Why Do So Many Geeks Hate Internet Explorer?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32372/htg-explains-why-do-so-many-geeks-hate-internet-explorer/

by elblanco • 16 years ago

3 2 16 years ago

The short answer is that Internet Explorer since IE 6 represents the opposite of everything a modern web developer works towards: constant development, quick releases, and always, always improving. Just look at Chrome, it's become the poster child for how to do a web browser right. They are on version 6 (release) and 7 (development) and no-one would even know. You install Chrome and THAT'S IT. There's no "upgrading" there's no worrying about supporting old versions, you ALWAYS have the most up-to-date version and if it works on Chrome for you it will work for everyone else.

Even Firefox and Safari get this wrong. Does it work on FF3? What about FF2 or (god forbid) FF1? Safari 4? 5?

IE has taken this to the far, far extreme. Years between product releases, and nothing but security fixes between that. No features, no polishing, nothing.

This article is good but the conclusion is wrong. As long as Microsoft continues to do this "release a browser version every 3-4 years" us web developers will have to deal with this hell. I now refuse to support IE 6 in anything I do, and I'm very VERY close to adding 7 to that list, but 50% of our users still use 7!!!

10 years from now, we will still have to support the god awful mess that is IE 8! And IE 9 will be the same thing 5 years down the road as Webkit and Firefox push the boundary of what's possible in web development. IE will always, always lag behind.

And that is why we hate IE. It's not about the past, it's about the future as well.

toto• 16 years ago

The real dev hates Internet Explorer (especially 6) because of all the designers who: - have no clue what KISS means - invent CSS, DOM and JS hacks - sum a collection of hacks in their code - do not read the technical papers about their environment (the browser)

Please complete the list if I am missing some. ;)

A browser is like a girl, you should take it as is and not force it to do what you want to. :)

Why Do So Many Geeks Hate Internet Explorer?

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