java applets were originally introduced by netscape at the height of what became known as the "browser wars".

the irony is that M$ stole the concept from the java applets in order to score against netscape and made the XMLhttp active x control (which nobody implements except IE and for good reasons)

however ajax was later standardized by mozilla and friends and became the usable feature that is gaining ground as web 2.0 namely the XMLhttpRequest object (not to be confused with activex control version from M$)

please paulsm4 , get your facts correct next time

Well you're completely mistaken with your status quo loser mentality , just because things are like that doesn't mean that we should maintain them !
besides , if all people would be following your attitude then neither of flash or java applets would have seen mainstream implementation nor adoption , but thanx that most people aren't !

do you remember when sites used to put notices saying that you need to install adope flash or java runtime machine to watch a particular content?

why is it that when we tell people to ditch their crappy IE and use firefox or chrome suddenly our request is considered unreasonable?
well i say it's not unreasonable actually it's quite the opposite all people whom have been introduced to Firefox or Chrome have been thankful....every single one of them!

however , some people have this laggard herd mentality who wouldn't bother progressing unless the rest , so they aren't really a concern

First off , the site has been designed according to standards the reason why you think it's optimized for either of firefox or chrome (which it isn't) is because both of them are standard compliant browsers...DOH!

well i'm glad that you're sharing my views
as for being too long in my posts , well what can i say , i'm a person who insists on putting substance behind my claims and opinions, and apparently substance requires lots of words! LOL
so you gotta excuse me on that one , mate

as for the risk of getting ignored , well so far i see quite the opposite.

well matey you apparently missed the message !
and now i even need to put even MORE words to explain why ..

first off, the purpose was NOT about being clever or anything but to expose to the common user the flaws of IE.

as for you saying that labeling IE as "obsolete" is wrong , well i personally disagree for the simple reason that it ACTUALly is !
i mean we are talking about a browser that is incapable of supporting any standards and when it does then it messes it all up !

absolutely nothing works in IE as it SHOULD work , now i don't know what dictionary you use but in mine this condition is described as being "obsolete" .

finally , who said that i'm seeking to cause a "dent" in M$ or IE ???
nothing could be further from the truth , my intention is aid with getting rid of it once and for all , and btw the stats are revealing that IE is going exactly into that direction .....into oblivion lol

cheers

I take back what I say.

That's exactly what has been puzzling me for the last month. I got myself a CSS book to refresh my skills and in EVERY single subchapter there are things like:

"This is how you do it:
[some code ]
This, however, doesn't work on IE. To make it work on IE you need the following hack."


Why on earth does the web-developer world have to put up with such crap.
I'm in the process of creating my little business's website. As it's not that important at that stage of my life (I've just started it and it's not very profitable (yet)),
I'm going to ignore IE peculiarities like they ignore web standards. I was thinking of including a script which would recognise the browser and if it's IE, the user
will get a message along the following lines: Dear customer, you're not using a web browser that supports web standards.... blablahblah.

I know the only person who will lose on it is myself, but it really pisses me off to constantly try to conform with a browser which doesn't give a damn about standards.

The good thing is that almost all of my computer-minded windows friends ditched IE long time ago. The bad thing is that most of the web users are not computer-minded and that's why
web developers have to put up with it.

Well first i'm thankful that you've done a scientific inquiry on your own

* i've never heard about a browser called Dillo nor did any statistic mention them in name so we can ignore that for now..
* haven't heard about Midori either , but i'm glad that it works
* and i'm glad that konqueror works along with FF , chrome and opera btw isn't konqueror the linux version of safari ?

now for problems regarding people messing around with the browser ident string and making it look like IE , well i'm assuming that those folks are geeks and geeks have a mind of their own obviously .
eitherway geeks will find a way to use the site if they so wish (by either changing the ident string to the default value for instance ..lol)

btw why would anybody nowadays bother with impostering IE?

well that's exactly the attitude that we need
and yes IE's market is dwindling and will hit rock bottom sooner or later.

and M$ are fools if they think they can own the web , i mean PSSSHHH
this is RIDICUlOUS , not even the network companies and ISP's who actually own physical portions of the internet could ever control the internet in any shape or form.

it's just a matter of working hard and being ballsy , that's all what it takes to set the record straight

cheers

Hoooray!

Yes indeed , that's exactly the attitude that we need !
if M$IE is unwilling/incapable to put up with the web , then the web shouldn't put up with it !
to me this is a natural and obvious conclusion and apparently one more geek has recognized that as well.

i mean in any domain of life, people will reciprocate with each other , so if one person/entity is disruptive then people will know how to deal with that person/entity , in the case of M$ the easiest thing is to isolate them ,we have nothing to lose.

don't be afraid my friend about losing potential users , because from personal experience as well as from yours apparently too , every person who got in contact with anything other than IE like FF for instance was more than happy and grateful.(this also includes computer ignorants)

this also can be seen on a global level , as each month more and more people are ditching IE in favor or others.

i'd say it's our duty as well our interest to make a better , more reliable and secure web , and that's why we need to warn users against IE actively on every single page hit

cheers

It's not 1997 any more.

This situation was much worse back then, with most large corporates toeing the IE line. Many banks didn't support any other browsers. Every Windows security patch would break Netscape somehow or another.

We've come a long way in this regard. I haven't seen any webpages written specifically for IE in a very, very long time.

IMO, a web page written specifically for Firefox is just as bad, if not worse in this day and age.

Code to standards and be done with it.

I'm not talking about coding for FF. I'm talking about coding according to the W3C standards. I always validate my sites and check them against FF/Opera/Chrome and the results are usually consistent.

I've done my time "denouncing" IE in favor of Netscape/FF/whatever. Now IE is just a browser I don't use.

My opinion is that the purpose of your site can dictate the support it needs to provide. If its providing business and money to a company, at minimum needs to support the 3 most popular browsers, getting as much exposure as possible.

If the site is not for profit, write to w3c standards. Provide some sort of nonalienating feedback to IE visitors as to why certain functionality may not work for them. Something akin to "We see you are using Internet Explorer which does not support the current w3c standards to which this site is written. Some of this site's functionality may be unavailable. If you want to view this site properly please consider using a standards compliant browser such as Firefox."

In the same way carts drag horses along.

Because of the problem that you are ranting about!