Thurrott about IE: "It's a cancer on the Web..."

[GFLPraxis]

I've been developing web sites for far too long, and can't count the huge amount of time wasted trying to get things to work across various web browsers.

However, there is hope... IE7 Beta 2 is apparently more standards compliant, and I can't wait for it to finally support alpha transparency in .png images.

It's not that much more standards compliant, that's why Paul Thurrot is complaining about it.

 

[atari1356]

It's not that much more standards compliant, that's why Paul Thurrot is complaining about it.

I'm all for bashing Microsoft, but at least they are making progress. Some of the things they've fixed so far are huge, like supporting transparency in .png images, proper support for the "hover" tag in CSS, and positioning issues (hopefully).

Paul Thurrot is complaining because IE7 won't pass the Acid2 browser test. Well, guess what... Safari (under OS X 10.3, not sure about 10.4) and Firefox don't pass the Acid2 browser test either.

 

[vniow]

I'm all for bashing Microsoft, but at least they are making progress. Some of the things they've fixed so far are huge, like supporting transparency in .png images, proper support for the "hover" tag in CSS, and positioning issues (hopefully).

These things should have been supported by IE years ago, even the Mac version of it supported transparent PNGs, its inexcuseable for a modern browser to not have support for such trivial things.

Paul Thurrot is complaining because IE7 won't pass the Acid2 browser test. Well, guess what... Safari (under OS X 10.3, not sure about 10.4) and Firefox don't pass the Acid2 browser test either.

The latest Webkit from Apple supports it completely and all the other browsers are at least working on it, MS has a lot more coders than any other one of the other browser companies and they haven't done **** on it. At least there's progress to be made aside from IE, that browser's dead in the water.

 

[kgarner]

Paul Thurrot is complaining because IE7 won't pass the Acid2 browser test. Well, guess what... Safari (under OS X 10.3, not sure about 10.4) and Firefox don't pass the Acid2 browser test either.

Yes, but the CVS versions of WebKit that are available (which will be standard int he next release most likely) do pass the Acid2 test and Firefox has committed to passing it (as have Opera and some other minor players). The gripe is that MS is saying that IE7 will not. They will fix a bunch of things, but full compliance is not slated until later (like IE8) and given their current pace that means we can expect them to have a compliant browser in about 5 years.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Internet Exploder is the World's Worst Web Browser. Most of us have been aware of this for some time.

I really can't applaud Fanboy Thurrot for putting on his Captain Obvious hat, though I do support any and all negative press for IE.

I remember using NCSA Mosaic on an Apple IIgs running GS/OS way back in the day (1994 is way back in the day for me) - it was good then, but M$ seems to have done little since it bought Mosaic and made it IE, because the current version of IE runs like a 1994 piece of software. Meh.

 

[floyde]

At my old office, every time I'd walk past one of the half-dozen Mac users, I'd say "What are you doing using IE?" everytime I saw them using it...It's like people think that freaking "e" is the only way to connect to the Internet. It drives me insane. My partner comes in to find something on my Mac and what does he ask?

"Where's Internet Explorer?"

Freaking DERRRR

So true, and sad... cause IE for Mac is the worst browser ever conceived by man (it's even worse than IE 6 for windows ). Here at work we have a 50% mac population (lots of designers and whatnot) and once they asked me to add some features for a web app that's supposed to work for both windows and mac. I thought it would be fun to finally use a mac here at work (if only for testing), but OMG they chose IE5 as the default browser for Mac!! It took me 3 days to get 5 lines of JavaScript code to work on IE5 for Mac without breaking the site on every other web browser ever created. When I was done I was left with about 20 lines of code, so that's like 75% of the code was written just to fix IE5 quirks. Thanks M$!!!

 

[kgarner]

So true, and sad... cause IE for Mac is the worst browser ever conceived by man (it's even worse than IE 6 for windows ).

No, IE Mac was the best browser at the time. It's just that every other browser kept improving while MS let IE Mac whither and die. But when it came out it did so many things that no other browser did (one of the first browsers to support CSS, for example). Shame that they let it die.

 

[Lyle]

IE7 Beta 2 is apparently more standards compliant, and I can't wait for it to finally support alpha transparency in .png images.

You know, it's been so long since I've used Internet Explorer that I only recently found out that doesn't support transparency in PNG images. Unbelievable. I reluctantly replaced it with a GIF since a lot of visitors to the Web site in question don't know any better than to leave IE.

 

[Roger1]

Cancer? Let's try the plague...

Don't you mean virus??

 

[iWillard]

I think you can - on the 4 folks (out of 15) in my office running various incarnations of Windows, I've deleted the IE shortcut from their desktops (Windows complains a lot about this, but it can be done with no harm whatsoever - you can either drag it to the trash, right-click and select delete/move to trash, and in some older versions of Windows the ability to not display it is buried in either the advanced desktop or IE setting). Installed FireFox and let it become the default browser, and put a Firefox shortcut in the same spot as the big blue E resided and a second shortcut in the quicklaunch bar next to the start menu, also deleting the IE shortcut in the quicklaunch bar.

This way, the only time IE will run is when using Windows Update.

Anyhow, I feel your pain - the computers that are the most trouble in our office are the Windows machines...

I did much the same thing on my dad's computer for him... only I took it one further and exchanged the firefox logo with the "E" logo and renamed it "Internet Explorer"... Doesn't even notice... You could do that with 90% of IE users and they wouldn't even notice...

 

[CubaTBird]

netscape needs to make a serious comeback lol... cancer on the web? i don't know about a cancer... i mean a lot of the users of ie don't even know that they have the potential to be infected... its just one of those things... that's all they understand as the "internet".. "ie".. no "ie" no "internet" its a shame...

 

[dubbz]

Update: Boycott IE 7? Not exactly

 

[angelneo]

netscape needs to make a serious comeback lol... cancer on the web? i don't know about a cancer... i mean a lot of the users of ie don't even know that they have the potential to be infected... its just one of those things... that's all they understand as the "internet".. "ie".. no "ie" no "internet" its a shame...

Have you tried netscape 8.0?, their recently released new browser. It is bug-ridden, complicated to use even though it supports many new features.

 

[calyxman]

Ever since I've discovered a fraudulent charge on my Citicard statement this past Friday, I stopped using IE on my windows machine altogether. I have no clue how my account number was stolen, but from now on I'm handling all of my personal finances on my trusty little iBook.

For my Windows machines I'm reinstalling Firefox.