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Web developers: No more IE hacks!

nomoreiehacks.org — Microsoft has yet again failed with IE7 to extend a helping hand towards web developers. They have yet again failed to improve IEs standard compliance. Web developers are living in html/css/javascript hell where we have to introduce extra hacks just to make a standards compliant site run on IE. Browsers should support standard compliant websites!

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  • webgeek147, on 10/12/2007, -9/+242In theory this is a wonderful idea, but unfortunately, the web design world is a little too complex for this solution. We'd put our clients out of business if we force all the IE users to download a new browser, because their web customers would get ticked off and go to another site. I see things from both the programming and marketing points of view (I'm some strange hybrid, believe me it's weird...) and although, I would, as much as you, love to smack IE down, we can't. Standards and compliance are meant to be a tool to help us, but not the end goal. If we have to tweak here and there, or break a few rules, we do it. I strive for excellent code structure, but I don't get hung up on "compliance". The whole point of web design is user-friendliness and to help the client (the site owner) communicate their message to, and connect with, their customers. I would say that forcing people to download and install a new browser could be classified as user-UNfriendly. It's easy for you or I to install a browser, but that scares a lot of people, your average Joes. People will just leave, and in LARGE numbers, and go to another site that doesn't make them download anew browser. It's anti-marketing. Yeah it means extra work for us, but hey, we're pros right? That's why we get to charge the big bucks. :)

    You're not the first to have thought of it...back in college, I had a JavaScript alert popup on my sites if people were using IE saying, "You're using Internet Explorer, that's well below average. Download Netscape." and I wouldn't let them view the content without having Netscape. I know, way back in the day. What was I thinking? :)
    • jsd8cc, on 10/12/2007, -17/+88Google will pay you to switch people from IE. http://explorerdestroyer.com/
    • SaladFork, on 10/12/2007, -31/+8Excuse the comment abuse, but this has already been done, and much better (IMO)...

      http://www.StopIE.com/old/
    • camvet, on 10/12/2007, -12/+38Totally agree, how does punishing our clients / employers help solve this problem? This will only serve to make the web developer look bad, if I was a nontechnical manager and saw the web site didn't work in IE6/7, I would consider this a failure of the web developer. Like it or not IE is the main target when you design a web site....
    • crgnetworks, on 10/12/2007, -12/+64Wait... shouldn't the myspace 9/11 spammers post be right about here by now?
    • GTPilot, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5looks like it's not quite the IE stopper as it applauds IE7 now.

      (edit, he edited the link http://www.StopIE.com/ )
    • DoctaStooge, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28@ webgeek147

      I understand your point of view. However, if everyone goes for compliance instead of using hacks, then IE will have to adapt. If all web developers change their practices, then customers will have no where to turn to complain except to Microsoft and tell them to fix their browser. I think the point of this was not to kill IE, but force Microsoft to fix it and start to comply with the standards.
    • mikesbaker, on 10/12/2007, -13/+35the funniest glitch - in hot mail you cannot upload an attachment using IE7 - its tells you that you have to upgrade to IE 5. HAHAHA thats just stupid.
    • Quix, on 10/12/2007, -9/+51"We'd put our clients out of business if we force all the IE users to download a new browser"

      What would it take to pressure the Dells/HPs/Toshibas of the world to include Firefox pre-installed on all new machines?

      IE is a blight upon the Internet that must be eliminated.
    • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12I agree. This is not the solution. If you think about what kind of user makes up that 86%, it basically consists of business users who are not as flexible as home users and then you have the home users who don't really care what web browser they use and are too lazy to use anything other than IE or can't figure out what a web browser is because they've always used IE. Letting your website appear broken to them probably won't help you or them.
    • roosterjm2k2, on 10/12/2007, -11/+29Um, no.

      If you stop supporting IE, your customers come to me. And I'll gladly take them. The object of our business model is to satisfy the client, thats it.

      Also, keep in mind, they built IE7 to be easily upgraded (the rendering engine that is) where IE6 was a pain.

      Lastly, if you develop a truly compliant site, there wont be a lot of hacks to deal with. For the few problems that you find, are generally easy fixes. Part of the blame should rest on the shoulders of the w3c, for taking years to approve even trivial changes to the rules.

      Lastly, firefox and safari as both a little out of whack too.

      None of the browsers are perfect, and a good part of that is the fact that browser developers are left with the decision to release and update often, or wait for the w3c to get their act together and finalize a set of changes.
    • MasterScrat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Your JavaScript alert made me think of this site : http://dean.edwards.name/my/misbehaviors/#noIE-popup
      where you can download a script which opens a "DHTML popup window advising [your visitors] to upgrade to a better browser".
    • dylanrush, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2This is off topic but no one has ever been able to answer my question - how does making people switch to Firefox end Microsoft's "monopoly?" I mean, from an economic standpoint?
    • ostracize, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@webgeek147
      Similarly, for us who manage small, un-important websites, I'm not looking forward to all the requests/complaints from the average joe users who don't understand how to download or install a web browser (or even know what a web browser is for that matter).
    • Archer1980, on 10/12/2007, -21/+31Ok, serious, i am starting to get fed up with this kind of useless article appearing on Digg. And there are several reasons why:

      1) there is no such thing as standard compliance - The simple fact is, no browser can be 100% standard compliant because there are lots of standards written that just are NOT clear enough, and thus are open to minor interpretations that could drastically effect the site. Thus, who are we to say which browsers have and have no enterpreted these standards correctly? I mean, we could just as easily say that it's not IE we are writting the hacks for, but for FF and Opera instead.

