Internet Explorer 9: Bright new day? (or just another false dawn??)

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Permalink Reply by Tony Rolfe on January 6, 2011 at 10:29

Hi Dave,

 

I still see IE as the devil browser, but as you suggest they have tried to fix a lot of the bugs within the browser as they have started to realise that since they have lost the monopoly on being the only browser offered with a new PC and IE's lack of CSS compatibility, that they have had to try and get back into competing in the browser wars.

 

If you look at the latest usage stats for browsers:

 

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

 

you will see that Google Chrome is starting to creep up and IE is slowly decreasing in numbers of users. Thus suggesting that Microsoft need to pull something out of the bag with IE9.

 

I have tested IE9 but it's the same old story, it's very buggy and still has css spacing and margin width issues, where their pixel sizes are different to the 4 other top browsers.

 

Microsoft are trying, but in my opinion it's too little too late and Firefox (my choice of browser) works with all css rules and you hardly have to tweak anything for the other browsers.

 

However, IE constantly requires its own CSS style sheet. Back versions of Firefox and Chrome, because they were developed correctly in the first place, do not require backward compatibility for users, whereas IE again require different style sheets.

 

So to sum up - IE are trying to be like the other browsers now, but this is mainly because they are being forced to, as their usage is decreasing. Until Microsoft realise that they should be making these changes to help provide a better viewing experience for the end user, then it will always be considered the bane of my website design life and will never beat Firefox as the default browser for my machine.

 

Cheers

 

Tony