Windows experts and web developers are unhappy with Microsoft. Yes, again. Since Internet Explorer 7 was announced, Microsoft has promised that supporting current web standards was high on its list. It turns out, though, that by
at least one report, IE7 will only support 54% of the CSS 2.1 standard, as compared to 52% in IE6 and 93% in Firefox 1.5 and 96% in Opera 9. In addition to making a whole lot of web developers' lives a whole lot more difficult, IE7's lack of standards support is turning off a lot of Microsoft's most vocal fans, including Paul Thurrott, who runs the excellent
Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows. In a recent Windows IT Pro column, Thurrott accuses Microsoft of
leaving users and web developers in the lurch, concluding "My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It's a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn't secure and isn't standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators." Ouch.
Tags: browser, css, firefox, ie, ie7, internetexplorer, microsoft, opera, Paul Thurrott, PaulThurrott, standards, web, webstandards, windows
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Comments
46
Subscribe to commentsGravyAug 17th 2006 12:23PM
The fact is when you talk about Microsoft having 80+% of the market we have to remember that only a proportion of them ACTUALLY choose IE.
Poor standards compliance is at best unhelpful to web developers and I wonder how many other people take the approach I do and develop to a lower common denominator so as not to waste valuable time on compatibility when what my users want is a web site and functionality.
ZAug 25th 2006 2:08PM
If you do work professionally, you do have to write compilant websites - that works in all modern browsers. You simply cannot ignore anyone of them.
This is yet another firm fist-blow at the head. Now we have to work on different code for both IE 6 and IE 7.
This sucks.
ManningSep 11th 2006 11:24PM
IE7 destroyed my design. When I tried it in Firefox, it was working so well. What's wrong with IE?! No clue.
NickOct 23rd 2006 1:15PM
While it is true that for pragmatic reasons we have to support IE whether we like it or not, it is certainly not the case that "If you are a real DESIGNER or PROGRAMMER you know that you design for IE and then make it work in FireFox", as Jason seems to believe.
I am a 'real' web designer, and like all 'real designers' that I know, I develop for Firefox or Safari first and then add the necessary hacks for IE. I do this because I know that if I build a site using standards-compliant code then it will work on 90% of browsers (even if together they only form 15% of the market) and that I can then (relatively) easily work around the bizarre bugs and behaviours in IE to make it work for that too.
If I was to design for IE first, I would still have to work around all its weird bugs, but once I'd finished I would have a site that works reliably in exactly one version of IE for Windows, and I'd know that since all browsers (including IE) are moving towards better standards compliance, my site will become increasingly broken on an increasing number of browsers as time goes on.
To my mind, anyone who believes that they have a secure career designing broken code for a buggy six-year-old browser provided by one vendor who is rapidly losing credibility and market share, is extremely naive, and as a prospective employer I would regard the value of their so-called 'experience' as questionable at best.
There is no question that IE dominates both the past and present of the web. I don't know any competent web developer who believes that IE - as it stands - has any place in the future of it.
NickOct 23rd 2006 11:42AM
While it is true that for pragmatic reasons we have to support IE whether we like it or not, it is certainly not the case that "If you are a real DESIGNER or PROGRAMMER you know that you design for IE and then make it work in FireFox", as Jason seems to believe.
I am a 'real' web designer, and like all 'real designers' that I know, I develop for Firefox or Safari first and then add the necessary hacks for IE. I do this because I know that if I build a site using standards-compliant code then it will work on 90% of browsers (even if together they only form 15% of the market) and that I can then (relatively) easily work around the bizarre bugs and behaviours in IE to make it work for that too.
If I was to design for IE first, I would still have to work around all its weird bugs, but once I'd finished I would have a site that works reliably in exactly one version of IE for Windows, and I'd know that since all browsers (including IE) are moving towards better standards compliance, my site will become increasingly broken on an increasing number of browsers as time goes on.
To my mind, anyone who believes that they have a secure career designing broken code for a buggy six-year-old browser provided by one vendor who is rapidly losing credibility and market share, is extremely naive, and as a prospective employer I would regard the value of their so-called 'experience' as questionable at best.
There is no question that IE dominates both the past and present of the web. I don't know any competent web developer who believes that IE - as it stands - has any place in the future of it.
Marc BachmanNov 6th 2006 2:19PM
The idea behind the Internet from the beginning has everything to do with community, One of the major principles behind communities of any type is, believe it or not, standards. This helps make everything better for everybody, leveling out the playing field. The reason behind Firefox, Opera, et al, is to provide a better alternative in terms of what the community needs vs. what one company wants to provide. The company itself acknowledges the need for standards. For you who may not be aware of history, originally when technology standards were developed, there was a "request for comments" which allowed for input from those whose esteemed viewpoint helped to balance ideas. Hope you all can find a place in your hearts for this.