      2) IE is so old and over used in the world that it can't simple flip a switch and increase it's standard compliance. Fact is a lot of the things in IE were written before the standards were even created, which means if they change it to match the standards, how many websites will crash because of it, cost the IT industry billions to go back over millions of websites to make sure all those hacks are removed and code is changed. So IE is stuck in the point that it has to write 2 procedures to run 1 type of funtion, 1 for the old way, and one for the new way, and this is not always as easy as it sounds.

      3) Realistically, how many hacks do you need for a website? The company i work for does websites all the time, and i think in the past year and a half i've worked here, i had to write 3 hacks, all minor. If you have the time and money to spend writtin big feature intense websites, then you also have the time and money and probably past experience to do these hacks in minutes rather then days, so production time difference is minimal.


      Now before all you fan boys get your panties in a knot, I use several browsers, IE, FF, Netscape and Opera, and occasionally test on Safari. They all have there good sides and bad sides. Personally it's not my place to recommend what browser someone should or should not be using. IE 7 for instance brough in some nice visual updates that i am finding my clients love, and i'm going to say that that's pretty much all IE 7 was designed for. The true test will come with IE 8. If they can't get things in order then, then there is a serious problem.
    • smhill, on 10/12/2007, -8/+27@roosterjm2k2
      "If you stop supporting IE, your customers come to me. And I'll gladly take them. The object of our business model is to satisfy the client, thats it. "

      Couldn't have said it better myself.

      As a developer I am paid to provide solutions. I am not paid to espouse my own personal opinions. I develop enterprise level web applications for a living. This kind of stuff is just nonsense. Clients at this level want their products to work, end of story. Most are very aware of the type of problems that exist, but that is precisely why they hire firms like mine, to solve these problems.

      While I certainly agree that there are problems with IE6/7 (and other browsers as well), I cannot simply not develop to them because in my opinion, they do not work correctly. Which is really what it comes down to. If 90% of users are using a particular browser, it is the standard, end of story.

      And while it is an annoyance, it is also billable time. QA, testing, making a site fully compliant and cross platform/browser is part of the development process. I certainly don't feel dirty or anything, I am providing a solution to my client (and their visitors).

      Don't get me wrong, I fully endorse standards and best practices and strive to use them to the degree that is practical, but as a professional I am provide a service to those 90% and must deliver. Most clients and end-users don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about standards or for any of the underling issues of development. Either the site works or it does not, and it is a fair bet that my client's competitor site works fine.

      Also as rooster said, if you are using a ton of hacks to get a site to work in a particular browser, you are doing something wrong. If you develop correctly and to standards, minimal (if any) hacks are required.

      Seriously, I hear bitching like this all the time about how "broken" IE6/7 is and how many hacks are required to get it to look right. And in the end, it is usually because they are not developing to standards in the first place. Developing to standards, doesn't mean having a rudimentary grasp of CSS. Proper document structure, proper use of tags, etc... all affect things. When done correctly, you will hit 99% across all browsers.

      The article is lame. The concept is nice, but no mass crippling of sites is going to happen, and even if some did, users most likely wouldn't change their browser, they would just change sites.
    • vramdal, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11@Archer1980

      You certainly make some valid points. However:
      "there is no such thing as standard compliance" - I disagree. Granted, you must ask which standards, and it is true that IE existed before many of the standards where formalized by the W3C. But IE makes a lousy job of implementing even its own standards. The documentation for web standards in IE (at msdn.microsoft.com) is actually quite accurate, but it is ridden with contradictions and completely idiotic limitations. Ever tried writing an "onchange" event handler for an input field? Works fine as long as the IE user does not have an autocomplete value for the given field - in which case the event doesn't fire. This is not mentioned in the documentation for the onchange event, but rather in the section for Autocomplete (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/forms/autocomplete_ovr.asp). Idiocy like this requires loads of code to work around.

      "Realistically, how many hacks do you need for a website?"
      Lots. If you want a Google-friendly website (that is, low code to text ratio), and using CSS as it is supposed to, IE is a nightmare. This increases development time, thus increasing cost for the client.

      Granted, IE7 is a slight improvement, but there's still a long way to go. If Microsoft gradually continues to improve standards support (which is expected, and is a good thing), web developers need to test and adapt their sites to a whole load of different IE versions with their different inabilities.

      Now, for what Microsoft *could* have done: Adopted Gecko or KHTML as their rendering engine, wrapped it in a nice interface, and given Firefox a run for its users by competing on features.
    • CanceledCzech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Me: LOL

      There will always be hacks. Always.
    • andy206uk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@smhill

      "Also as rooster said, if you are using a ton of hacks to get a site to work in a particular browser, you are doing something wrong. If you develop correctly and to standards, minimal (if any) hacks are required."

      You are spot on - if you write your (X)HTML using a strict doctype IE even gets the box model right! Those people not using a doctype or writing invalid code just use the browsers as a scapegoat to hide their own lack of knowledge! The current generation(s) of browsers are the best we've ever had - we should consider ourselves lucky that we have such good CSS2 support - it has been a lot worse in the past!
    • RonnieSan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I think all browsers should have their own "official" browser specific hacks. Since all browsers will almost always have a different way of rendering different elements, they might as well build a hack into the program.
    • mercuryswitch, on 10/12/2007, -13/+10Dugg down for all your comments not being MLA formatted five paragraph essays.
    • thinsoldier, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nobody said 'force'.

