I actually have a speculation as to why Microsoft’s browser stinks so bad. It is because they do not have to fix it. Their browser is so deeply embedded into every Windows operating system on the planet, which is the most widely used home operating system. Looking at the statistics for this site the browser usage is actually split almost equally between Firefox and IE, but I believe that is because users who browse tech sites tend to be a bit more savvy when it comes to being on the internet. I also administer a couple of non-tech sites and I have checked the statistics for those sites. 90% of the users access the sites using Internet Explorer.
Have you ever heard the saying, “Why fix it if it ain’t broke?” Well, in Microsoft’s mind their product is not broken since it is so widely used. Geez Jonathan, what are you so worked up about? I’ve been working on getting some other sites/blogs updated this weekend and trying out different WordPress themes. I cannot tell you how many themes I had to switch out because of IE incompatibilities. Plus I found a few that I liked, but then when I started the tweaking process to fine tune things in the stylesheets… IE was the major pain in the arse of course. For getting something in CSS to work in Firefox takes about 5 minutes. Then add another half hour to get it to work in IE. Then there are those sites that I’ve gone to that are completely optimized for IE only and do not even work on Firefox. What’s up with that? Let us not also forget the multitude of security holes that MS has generously allowed into our lives via Internet Explorer. Thanks Bill.
If you get anything out of this rant… please for love of all things sacred and holy! Change to Firefox now!
My blog gets the same sort of stats for IE vs Firefox browsers.
Between IE7 and windows Vista Microsoft has shown that they dont care what sort of experience Internet users get.
For someone who does a lot of CSS programming, I was hoping that IE7 would be a step forwards, not a leap backwards.
Yes, yes… yes! Microsoft is all about time to market and getting features into the product. Who cares if they actually work properly or introduce security holes?
You would think that with so much market share they might slow down and try to do things right. Oh that’s right they tried that with Vista! How’d that go? Not so good… not so good.
in 20 years i predict that microsoft, feebay, aohell and all those others out there who seem to ONLY be intrested in taking your money NOW and to hell with if you bother comming back..will be long out of buisness and mere things of the past!
Had a great fluid theme, looked good in firefox, opera, konqueror etc. Looked crap in IE6. Tweaked it to look right in IE6. Thought I better check it in IE7. Guess what! Columns all over the place. Gave up. I despair though of persuading people to change to a decent browser. Most un-tech savy people just don’t want to take a few minutes to get used to something different.
this is wrong, the internet does need fixing it needs a brain and the knowledge
Internet Explorer is definitely the world’s stupidest program EVER made…