Anti IE

I think these lines will hit the hearts of everyone who has ever tried to do typesetting and knows what “cross-browser” is. For those who are less familiar with the topic, the following part of the text is presented.

The share of Internet Explorer in the browser market is about 80% , while a year ago it was at the level of 90%. This is the most popular browser. Why? Is he the most comfortable? Most people who have ever used other browsers do not think so. Is he the safest? News IT agencies are teeming with reports of "another hole in IE." This is a fact with which even the most stubborn will agree. Is it functional? By functionality Opera can only surpass Firefox with plugins. So why? Yes, all the same- It is by default included in the Windows OS and warmed up on the rest of the Microsoft firewood, it occupies a leading position in the market. Most users simply do not represent an alternative, Internet Explorer - this is the Internet, there is no other need. Well, the lyrics aside - the article is not about that.

Used and used, what's the problem? Bothering someone? Please do not laugh: “Yes! Interfere! ” Namely, you greatly complicate the life of website developers, including JavaScript / AJAX developers and layout designers.

The fact is that IE is not only terribly inconvenient, the most insecure, slow, non-functional browser, but it also does not support standards. You can read about it in an interesting form here.. The same HTML / CSS code is written for all browsers, and all, logically, should display and execute it in the same unified way so that there is no confusion. For this, there is an organization called the W3C Consortium, which deals with just that - standardizing technologies, describing where what and how should behave. But this is bad luck, at least all popular browsers try to support these standards: Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, but not IE. Not IE, whose share is 80%! What do we get in the end? On the example of layout. We need to achieve a consistent display of xHTML / CSS code in browsers. This is not so difficult to do, because if the layout is displayed correctly in Firefox, then with a 95% probability, it will also be displayed in Opera. In IE - all to hell. We fix it in IE - it breaks in other browsers.

In order to at least slightly relax this headache, many methods have been gathered with which you can write a kind of “two codes” for browsers (these are conditional comments - a legitimate feature of IE itself, underscores and comments in styles, “* html” , and so on) Typically, these holes vary from version to version - some are closed, others appear, and thus you can write code for different versions of IE. But all this presents a big headache for developers. And there are situations when up to 1/2 of the time spent on layout, they went to ensure the "compatibility" of layout. There were also quite shocking situations when, when the site was commissioned to the customer, he did not see an interesting JavaScript menu. As it turned out, he had IE 5.0, his convictions did not help, and before achieving results, he had to spend a lot of time.

In order not to be unfounded, I will give a few of the most unpleasant facts for me:

• Prior to version 7, the min-height, min-width properties are not supported.
  Its exclusive understanding of padding, margin parameters (http://htmlbook.ru/content/?id=92)
  Incorrect percent calculation for absolute positioning
  Incorrect understanding of the “overflow” parameter
  Incorrect understanding of the parent-child logic of nesting tags with relative positioning The
  list can be continued - http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE6Bugs/ (there are 88 in IE6 and 83 in IE7 non-standards)
  
  
  This list is really very large, and wrote here only what came to mind, if you follow the links, you can find dozens and hundreds of other problems: an excellent object model (this leads to the fact that almost all AJAX libraries have two codes: for IE and for browsers that adequately perceive the DOM), another AJAX data transfer method (“window.XMLHttpRequest” in all browsers and “window.ActiveXObject” in IE) and other problems with it, ignorance of the “embed” tag (and replacing it with your own "Object"), and finally the lack of support for translucency in PNG graphics. In fact, the materials can be found on any forum in any way connected with Front-end development.
  
  Related links:
  
  • http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/
    http://cssing.org.ua/2005/11/11/ie-magic/
    http://www.positioniseverything.net/ie-primer.html
    http: / /htmlcoder.visions.ru/JavaScript/?30
    
    
    Although most readers, I think, all these facts have long been known, and I don’t say anything new, but I decided to give this educational program as an introduction to the problem. All this greatly complicates the life of developers, and sometimes forces them to do exactly double work, and because the IE browser does not support standards . I expressed my attitude to such Microsoft policies in a very pathetic form here. And something needs to be done with this. At least - I really want to. Now the share of this browser is beginning to fall, but it is not known how the process will develop further, and I have a sincere desire to force it, directing it to the direction where it is going now - to contribute to reducing the share of IE in the browser market.
    
    The main problem is that, sorry for the tautology, the developers do not care about the problems. And in most cases, they are simply not aware of these problems. My idea is to convey these issues in a clear and understandable way: in the form of a manifesto, centralized propaganda, viral transmission, and the organization of “support” to this movement. Devote this site so that there is a lot to refer to for argumentation about the use of an alternative browser. As practice shows, people are very sympathetic, if clearly explain the problem. Even far from the Web. First of all, to affect those who are able to make a choice themselves, secondly - to make it for others (administrators, extended users), and thirdly - the bulk of users. The habit of using good browsers already works pretty well on word of mouth, and it will be even better if the broadcast range is expanded. There are a lot of facts and materials against IE, but there is no organization for this to have a result: you need to put everything together and wrap it in a gift wrapper. In fact, this is a guerrilla war on the side of Google. I ask the question, can this idea get active returns?
    
    UPD: If you want to join, you can write me a personal note to think together about the organization and implementation of this idea.