      Over the last 2 years I've learned to limit the functionality and use of css features and make limiting design decisions about my sites and replace some hacks with javascript just so I can not use any IE hacks at all. After much time and effort I'm finally working on a handful of sites currently that have zero IE css hacks.

      If the only bug in IE is that the menu is a little too tall or 2 things that should be side by side wind up being above and below, I could live with that...if clients weren't so dang vocal about it. The site visitors I doubt would mind. There are already thousands of sites (I've seen hundreds of them personally) that just look like crap and it has nothing to do with standards or IE. They were just build crapilly. I've seen them. You've seen them. The visitors see tons of them.

      What we as developers should do first is educate our clients. Start off with the many security issues surrounding IE. Show them your virus free Mac and Ad-ware free linux distro running on 4 year old hardware that still won't need upgrading next year. Inform them that it is not normal to twice a year pay for a system to be 'cleaned'. Make them know that IE is the source of all their pain. Clients/Users mostly don't care about web standards. If it isn't 3d or animated (flash) they couldn't give a damn about the rendering technology involved.

      Introduce them to a better browser. Hold their hand and walk them through setting it up to make their life online more productive. Many of us already do this kind of hand holding with setting up Outlook over the phone with them.

    • ZergyPoo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"While I certainly agree that there are problems with IE6/7 (and other browsers as well), I cannot simply not develop to them because in my opinion, they do not work correctly. Which is really what it comes down to. If 90% of users are using a particular browser, it is the standard, end of story."

      I will most likely get dugg down for this, but I agree with this statement.

      Don't get me wrong, I will never tell you that IE is better than any other browser.

      People claim something as a "standard" that is only supported by 14% of the browser market share. How is this in any way, shape, or form a standard?

      As a web developer, no matter how much I dislike it, IE is the standard, because that's what people use.
    • se1zure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"just to make a standards compliant site run on IE"

      Well, technically, isn't IE still the most widely used browser, seeing as it comes with every copy of windows, and most people don't understand the concept of different browsers.

      So if IE is the most widely used browser, technically, they set the standards....

      I still think IE sucks though. Firefox FTW!
    • chrisdisregard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Quix
      "What would it take to pressure the Dells/HPs/Toshibas of the world to include Firefox pre-installed on all new machines?"

      It would probably result in a broken Microsoft contract. Until they opt for a new OS altogether it ain't gonna happen.

      @DoctaStooge
      Exactly right! It's not a matter of killing IE, that's likely never going to happen, it's a matter of forcing them to put out something that works. As long as all of you are happy to just bend over with your hands in the air saying "it's not our fault, what can we do?" Things won't ever change. What reasons does IE have for putting out a standards complaint browser? A bunch of whiny web designers or are going to hack for IE anyway? A company like Microsoft isn't going to change anything without damn good reason.

      Of course that isn't to say that FORCING people to quit is the answer. Put annoying popups and the like on your page and they'll just go somewhere else. The unfortunate truth is that IE hacks are going to continue to be necessary if you want any sort of traffic. However, that's not to say that a "chicklet" or two, or even just a few words in a text link, pointing people to a good compelling page on why they should switch is out of the question. I would say (not including the people who don't know what a web browser is/how to change one, which I dare say is a fairly large group of web users) that the main reason more people don't switch is they don't know why they should or what else is out there. Information is the key. If everyone sees a little anti-IE logo or link on the majority of sites they visit, they'll start to ask questions. THEN and probably only then will Microsoft decide to look into the problem.
    • smedrick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Um...I've been using IE7 since before it went beta, and I haven't had to use a single hack to make a site look like it would in Firefox.
  • Vindstille, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13Signed.

    The www should be accessible to everyone, so lets people use whatever browser they want.
    • salinemist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3HotJava FTW!
    • muted0, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4digg should implement this
    • jonahatan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2yeah, let us develop a whatever browser that does the opposite of all the other browsers so that web developers have to code another version of their site for that whatever browser specifically.
      They have to because I want to use such a browser and the web should be accessible to everyone (including me)...

      or let's do not, cause that is NOT how things work :-)

      all browsers must be compliant with one set of generally accepted standards in order to make the system work as it should be working...
    • littleblckheart, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Internet Explorer is horrible when it comes to standard's compliance, making it a headache to work with. I hate it as much as anybody who's had to create a 'modern' web page, but the one thing they do correctly is allow you to use conditional comments to use specific style rules for the version of browser. Sure, in an ideal world, you wouldn't have to do this, but I truly wish more browsers would include conditional comments. Standards are agreed upon by a separate entity, and implemented by individual projects, so there will be discrepancies between any two browsers by different creators. Granted that the difference between how Safari and Firefox will render a style sheet is minimal, there are differences, and that should be taken into account.

      Personally, I think since Microsoft seems to botch decent CSS implementation, they should make it modular. That way, someone more competent could develop a standard's compliant CSS module and you could allow people to download it via (ugh) activeX.
    • scottschiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The www should be accessible to everyone, so lets people use whatever browser they want."

      Agreed. (Bonus points for the Opera icon in your profile. ;))

      The idea of revolting against IE is a romantic one, not a realistic one. While I would love to stop having to use stupid filter: CSS syntax for PNGs and opacity, and other non-standard items like zoom:1 to get elements to render properly, it'll be some time before that happens. To make things work, we have to hack around stuff - that's just the reality of the industry.

