Despite personal opinion, a good web site will be tested and display properly on any browser with IE's market share. (BTW, I'm sure you were aware of this and just waiting for someone to point it out so you could pounce. Your welcome).
Asked by Anonymous
I’m perfectly happy to have a “not good” web site if it means not having to do all the tedious bullshit you have to do to get your site to render correctly in that abomination of a browser.
Sorry to sound bitter, that used to be my job. IE was the bane of my existence.
Also, this is my website. YOU’RE welcome to visit. On my terms.
Asked by Anonymous
You’re using IE? That would seem to be more your problem than mine…
Max Slater-Robins for Neowin:
To further ensure IE11 users don’t receive an odd version of the site, Microsoft also included the command “Like Gecko” which instructs the website to send back the same version of the website as they would to Firefox. The results of this update are unknown, especially on websites which are poorly coded. The move is strange, but shows that Microsoft is desperate to clean up Internet Explorer and get away from the awful experience in IE6, 7 and 8.
So, let me get this straight: Microsoft is being forced to trick the web into thinking its own browser is actually that of its chief rival so that pages will render properly?
Such an amazing legacy IE has built.
Hadi Partovi, who ran Program Management through the launch of Internet Explorer 5.0, answers on Quora:
Microsoft had decided that the browser war was over, browsers are history, and the new enemy was AOL.
Throughout my time at Microsoft, it has always been sad to see the Internet side define itself more based on who it wanted to compete with (Netscape, AOL, Yahoo, Google), rather than defining its own vision of what it wanted to be.
I remember switching to IE back in the day because it was just a better browser. Then Microsoft, having (illegally) killed Netscape, stopped giving a shit. Then came IE6. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Marco Arment brings up the most fascinating aspect related to Ed Bott’s report that Google may not be renewing the search deal that essentially keeps Firefox (and really, Mozilla) alive:
What if Bing steps in to fill Google’s shoes?
That would basically mean Microsoft would be funding the demise of their own product, Internet Explorer.
But because Firefox has a huge user base, this is something that Microsoft would have to consider. Such a deal could potentially finally turn Bing from a multi-billion dollar suck hole into an actual business.
I’m also with Marco — this just makes me feel sad for Firefox. I remember when I started using it instead of IE; it was so refreshingly fast. It felt like it opened up a whole range of new possibilities for the web after years of Microsoft stagnation.
Then Firefox too became bloated. And it slowed down. I started using Mozilla’s Camino (their Mac-focused browser) as a result. Then Chrome arrived, in a similar way to the way that Firefox had. It was refreshingly fast…
The (potentially) good news for Mozilla is that now Chrome seems to be continuing that cycle. It’s gaining huge amounts of market share (as Firefox had before it) but the product itself is getting a ton of stuff crammed into it. It’s getting bloated…
But Marco is right, the real key going forward is mobile. And Mozilla is going to have a very hard time competing there simply because they do not control their own platform.
Firefox Phone, anyone?
