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Posted on January 31, 2006

Dave! You know the satisfaction that comes from a job well done? The sweet victory of completing a project you can be proud of? Knowing that you took the time to do something right, and it shows?

Yeah, me to. It's a great feeling isn't it?

Unless you are building a web site.

Because no matter how much time you spend making sure everything is compliant with web standards... no matter how long you take to validate every line of hand-coded HTML... no matter what you do to ensure that everything will appear exactly as you intended it to look...

It all falls apart when you look at the site in Internet Explorer...

Browser Render

Suddenly, all the hard work... all the hours... all the painstaking attention to detail... it's all turned to shit because Microsoft's browser sucks ass. Sometimes the Internet Explorer Effect™ is so heinous that sites which render perfectly in every other browser on earth become unusable. I could go into details (the box model is f#@%ed up, floats aren't handled properly, no support for max-width, etc. etc. etc. etc.) but none of it really matters. The simple fact is that Internet Explorer is garbage. Unfortunately, people don't seem to realize it...

Browser Percent

HALF the world is using Internet Explorer, so it doesn't matter that the browser sucks donkey balls. You pretty much have to hack your site to work around all the bugs, omissions, inaccuracies, and f#@%-ups in IE, or else all these people will think it's your fault things look like crap.

There's always the hope that the next version of IE will fix all the problems, but it doesn't really matter because so few people will bother to upgrade. This makes Internet Explorer the equivalent of a case of herpes that will never go away completely. All you can do is put a condom on your site and hope that it doesn't mess things up for the browsers that don't have an STD.

I dunno. Maybe if enough IE victims are convinced to make a better choice, the percentage of users will drop so low that designers won't have to worry about the Internet Explorer Effect™ anymore. Finally, the internet will be beautiful once again (and mostly disease-free).

Oh well. Since I've spent most of my day being beaten into submission by a crappy web browser, I might as well get that "FOUR THINGS" meme out of the way. I've been tagged a couple of times before, but now Gerry and Karla have nabbed me in a weakened state, so here we go:

Browse, Continued...

Four jobs that I’ve had...

Fruit Acquisitions Manager (Cherry Picker).
Refuse Elimination Technician (Janitor).
Customer Sales Relations Supervisor (Sales Clerk).
Lord of the Known Universe (T-Shirt Designer).

Four movies I can watch over and over...

Four places I have lived...

Four TV shows I like to watch...

Four foods that I like...

Cheese.
Cheese Sandwich.
Cheese Pizza.
Johnny Rocket's Streamliner Burger (no grilled onions) with raw onions, mayo, and Cheese.

Four web sites I visit daily...

Four things I want to do before I die...

Visit Greece, Australia, Egypt, and Southern Italy.
Finish my comic book.
Meet Elizabeth Hurley.
View the Earth from Space.

Four places I'd rather be...

New York City.
London.
Rome.
Maui.

Four albums I can't live without...

101 by Depeche Mode.
Major Earth, Minor Sky by a-ha.
Disintegration by The Cure.
The Shore by The Shore.

Four places I've been on holiday...

Bali.
Thailand.
Japan.
France.

Four people I’m tagging...

Dang. Now I want some cheese.

"When my get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went, I hanker for a hunk of cheese! When my ten-gallon hat’s a feelin’ five gallons flat, and I’m feeling kinda weak in the knees... I hanker for a hunk of, a slab, or a slice of, I hanker for a hunk of cheese!"

Category Tracker: Blogging 2006 × Memes

Comments

Yeah that's why I use firefox and I do use safari once in awhile I love my G5 Mac : ).
But this brings up a hard truth for Windows users (you poor poor windows users) any native program included in your core system ie (notepad IE etc..) will suck so you have to find and install a better one ie (firefox Word) this is all a conspiracy of any IBM compat company and yes I will admit apple Comp. to make you buy expensive software the bastards : P still made at what I paid for photostudio and Office : (

Posted by Leanne on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Now you're making me want to go and dig out my copy of Schoolhouse Rock. Ah, childhood memories...

Posted by Mooselet on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I wouldn't worry about the internet explorer effect. The type of person who still uses it isn't the kind of the person to notice garbage on the page.

The stats back my theory up, I would say 47% of the earths populace walk around in blissful ignorance that their surroundings are bleedin' ugly as sin.

Posted by MRKisThatKid on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I don't know that you can really blame IE users... it's the browser that came with their OS, it seems to work okay, so there really isn't any incentive to switch to anything different.

To them, everything looks fine, because designers have been forced to hack their sites over the years to make sure they look acceptable in Internet Explorer. So even though the "original" fully-valid code looks heinously ugly, they'll never see it that way.

It's kind of a "catch-22" - so long as people re-tool their sites for IE, there's no reason to switch. And so long as people aren't switching, you have to keep re-tooling your site.

Posted by Dave2 on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I use Firefox most of the time. So, it took a while to notice that my blog, as simple as it is, wasn't rendering as well for my parents as it was for me.

As I don't want my parents to think I'm a bozo, well, that I'm still a bozo (who am I kidding, they know about my growing-up bozoness) I have to tweak my entries to make sure they look OK in IE.

Posted by delmer on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Haha, I'm just loving the IE version of Jennifer Aniston...looks slightly like Worzel Gummidge actually...hmmmm.

Posted by Michelle on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Man, if only Jennifer Aniston looked the way you made her up to be, then SHE'D BE NOMINATED for an Academy Award this morning. They love retarded, high-pitched voiced, depressing looking souls.

Posted by Pauly D on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Cool, I'm that 0.02% using Camino.