      At least I can say things are getting better; in my job, I've been able to actually provide feedback to MS on what I'd like to see next in IE and actually feel like it makes a difference, when combined with the requests of others. It's in browser manufacturers' best interests to have their stuff work with the big web sites out there, so there is a vested interest sort of thing going on - and from that perspective, it's actually pretty cool.

      IE 7 feels more like "IE 6.5" to me personally - there have been some improvements, but it still lags behind Firefox in terms of CSS support. It's a step in the right direction, at least.
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've found that in most areas where IE lacks in css support, that functionality can be added with 'behaviors'.
      Hell, you can just about make IE5 CSS3 compliant with behaviors. It just takes a little wrk but, the code is reusable.
  • pyalot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25I know it's an impractical proposition. And no, standards are not an end in themselves. But standards are so much more helping (us and our customers too) when they're adhered to by the other side more.

    We get to charge big bucks for webdesign because we need a long time to make sure sites simply work. I would gladly charge less bucks, spending less time doing all the IE compatibility hacks and give the full benefit of that reduced efford back to my customer. Somehow I have the feeling they would like it.

    IE is a bug, and web-developers are paid to fix that bug all the time everytime over. So customers pay for continually fixing something that's broken because Microsoft couldn't get the finger out of their arse for a change. I simply cannot disagree more that supporting IE is in any way good for the customer.
    • armbar, on 10/12/2007, -9/+8Supporting IE isn't good for the customer, but it sure is good at helping me keep my job, since my entire company is unfortunately using IE almost exclusively. If I had my way, I would design for Opera, and then if any other browser couldn't get it right, then they're probably wrong anyway.

      The basic problem with such idealism is that people do not blame the browser, they blame the site. It's a familiarity problem: most Internet users do not know that IE even interprets anything, just that it displays stuff. There is no knowledge of the underlying format.

      The best we can do for now is to spread the word about Opera (I mean alternate browsers, of course), use conditional comments, and pressure Microsoft in a legitimate manner.
    • shark615, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4You would design for the broswer with the lowest browser share of the big browser devs?

      Insane...
    • smitting, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6You gotta pick your battles. IE will continue to lose market share for as long as it continues to suck, and it's not our responsibility as programmers to tell the user what browser to use, just like it's not our responsibility as programmers to force users to switch to Apple. My responsibilities include making clients money, having them pay me money for making them money, and giving my programmers work to earn money to make a living and feed their families. I don't see how telling my clients that we will not support the most popular browser is going to help me meet any of my real-life goals, even if it would give me a nerdy-hard-on to kill off IE.

      p.s. as long as we stay out of quirks-mode in IE7, getting our sites to work has been a lot easier than IE6.
    • matthendrix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"IE is a bug, and web-developers are paid to fix that bug all the time"

      And some of that money is for the therapy required in order to cope with the frustration that IE bequeaths.

      Damn you M$, damn you to hell!
  • pyalot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Also because inevitably somebody is going to cry foul Netscape at us. Today there's a key difference. Say Mozilla corp ceases to exist today, tomorrow there'll be a community site continuing the FF project under a different name.

    Opensource is a good idea partly because it makes the customer invulnerable to some degree against big company bullying tactics, if all is said and done he still has the source to go on.
    • ZachPruckowski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Nope, you've got it wrong. You're too pessimistic. The point is that if Firefox suddenly stopped existing, we'd have not only FF's source code, but Opera and KHTML and half a dozen other standards compliant browsers. Even if those completely disappeared, we'd still have the actual written standards against which anyone could write a browser. That's the point.
  • Evic, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21In theory it's a great idea - unfortunately, I like money, and therefore I will hack away to make my sites appear correctly to all users.
  • Mathiasdm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32Don't use IE hacks.

    Use IF IE6 and IF IE7 conditionals ;-) (Those are more reliable than hacks)

    Let's hope we won't need conditionals when IE8 arrives!
    • jsd8cc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37...in 2018.
    • strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yeah, that's what I've started doing.

    • crazydiode, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6
      "Let's hope we won't need conditionals when IE8 arrives!"

      seems like you trust MSFT to deliver.... keep dreaming bud...
    • VinceNoir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yeah. Wonderful. That's what web designers really want to do. They want to design sites for multiple browsers and maintain that nasty looking code base. NOT!
    • arizonagroove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10About conditional comments: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/ccomment_ovw.asp
      Check them out, much better than hacks.

      I also like to enclose a 'get firefox' icon linking to getfirefox.com in conditional comments so only IE users see it :)
    • Bramus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ reply above: Don't forget about the valid downlevel conditionals too, as seen on Roger Johansen's Site: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200511/valid_downlevelrevealed_conditional_comments/ ;)

      O yeah, also dugg as lame since the conditionals do this ... no need to start a bashing site, just all start implementing them ...
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I also like to enclose a 'get firefox' icon linking to getfirefox.com....."
      Hell, give the the "Get firefox with google toolbar" button. Google will give you 99 cents for every install.
  • GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9In my experience, IE7 really isn't that bad! I haven't got any IE7 problems on my websites. They already worked just fine on IE6 and IE5.5 without any additional hacks (and they even worked on IE5 with a suitable stylesheet supplied via server-side detection and a conditional comment).

