Internet Explorer 8 to finally be standards-compliant?

Coming from a long line of heretics, I think I should have some standing in this discussion.

I’m declaring Sottwell as the most heretical for suggesting that Windows 98 "works fine" for any purpose at all.

Bob

Quote from: ZAP at Dec 20, 2007, 09:47 PM

I know that it’s a heretical idea, but I actually think that IE7 is a perfectly good browser. I don’t use Windows anymore, but when I did I used IE7 more often than Firefox. IE6 is an oozing pustule on the fetid arse of the internet, but IE7 works well enough.

I won’t consider IE a good browser until they fix a ton more issues, including:

• No HTML in XML (huge problem)
• the infamous application/xhtml+xml issue
• still no support for the the lang attribute
• anchor names are not treated in a case-sensitive manner
• table alignment attributes near impossible to use consistently
• horrid 508 support
• no tabindex interface support
• a ton of css issues
• [b]absolutely atrocious javascript implementations. including unspeakably bad (virtually non-existent) error reporting

You’re right, but take into account that the average idiot doesn’t know what those things even mean, and issues such as "Uhh.. Why does the text look funny in Firefox" are key in choosing a browser. Not every surfer has 3+ browsers installed on his PC and the fact is that people would spend hefty sums in buying antivirus software that has features helping everyday browsing, but won’t upgrade or change the browser they’re using. IE7 is a very good browser in comparison with IE6, unless you find having 20+ windows with poker tables and naked women every time you open up IE.

I hope IE8 will have a better error checking software and an improved phishing filter, because the present one is a total nag.

I’d like to know why web designers haven’t just clubbed together to ignore IE6. If all the websites in the world were designed such that they only worked in better browsers (and I do reluctantly include IE7 in that just because it is at least better than IE6) then people would have to change to something better.

Trouble is many people who use computers don’t even know that IE is the program that they use to browse the web! Many think that it is just part of Windows and that there isn’t an alternative. I’ve been in the room with people who don’t know much about computers and they have seen the Get Firefox logos on websites, but don’t know what it is, because a lot of them don’t know what a browser is even though they use one every single day!

Some people even mistrust such adverts. Because of the risk of viruses, even though many people are slack in this department, they won’t follow up something like a Firefox or Opera link because they wonder if it is dodgy software.

Microsoft really need to be stopped from bundling IE with Windows so that the choices are more open. With all the hacks needed to get things working with IE and other headaches, it costs businesses money (their websites take longer to make) and website creators are less productive. There really needs to be a backlash against IE for something to happen.

It is also annoying that even though there are still a lot of IE6 users out there, web designers need two separate PC’s to have IE6 and 7 on! I only do website creation as more of a hobby. But I don’t have multiple machines to be able to test all versions of IE on. So a lot of the time I just have to hope!

Older versions of Windows may not be able to use IE7, but they can use Firefox, Opera etc. But there needs to be a better way to educate people who are sticking with IE6.

I would love to ignore IE6, but our clients wouldn’t be very happy about it. About a third of the users of most of our sites still use IE6, and that’s too big of a percentage to ignore, unfortunately. Hopefully by the end of 2008 we’ll be able to make the argument that it’s no longer worth supporting and people should be forced to upgrade for security and compatibility reasons, but for now the volume of complaints we would get over our "broken" websites would be more trouble than our clients would be willing to bear.

Apparently IE7 will be available without the WGA check for at least corporate versions of Windows soon (and bundled with SP3 for XP), which may help to move a substantial chunk of IE6 users up a notch.

At least we don’t have to take Netscape and AOL into account anymore!

The good news is that it appears as if IE8 will be in standards mode by default. The bad news (from my perspective) is that they seem to be focusing on cramming a whole lot of bloat and bollocks into it as well. Take a look at some of the new features reviewed here:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/five_things_youll_love_or_hate_about_ie8

Session restoration is all well and good, and once again IE is way behind the curve on that one. Highlighting the top-level domain in a URL is a nice detail, I guess, but hardly worth mentioning. All the rest seem like things that I would rather have available as plug-ins and not as part of the core program. It looks to me as if Microsoft is once again trying to control what’s at the top of your browser and what you see when you right-click. And I’m sure you’ll need a fast new PC running Vista to even get this whale out of the garage...

I think we should do it like the game industry does it, they do not make the customers
change browser... they make us buy a new computer!!! They do not care (seems like that to me)
they get out FIFA 2008 or whatever and if you do not have the latest hardware, latest drivers,
latest you-name-it, the game won´t work!

If all designers will NOT design for IE6 for example, then people will say that there is something
wrong with the website... but most of the websites will be "wrong", so then a Viral campaign of
change your browser, with names, instructions and the like (a mini Y2K campaign) will result in
most of them upgrading to a modern browser.

There will be a bunch of people that won’t change, so they will live with weird looking sites... it
will be like sottwell trying to play FIFA 2008 on her win98 machine!!

Big problem is the sheer number of users who do not know what a web browser is. I know plenty of computer illiterate people who do not know that IE6 is a web browser. They simply think the web IS the internet, and that whatever came with their PC is the only thing that they need. Many of them dare not install anything new on their machine unless they bought it in a box from the local PC store, or a really trusted ’techie’ guy they know told them something was okay to do.

Then we have institutions that refuse to install anything that isn’t by Microsoft. Which means that many places that still do use W98 or 2000 won’t install Firefox and can’t install even IE7. In fact look at the number of places that wouldn’t allow MS’s recent automatic update to IE7 go ahead on their companies machines.

The real reason we are in this mess is because MS bundled IE6 with XP and for some inexplicable reason never updated the install package to include IE7 instead.

I think really that people should not bother to program to account for IE6, and that a movement should be started to publicise how much money companies are losing from having to pay for website development devoted to solving problems with IE6. There must be huge amounts of cash going down the drain from wasted time trying to get websites to work on that browser. Money is the one thing businesses understand. If they were educated as to how much extra they may be paying to ensure that the sites work on that infernal browser they would be more likely to upgrade their systems and tell website designers not to bother with it!

Quote from: SimonMW at Apr 25, 2008, 06:58 AM

Big problem is the sheer number of users who do not know what a web browser is. I know plenty of computer illiterate people who do not know that IE6 is a web browser. They simply think the web IS the internet, and that whatever came with their PC is the only thing that they need. Many of them dare not install anything new on their machine unless they bought it in a box from the local PC store, or a really trusted ’techie’ guy they know told them something was okay to do.

My mom is/was like that w/ Gayohell.

Methinks people should have to take a "Computer for Dummies" class, or at least package a book with the computer. xd

It would be good if people were forced to do that!

Yet more people do not even know that they can run different applications at the same time, or have multiple layers of windows. My father has a Macbook, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I have had to close empty ’new email’ windows for him because he has been using another program and assumed that the new mail window has disappeared so he has started another one, and then it has happened again and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

What is really needed is for companies like Mozilla to run a large ad campaign on TV as well as on the web, using video like the Mac adverts, to point out to people that they can and should upgrade their browser.

It should also be made clear to businesses how much money they may be losing in development time to get websites working in IE!