Most people are pretty familiar with what a browser is these days, at least to the point of knowing that that’s the programme they use to look at the internets (it’s the big blue e right, that you double click and it opens and tells you about all sorts of security problems before letting you browse the internet). What they may not know is that there are various browsers to choose from, all of which can be downloaded for free.

For those that didn’t get my reference to the big blue e above, I was of course referring to Internet Explorer(IE), Microsoft’s web browser that comes packaged with the windows operating system, and as such, is the browser of choice for millions of web users. In the world of web development that ‘e’ stands for EVIL, as IE is the cause of excruciating frustration, sleepless nights, and many a broken keyboard (not to mention millions of dollars of wasted project dollars spent dealing with IE’s euphemistically named ‘quirks’.

Ok, so the title of this post should really be ‘why we hate IE’ so let’s start off with what’s wrong with IE, then we’ll go over the other browser options.

Web Standards

The organisation that specifies standards for the internet is called the WorldWideWeb Consortium or W3C for short. One of their tasks is to specify how the languages of the web should be written, and how browsers should interpret them. When you hear people talk about web standards this is what they are referring to. To cut a long story short, in the early days of the internet Microsoft decided it was going to do things its own way. As time has gone on, the internet has matured and web standards have become the norm, Microsoft has refused or failed (I’m not sure which) to bring its browser into line.

The result? When I specify in my code that an element on a web page should sit left, for example, what happens?. I check Firefox – it sits left. I check Chrome – it sits left. I check Safari – it sits left. I check IE – it spins. Seriously IE? Well more likely it breaks to a new line, or it doesn’t show up, or it half shows up, but you get the point. There is usually one rule for everyone, and another three to do the same thing for IE. And fixing these ‘quirks’ is seldom a five minute job.

Microsoft's Excuse

Microsoft’s claim is that they need to continue supporting the way they did things at the start because companies have spent millions of dollars developing browser based software and if they change the way they do things this software will break. To be fair this argument has some credence. However Microsoft’s approach with each new version of IE has been to half move towards web standards and half continue to do things the way they used to.

The result now is that instead of having to test and adjust our code for one version of IE, we now have to adjust our code (or write specific code) for three or more different versions of IE, (meanwhile the standards compliant code works in all other browsers first time round).

Rant over?

Not yet. As well as failing to comply to web standards, the IE team are incredibly slow to pick up new technologies. There are currently a host of coding rules available to web developers such as rounded box corners, shadows, text columns… that all the major browsers support except of course IE. Lets have a look, check out the circle and text below:

Nice Ha! No images, just CSS. Of course if you’re viewing this in IE, all you’ll see is a square and no text.

IE is holding up the development of web technologies so badly that one of Microsoft’s biggest competitors – Google, wrote a plugin so that internet explorer users could use some of the latest web based tools they have created.
Unfortunately, because so many people still use IE, not supporting it is not an option. I could go on, but I think my time would be better spent making sure you know you have options!

Browser Options

Chrome – Chrome is googles contribution to the browser market and the browser I would recommend to people for everyday use. It is quick and has a great, compact interface that saves on space if you’re on a small screen. Chrome can be downloaded for free, for windows or mac here.

Firefox – Firefox is an open source browser gifted to us by the Mozilla Foundation. It is the browser of choice for web developers due to its high degree of customisation and its thousands of third-party ‘add-ons’ that can be added on to the browser core to increase functionality. Firefox can be downloaded for free, for windows or mac here.

Safari – Safari is Apple corporations browser. It is perhaps the most cutting edge browser in terms of adopting new technologies and it comes bundled with the Mac OSX operating system. Safari can be downloaded for free for windows or mac from here.

Opera – I cant tell you much about Opera other than it comes from Norway, it’s fast, its got about 3% market share and it doesn’t cause many problems. Opera can be downloaded for free for windows or mac from here.

Final Notes About Browser Use

Always update your browser. When you install it allow it to update automatically. Updates mean improvements and added functionality.

Quit Internet Explorer if at all possible. IE version 9 is on the horizon. When it is released Microsoft will claim this is the latest and greatest browser on the market. While we developers are expecting a lot of improvements, at best we can expect IE9 will be about as good as the rest of these guys were a year or so ago. And a year or so in software is a long time!

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Or read some more from the Client Information Series!

• Writing effective content for your site.
• The importance of relational tree diagrams in planning your website
• What is a content management system or CMS?
• Designing for different screen resolutions
• All about browsers (and why we hate Internet Explorer)
• What is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO and why is it important?
• An introduction to HTML and CSS snd other coding languages.
• How to take a screen capture.