    As long as internet explorer is in standards-compliant mode then most important bits of HTML/CSS work fine. Granted: Javascript can be a pain in the arse!
    • GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32I think the fact that the author can't even produce a simple text-only web page that validates (W3C reports 12 errors at the moment) indicates that he probably isn't the best person to lead up this campaign!
    • strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34From the source: (edited slightly so it actually shows up on digg)
      META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="OpenOffice.org 2.0 (Win32)"
      P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"
      FONT SIZE=4 STYLE="font-size: 16pt"

      It makes my eyes bleed!
    • posure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11lol @ WYSIWYG standards compliant advocates
    • kacjp5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0But should you really have to detect what browser someone is using that then display the correct style sheet?

      Our lives would be so much easier if we could just use the same CSS file for every freakin browser...imagine the lines of code we could eliminate....how many websites are out there that detect what browser a user uses then chooses the relevant style sheet file to use? a few mil? multiply that by the amount of lines of code is used and that is a lot of lines of code we can save! And think of the disk space we can save by not having different style sheets for different browsers!

      Think outside the square :)

      But also I have heard that Microsoft released a compliant IE7 to their employees to trial and they had so many complaints of "I can't get into my Internet banking" and "I can't order a pizza" that they couldn't release a standard compliant browser because it would bring down so many websites. Therefore, it's catch 22!
    • GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@kacjp: you misunderstand. There is only one main stylesheet on my sites. An ADDITIONAL "ie5fix" stylesheet gets added to the HTML, in a conditional comment, only if the browser identifies itself as IE5. This fix stylesheet just adjusts positions and widths to deal with the broken box model in IE5. All other definitions come from the main stylesheet.

      > "have heard that Microsoft released a compliant IE7 to their employees to trial and they had so many complaints"

      Got to call BS on that. Firstly IE7 is pretty standards-compliant. Secondly firefox is fairly standard-complaint too and I don't have any trouble using that for my banks etc.
  • seattle98104, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5that's still a hack. just a more stable, more lines, hack.
    • seattle98104, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2this was a reply to

      "Don't use IE hacks.

      Use IF IE6 and IF IE7 conditionals ;-) (Those are more reliable than hacks)

      Let's hope we won't need conditionals when IE8 arrives"

      how it ended up down here is beyond me.
    • mystere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A hack is when you use a feature in a way it wasn't designed for. Conditional comments are for precisely this purpose, which by definition means it's not a hack.
  • geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Microsoft has billion and billions of seemingly limitless resources. And they can't produce a standards-compliant browser?
    • 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22> geronimo wrote: "Microsoft has billion and billions of seemingly limitless resources. And they can't produce a standards-compliant browser?"

      It's not that they can't but that they choose not to. Microsoft likes to "set the standard." It isn't as fond of "following the standard."
    • crazydiode, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5i guess it's more like not wanting to...
    • daltonvoss, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Of course they can. They just choose not to. There is a method behind their madness.
    • dashiel, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3IE7 is a ploy. it's a ploy to help stave off mass-exodus from the IE platform in time to give avalon/sparkle/wpf time to get wide spread adoption (hopefully). IE7 was designed simply just to make web app development just feasible enough to keep people from making this very step, but when WPF gets to a certain point the company line will be "look how easy it is to develop fantastic looking, powerful web apps with our tools. forget the web browser and move to WPF."

      i have no proof of this, but when one considers IE6 (8/27/01) was released around the time the original xbox (9/15/01) was released. in the intervening 5 years microsoft managed to switch platforms from x86 to PPC, design an entire online community, marketing campaign, build in backwards compatibility with the old xbox and do it a year before the competition. in that same amount of time IE7 added tabs, better security and slightly improved standards support. i know the IE team was basically disbanded at one point, but still i fail to see how with 18+ months of development they couldn't get their standards support inline with firefox, opera and safari. the weak standards support was a decision, not an issue of time/money.
    • mystere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'm sorry, but that's the most ignorant comment ever. It doesn't matter how much money you have, it takes time and skilled resources to develop a standards compliant browser, which is why nobody has yet developed a fully standards compliant browser yet. There are a finite number of people in this world skilled enough to do this job, and most of them work for other people. It's not something easy to do, or it would have been done already.
  • topcat5, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14I don't know why anyone and any business still uses IE. After years of getting burnt from hacks, viruses, trojans and OS crashes because the thing is so bound to the OS one would think they would have learnt their lesson by now. The day that I move people off IE and Outllook over to Firefox and Thunderbird is the day when the vast majority of their problems go away.
    • strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19The idea that Thunderbird is a real, business ready client is a joke.
    • WetSplatter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8yeah, the fact that the mail store is a single file and when someone sends you a virus via email Norton and many other anti-virus FREEZE the mail file and move it to the archive..... deleting all of your email.

      Try supporting this in a business enviroment, talk about a IT DISASTER!

      How about business that deploy Exchange for email, should they just switch to another email solution and hack it together?
    • halik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Thunderbird? I take it you've never actually used outlook before. Ya know, it does do a little more than just email...
    • PopcornDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@strictnein

      Why is Thunderbird so bad in a business environment? I've been using it ever since I dumped Eudora here at work and never had a problem. What's your problem with it? I'm curious.
    • Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We will be taking Outlook away soon from our place because of the constant headaches we get with it (emails dissapearing, PST files locking, archives corrupting). We've tested Zimbra nd it really is very good. Email through a browser. Much nicer.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Eudora is now going to be based on Thunderbird.

      http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope
  • Enigmatarius, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I've already switched many of my friends on Firefox. Microsoft just seems to scream medicority and incompetence...
  • ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8Inaccurate. IE 7 certainly isn't perfect, but it's a huge improvement over IE 6.
  • WetSplatter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Regardless of browser choice, you, as a developer, have to accomidate the end users choice. You don't get to pick who comes to your site to buy products or services so don't try to force the end users to switch browsers to use your sites.

