LooseSuits Thread: Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

clicknathan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:44:22

I am glad that someone believes in me, though!

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

Ozone42 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:31:16

t's something you just accept. Cry not, just code better.

But I believe in you! You can go stick it to Microsoft!

Hey now... that's not quite right. It's not "code better." It's "code more." Maybe "code again."

I don't design a ton of pages, but near every time I'll come out with a 100% standards compliant markup... and IE will fail to render it correctly. That's not entirely fair, sometimes it's "correct," but something minor will stick out and just look horrible in comparison with all of the alternatives.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

peroty — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:09:41

haha that would be AWESOME if I could make everyone use Firefox. :D

But alas, I am a lowly IT guy. And besides, the company is so entrenched in ActiveX reliance, there's no way out.

Maybe if I were a big shot IT guy who sat in a large office and never actually had to work on a computer, I could make such a call, but I'm not. Just a peon in the field.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

Oli — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:02:09

Well it does mean their development model for internal sites is tiny in comparison to an external counterpart. Very rich applications are a bastard to get working on multiple platforms especially if they tie into the computers for identification or resources...

Why spend 5x the time making something when you can just lock the browser?

You've also got keeping everybody patched to take into consideration from a security aspect.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

clicknathan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:45:06

Yeah, I love it when companies force their users into using one browser or another. "We know what's easiest for you, Jim."

I always assumed it was the IT staff that made those decisions. Which would be extra funny if, in your situation, you forced everyone to use PCs and wore shirts that said "You're not ready for Firefox".

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

Oli — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:43:47

. The source of the stats are always interesting and it of course does't take into account those people FORCED to use IE.

Not that interesting... It says right on the page:

Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools' log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.

They're a technical orientated demographic so yeah... That's all they're really "good" for. If you want to know what you're dealing with in your own niche's demographic, you have to use your own logs.

And regarding forced users: they're still users, regardless. It doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to what the stats mean.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

peroty — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:34:10

I agree clicknathan. The source of the stats are always interesting and it of course does't take into account those people FORCED to use IE.

For example, where I work we've got about 300 PCs installed, all of which run IE exclusively (with the exception of the IT staff, we run Firefox) but that's only two of us versus 297 IE users.

Numbers aren't exact, but you get my drift.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

clicknathan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:29:06

@peroty and maltic:

I always wonder where they get those stats, perhaps someone else can shed some light. But I tend to want to trust them since they're the #1 Google Result for browser statistics.

I also have analytics information for about 10 sites, varying from a bicycle advocacy group (which is chock-full of hippy liberal geeky types) to many sites which reflect less web-savvy, older people and Firefox does seem to have between 30 - 40% of the population.

Google would be the most reliable source of such info, I'd assume, since everyone and their mother's children either go to google.com, gmail, have the toolbar installed, sold their soul for some stock, etc.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

peroty — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:20:54

@malitic

Are those stats for the W3c site? They seem to be...

If so, it's a moot point. Of course web geeks and those in the know will use Firefox or something better.

But what about the electricians and plant workers I work with everyday? They all use IE and don't care to use anything better.

What about the home users that don't care because IE works for them?

Of course the W3C site will show other browsers pulling ahead, as it should. It shows the geeks know where it's at. But the nongeeks are still firmly in the IE camp, not through want or ignorance, but through indifference.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

dook — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:58:49

P.S. Browser sniffing is evil.

But essential when you want a site to be flexible enough to work on all resolutions. Sure, it's easy enough to do so using percents instead of pixels, but when someone resizes the browser, will the structure break down if the browser gets too thin?

I wouldn't call it evil, it just depends on how well it's used.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

malitic — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:57:57

Get IE out of the hands of 70-90% of web users.

Check.

June IE7: 19.7% IE6:37.3% IE5: 1.5% FF: 34.0% M: 1.4% O:1.3% S:1.8%

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

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

ConnorWilson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:55:48

It's something you just accept. Cry not, just code better.

But I believe in you! You can go stick it to Microsoft!

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

malitic — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:55:34

Well it depends on the browser sniffing method. The ones done before the page is served in PHP are fine (but are unreliable) as are the ones used inside of Javascript to determine if a variable or functions is available; however, those horrible Javascript ones that tell me I'm not using IE 4 and that lag the browser should be banished from the dev toolbox.

I think CSS hacks are marginally better than browser sniffing because a hack that works in IE6 today will work in it 5 years from now (but hopefully will be fixed in future browsers), the Javascript required to determine the browser can cause more trouble than it is worth, and browser sniffing is sketchy at best.

But, I think getting comfortable with any sort of workaround or hack is what got us in this predicament in the first place. Developer circa the 1990's should have just stopped and put IE and Netscape in their places rather than just falling in line with one or the other. Ah well, 20:20 hindsight.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

peroty — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:42:08

Get IE out of the hands of 70-90% of web users.
That will be a good first step. :)

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

clicknathan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:09:34

Do you think so (re:browser sniffing)? Really?

I don't disagree, and I've always thought it slowed sites down a lot, but then again, without sniffing you're basically stuck with CSS hacks, right?

I love star hack. :)

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

malitic — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:07:25

You don't need to know anything about design to hate IE. Very few people actually like IE, so Granny Poohba just needs to know there is a good alternative.

P.S. Browser sniffing is evil.

Web Designers Unite! Fight the Internet Exploder!

clicknathan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 01:58:32

Everyone who's ever understood the term "alt attribute" or knows what CSS stands for hates Internet Explorer right?

We've spent the last several years of our lives doubling our efforts, wasting our time, likely even charging our clients more because of the ridiculous practices of Microsoft, arguably the world's largest, most important software developer.

Why do we stand for this? Couldn't we, as Web designers and developers, easily change this via a boycott or a strike of some sort? Maybe browser detection and forced redirection to Mozilla.

Sure, our sites wouldn't be accessible to Granny Poohba who has no concept of what installing Firefox means, but after a few years our power would finally be seen. The Web design Empire could rise up and crush any infidels!

Seriously though, isn't there something we can do (short of aspiring for tyranny) to stop the insanity?