Posted by Fender on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Yep, the IE effect is enough to make you jump up and scream, "Curse you Bill Gates and the cream pie you road in on!!!!!". It's so much fun to code something that works beautifully in any browser that supports STANDARDS and then look at it in IE and realize you wasted all that time because it's like making the greatest movie ever and releasing it only on Betamax and Laserdiscs.

Posted by monkeyinabox on January 31, 2006 | Reply

It's just a hunka, hunka burnin' cheese.

Sorry.

I was really hoping that the announcement made by Microscrotum that they no longer recommend their web browsers be used by Mac people and that they use Firefox or Safari instead would prompt the skeptics in the Windows camp to re-evaluate their use of IE and maybe take a more critical look at that piece of Web browsing tripe. Just wake up and see that your inbred browser is crap.

BTW, "All you can do is put a condom on your site and hope that it doesn't mess things up for the browsers that don't have an STD" is one of the best quotes ever. Can you develop advertising for alternate web browsers that contains this quote?

Posted by Kevin on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I use both Firefox and IE. Mainly coz I set Firefox as my default browser and am unsure how to undo that but I prefer IE coz its sooo familiar and safe like an old blanket.

Posted by F#@%kit on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I kind of adore Firefox. Less so with IE -- but speaking of MSFT, did you see the thing about Vista (I know -- not the same -- but it reminded me that I saw it...)? My geekdom is surfacing -- basically, a MSFT platforms guy said (in an interview with CRN that was posted on a techie blog earlier) that MSFT purposely omitted anti-virus protections from Vista. My fave lines:

CRN: Is there going to be antivirus in Vista?

Allchin: No, there is not.

CRN: Why?

Allchin: It's a complicated answer as to why not.

CRN: Was the decision based on technical concerns?

Allchin: It wasn't technical.

Posted by sandra on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I'd say it's financial. Viruses are such a huge problem with Windows that entire industries have been built around protecting people from them. If Microsoft were to add their own virus protection, a lot of people would be out of work!

It's also a highly convenient way to not accept any blame for the problem. If Microsoft included virus protection, and it failed, THEY would be responsible. Who wants that kind of hassle? :-)

Posted by Dave2 on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I keep trying to convince my family to use Firefox so they'd stop getting every virus known to man, but they "like" IE. I did notice there are some sites that must be designed with IE in mind as they don't render properly in Firefox and that makes me sad. Comedy Central's Motherload comes to mind as one.

Posted by nicole on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I've been trying to get people so switch to firefox as hard as I can. Can you believe there are still people who are totally ignorant about the existence of other browsers? But then again, why bother designing for idiots like them. Waste of intellect.

Posted by Faffi on January 31, 2006 | Reply

If you love cheese so much, why isn't one of the "places you'd rather be" -- Wisconsin? I think they also have a higher percentage of Firefox users in that state.

Posted by Neil on January 31, 2006 | Reply

I prefer my cheese from Oregon... but frozen custard from Wisconsin is da bomb! Only problem is that I already go to Milwaukee twice a year, so I'll get there eventually. :-)

Posted by Dave2 on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Sandra: I believe that the reason for not bundling the Antivirus and Antispyware with Vista is the fear of being dragged into another antitrust lawsuit. They're quite careful nowadays.

Posted by Marc on January 31, 2006 | Reply

Yes they actually said at a security conference I went to that they couldn't really do virus protection because it would be anti-competitive. Or some such nonsense.

And even get me started on IE and CSS. As one who spent hours battling with css to make it do what I wanted it to do on our new website, I know first hand how painful it is.

And you can never have too much cheese :)

Posted by kazza on February 01, 2006 | Reply

I know the feeling about doing a web site rewrite just so it works under IE.

I had to do this very thing the other night for my client. He wanted some changes done, which when completed, it looked like total crap under IE. Safari and Firefox were fine.

I had to go back and redo a lot of the functions to support IE, trying my best not to screw up Safari and Firefox in the process. Thank goodness for Dreamweaver and it's ease of use in making these changes.

Standards? Would be nice to have some, especially from the innovative-less Microsoft.

And cheese is just this side of butter.... ohhhhh sweet creamy butter.... *drool drops down my lips and chin *

Posted by ChillyWilly on February 01, 2006 | Reply

Hey, you left out, "When I'm dancin' a hoedown and my boots kinda slow down..."

Posted by Belinda on February 01, 2006 | Reply

Every time I build a site, I test it in at least 8 different OS/browser combinations. 80% of the time, IE forces me to kludge something. SO ANNOYING.

Posted by jg on February 02, 2006 | Reply

That is so true that IE sucks! Now i stick to my FF and Opera. Sometimes, I just check on IE if my blog is also compatible with it being the fact that it is still widely use.

Posted by charles on February 03, 2006 | Reply

I now have sites that won’t even load in IE. For example, LinkedIn doesn’t work for me in IE and Maxthon, only in Firefox (I seem to be alone on this ,according to one LinkedIn discussion group). However, there is one group that isn’t catered for: users on Windows XP with Adobe Type Manager. Even quotation marks won’t show in the correct typeface in Firefox or Netscape—the last time that program could was 4·7. For a typophile like me, IE6 and Maxthon are the only options unless I enjoy quote marks and ligatures appearing in weird fonts. Except when I have to surf to LinkedIn.

Posted by Jack Yan on February 04, 2006 | Reply

Microscrotum - I must remember that one! PNG transparency is one thing that I hate about IE, well it's lack of support for anything like it. Workarounds for IE can sometimes take up more lines of code than your actual layout, it's stupid.

Posted by Phill on February 05, 2006 | Reply

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