    It would be like the major fast food vendors saying , "Ok, we no longer serve to import cars because we may have trouble understanding what they want to order."

    Get real, the browser war is powered by the consumer not by the website builders. You'll quickly find your site dropping ranks and ratings if you choose to limit your visitors user experience.
    • strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6As one of my CompSci teachers used to say: "There's a reason history majors aren't programmers"
    • m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's a false statement.

      Look at many of the top sites and their media support. CNN.com is a good example of a site that till straight up tell you to switch to IE. Same goes for a lot more high traffic sites.

      I won't limit access based on browser choice, but then again I won't bend over backwards to support every single weird quirk from all the web browsers out there.

      I make my sites standards compliant. Then I check rendering. In most cases nowadays, it'll be fine in most browsers. But then again it depends on a variety of aspects of your coding.
  • voidchild, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Shouldn't this article link to the alternative browsers? Evangelism only works when you provide the alternative. Otherwise you're preaching to the choir.
    • tbeseda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I agree. There ought to be a compaign tool (with code samples) to promote general knowledge regarding IE's inadequacy and alternative browsers (more than just FF).
      I think the emphasis should be on educating end users (not designers/coders) that IE blows and FF is better for viewing the www.
  • jmerox, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Worst rant ever. First of all, IE7 has fixed a lot of issues from IE6. Second of all, if I decided to not support 80%+ of the browser market overnight, my website would break off and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

    Get over it. In an ideal world everything would be compliant, but we're web developers and it's difficult sometimes. If it was easy than our jobs wouldn't be so specialized.
    • strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Actually, IE 7 can add lots of issues. It fixes lots of the issues, but still reads the IE hacks that many CSS coders used. So, it's a slight improvement, but still causes more work.
    • jmerox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Of course it can add some issues, but it's not nearly as bad as IE 6. It's not like IE is the only browser that requires hacks.
  • MrSarcasm, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3Without reading the article, I guess this is some zealot ranting about how bad is IE? I mean sure, I use firefox myself, but being anti-ie zealot == lame.
    • tbeseda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8the idea behind digg and the community only works if you read the "article"
    • ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I haven't read it either but was he wrong?
  • CaptShmo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15The client is paying me to make their website work, my personal browser choice should have nothing to do with that.

    Hack away!
    • WetSplatter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3amen to that. Your clients pay you to make it work, they don't care what your reason behind if not working in IE, just make it work for ALL clients. You're getting paid so just do the work. End of the day, if it took 20 hours instead of 5, you just earned an extra 15 hours of pay (unless you quote per project and not per hour, and in that case.... revise your billing methods)
    • matthendrix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yes, but a lot of the time the clients don't "get it" and they think you're milking them for extra cash. Personally, i'd rather be enjoying life doing something else besides fixing IE hacks.

      Damn you M$!!!
  • panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah, like that's gonna work.
  • halik, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard... people that use ie make up 70+% of your target market, which also means 70% of your revenue (no adblock, ha ha). Only a complete fool of a webmaster would take efford to eliminate 70% of his customers.
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lol, good point mentioning no adblock.
      Like I'm going to tell the people who can actually view the ads (thus support the site) to change browsers, stop viewing ads, and stop supporting the site. right...
  • riceguitar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Slowly people are switching. As I design CMS driven websites I encourage all my clients to use Firefox and slowly it is happening. However as Evic noted, for those of us designing and building web applications for a living, there is no way we can simply stop being IE compliant. Look at your website Browser Hit stats and you'll know why :-) M$oft, I think Microsoft tricks users into using IE by tying it in so tightly with the windows OS.
    • geoken, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Aren't there browsers on the market that are more standards compliant than FF?
    • GenericNumber1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Aren't there browsers on the market that are more standards compliant than FF?"

      I believe that Opera is currently more standards compliant than FF ATM because it passes the acid2 test, on that note I've also read that FF3 will pass it when it's released. FF3 is currently in alpha stages.

      Acid2 test:
      http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/
    • andy206uk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't forget Safari... I believe that was the first to pass the acid2 test if I remember rightly...
    • Loonacy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Acid2 only tests how the browser handles broken code. I personally prefer to NOT write broken code, so I don't care at all if a browser passes Acid2 or not.
    • vramdal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Loonacy
      It's not that simple. The CSS standard also specifies how browsers should handle broken code, so failing to handle it correctly, is violating the standard.
    • Loonacy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@vramdal
      Personally, I don't think you should give people that kind of crutch. If you're writing bad code it should not render correctly, that way you know you're writing bad code and can fix it.
      Also I would prefer browser developers to focus their time and efforts on how they render good code, and THEN work on how they handle broken code. I'd rather have a browser that handles 80% of good code and 0% of bad code than a browser that handles 100% of bad code and 60% of good code.
  • emehrkay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4* html reply { is-there-really-a-need-to-fix-this: fuk yea!!!;}
    • Bramus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Don't work in IE7 ... just use a conditional ;)
  • panic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14In all fairness, Microsoft DID improve IE7's standards compliance, it's just still not perfect... A lot better than IE6's though.
    • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Don't digg the guy down. He's right. IE7 is *better* than IE6. However, it obviously isn't perfect. Need I remind you that the current release of Firefox doesn't pass the Acid2 test? I'm not trying to defend IE, I just think that it's stupid to digg this comment down.
    • rjmatm, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6It is true that FF 2 does not pass the acid 2.

      However, FF 3 does. http://ajaxian.com/archives/firefox-30-passes-acid-2-css-test

      At least they are working toward standards compliance. MS seems to be working away from it to control the market.
      Just a thought.
  • DIGGER[NJLP], on 10/12/2007, -2/+2A browser war, again!?!?!? Its prety sad when people plead with the general public and the open source community, simply to change something as mediocre as their browser.

    If the general consensus hasn't come around yet then they probably won't. I have migrated many a user to Firefox to only find, a month or two down the road, they have already reverted back to clicking on the little blue e.
  • darcasey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14standards evangelism eh?

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nomoreiehacks.org%2F
    • emehrkay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4hahahahaha
    • iNoles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It seems hosting on Geocities server, they always using a deprecated code.
    • philippbock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Well … I don’t think it’s Geocities’ fault:
      [META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="OpenOffice.org 2.0 (Win32)"] (Digg wouldn’t let me use less than/greater than signs)

      That explains it. Still better than Word for generating websites though (they’re about ten times the size they’d need to be) but still …
  • offwhite, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4This is just a wasteful rant by someone who knows too little. I use Javascript and CSS all the time. I rarely have to resort to a hack to make something work, and lately I have to do it just as often for Firefox or Safari as I do for IE7. You can see how the IE7 have worked hard to correct their problems and produce a timely release for Vista. This is a step forward, but only the first step for IE7. More changes are coming.

    http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/08/22/712830.aspx
  • Adalric, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'll sign your petition when you remove those deprecated <center> and <font> tags in your code.
    • Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3He was just making sure it would work in Firefox.
  • mixd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3worst... idea... ever...
  • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Let the ***** use IE. They pay me to make it look right, I don't get paid to make them smarter.
  • philippbock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know quite a few people who use IE because – being the browser their OS comes with – it should be supposed to work and to be safe, so they say they shouldn’t need to change their browser (I even know someone who uninstalled Firefox because there was some kind of virus in the Firefox directory. There also were loads of them in the Temporary Internet Items (or what they call it) directory, but they didn’t care about that one). Or they use AOL as an alternative browser (and I’m not sure which one’s worse). It’s also funny how many people don’t actually know the difference between IE and the Internet. And I’m afraid that is Microsoft’s fault. They could just give up and ship their OS with Firefox or some other browser. It’d only make things better. But as long as IE exists the way it does now, web developers will have to choose between using IE hacks and not getting money.
  • greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7
    As a web designer, I simply design to the lowest common denominator... which happens to be IE...

    You try to sell a customer on the idea of alienating 80% of their audience on principle ...
    • Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hello - Thank you voice of reason. LCD is the only way to code sites.
  • Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Holy crap, did I write this?
  • boatboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6And which standards-compliant browser would that be? Certainly not Firefox, which also doesn't pass the Acid2 test in the latest version (though it is reported the next version will). http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html#top

    What this author is saying is that compliance with W3C is more important than usability. No, the user comes first. It is a developer's job to make sure any user can get the information/application they need as easily as possible. The best way currently to do this, is to use XHTML 1.1 Strict (include the doctype in your html), and CSS. Don't use hacks, but do use separate browser-specific stylesheets or if conditionals.

    Also, the author is not standards-compliant himself:
    http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nomoreiehacks.org%2F
    • EnsErmac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I had a drawn out argument with someone on IRC last night about this very thing. My big points were, Firefox isn't even standards compliant. The big question is who is actually "in charge" of the web standards. If its anything like the website for the W3C looks, It is a bunch of code dorks who don't know the first thing about design anyways. So they want the web standards to have nice code, who cares about readability & nice design…
  • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I was under the impression that W3C approved standards for web browsers, and that pretty much all web browsers have been including non-W3C standard features for a long long long time. You're just bitching because people are doing things differently than *you* want.
  • jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Frankly, when I visit a site that only supports IE, I leave. I think when a developer is forced to do this, their browser check page should display "This page only supports IE. Email john.doe@thiscompany.com to complain."
    • PopcornDave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I agree with you to a point. I use Firefox, and installed the IE rendering add-on so I could get around that crap.
    • sremick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The IE Tab extension for Firefox doesn't do a non-Windows user any good.
  • richardandersen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I read an interesting vendor-agnostic example-laden article a few years ago explaining a significant part of the problem, sadly I don't have it at hand. The problem being "standards" are set out in such a way that they are too open for interpretation. If discussions like this got away from the old "IE bad, Netscape good" or "Netscape bad, IE good" or "IE bad, Firefox good" etc. etc. mantras the problem might come closer to getting solved. I'd hoped the http://www.nomoreiehacks.org/ article would be more than the mantra and was a little disappointed to see it was just the same old mantra I've been seeing in some form since as far back as the lynx/Netcape cold war.
    • Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Should name it - www.firefixisbrokebackandneedsanewrenderingengine.com
  • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I feel so dirty for viewing that page with IE.

    (Sorry, I just had to. I don't normally use IE...in fact, I didn't open the entire program, I just used an IETab in Firefox.)
  • tk121, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Pfffttt... IE is a complete disaster.

    Firefox ftw!
  • WeeklyGeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I usually refuse to code in IE hacks. If something doesn't work correctly in IE, I will usually come up with a compromise.

    Unfortunately, many people can't just stop using IE hacks because they have clients to please. Clients don't care about browser wars or agendas. They just want to make money.
  • jeffgtr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Unfortunately you have to try and accomodate all browsers. Sure IE pre 7 makes my job much more difficult, and IE7 has it's own issues. The best you can hope to do is make your sites as standards compliant as possible and advise everyone you come into contact with that they should at least try Firefox or Opera. Don't get me wrong. I loathe IE and Microsoft but just like cancer they won't go away anytime soon so we just have to deal with it the best we can and hope a cure comes along soon.
  • nezek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh please, this is how the web is! it's flexsiable, it's like saying you won't support non-javascript users or non-css users
    what you can do is make the website less pretty in IE, for example dont use"filter" instead of "opacity"
  • tybris, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3Firefox is just as crappy as IE, Opera crashes all the time, Safari can't do *****. There's no good browser, live with it.
  • cdemi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Amen
  • Gatesophile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think that the only way to get Microsoft's butt in gear about the IE thing is to just stop making fixes for these stupid problems IE has.If it was a good browser you wouldn't have to make fixes for it all the time. People should learn. I just wish something would light a fire under Microsoft's ass, at least Firefox is becoming a threat to them now.
  • gareth84, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4lots of FUD in this thread.

    the last 5 sites i have built with IE7 in mind have not needed any hacks, I use conditional comments for ie6, but even most of these can be avoided if you know what you are doing. Hacks are for lazy, ill informed web designers. I have many more problems with safari than Ie7.

    • tybris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1True. I have a website with several fairly complex CSS files, separated for IE and browsers using conditional comments. When I first opened it with IE7 I was not happy. Although most of it was alright, the styling is very smooth and couple of blocks were misplaced which made it look awful. I feared having to create a third set of stylesheets, but it turned out that IE7 actually worked perfectly when I changed the conditional comments to let IE7 use the same stylesheet as Opera, Firefox, etc. IE7 appears to be pretty compatible with both IE6 and browsers. I'd say it's quite an achievement.

      Most of the problem is that most people don't have a clue how to use CSS. Of course that's not really a problem, that's a challenge. If your smart and willing enough, you can really learn how to use XHTML and CSS in such a way that it'll be browser compatible, (strict) standards-compliant and without hacks.
    • tybris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's mainly practice, but a few little tips:
      1 Find a good, reproducable XHTML structure. (this one actually is most important!)
      2 Stay away from all the tempting little incompatible CSS fields.
      3 Don't be afraid of conditional comments. If you're doing something complex, just create separate stylesheets for IE6 and browsers from the start.
      4 http://www.quirksmode.org, http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/references/css2ref.html, http://www.google.com
  • polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I thought Microsoft and Mozilla were working together to help solve this in IE7. I could have sworn I saw an article here awhile ago.
  • foxmajik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Microsoft does not comply with standards, standards comply with Microsoft.
    • vdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The sad thing is that you're right.

      However, just because that is currently the case, it doesn't mean it has to stay that way. But as others have said, alienating your users is not a good way to go about it. Education is the key. All my friends and family use Firefox, because I've shown them the difference- all I did was take them to an ad infested site in IE, and compared it to Fx running Adblock+ (Tab Mix Plus is another extension that's good to show off as well) . It's that easy.
  • stupidfathead, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1This kind of reminds me of the old days when 2 web sites were required, and a javascript redirect sent you to the correct site for your browser. In the end, the client does not care about this hack or that condition. The bottom line is that when a visitor comes to the client site it had better work regardless of what ***** browser they are using.

    As web developers it is our job to ensure it works, not to sit around and moan about how much of a pain in the ass it is. Firefox has issues, Netscape has issues, Opera has issues and guess what? They all use the same browser engine. IE will always be around and will always be a strong factor in web user's preference, and people will always download the latest versions without researching the implications.

    I agree with a few posters that if any developer does not want to be bothered making the site work in IE7, I will gladly take on the job $$$
    • sremick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Opera and Firefox use the same browser engine? On what planet?
    • stupidfathead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Apparently only on my planet. Opera has their own engine. I thought it was a mod. My bad.
  • NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6My philosophy is simplify, don't hack. If a particular visual feature does not work properly in IE, don't fuss over IE, just remove the feature conditionally for that browser, as long as functionality is intact. If it doesn't want to display alpha PNGs, don't run to photoshop and hack up a compromised gif, just don't show it the PNG. If an element background slips under a thick border and ruins the visual effect, don't show it the background... and so on.

    I find it to be an ideal compromise between keeping the site intact for all/most visitors but not causing yourself too much of a headache because of an incompetent browser. If a client asks why a certain effect doesn't show in IE, I simply let them know IE does not support it, even though it might be able to using a workaround.
  • 1310nm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3But then where would people get their ActiveX attack malware?
  • pyalot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Seems like this is a hot topic, despite all the naysayers. So far the main stance seems to be:
    * get over it
    * IE works alright, it's my job to make it work

    While I do both those things, still IE is crap, and whatever attitude I develop towards doing nonsense work, it's still crap.

    End of the day coding for IE specifically still sucks, we've still charged more money from our customers to deliver ZIP functionality, and we still need to step very carefully because IE likes to explode into our faces every few lines of markup we pin down.
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