It’s not my fault IE sucks. Get a real browser.

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on May 3, 2004). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

I expected this, of course, but it’s still a bit disheartening. I spend a lot of time working up a change to my site design, get the basics up and running, just have a bit of tweaking to do…and then I take a few moments on a break from work and take a look at it under Internet Explorer 6 for Windows.

And cringe.

And you know what? I don’t care. I’m not even going to bother fixing the various oddities that crop up under IE. It’s not worth the time, trouble, and headaches that it would entail.

No Internet Explorer

It comes down to this, quite simply: Internet Explorer sucks. It’s buggy, shares responsibility for many of the security issues in Windows, offers far to many ways for people to compromise your system, and doesn’t support modern web standards. Sure, I know that IE makes up somewhere over 90% of the web browser market, and I know that because of that, it’s quite likely that somewhere over 90% of the people who stumble across my site won’t be seeing it the way that they should.

I don’t care.

Thanks in part to the fact that I do pay attention to modern web design techniques and standards, people using IE are quite able to read my site. All the information is there, it’s just not presented how it should be. But that’s not my fault — it’s IE’s fault — and that’s not worth me worrying about.

Use a Better Browser

As proposed by Tim Bray, Eclecticism now joins the “Use a Better Browser” campaign.

If you were looking at this in any browser but Microsoft Internet Explorer, it would look and run better and faster.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may currently have the largest market share, but it has been stagnating for a while. There will be no new Internet Explorer version until Microsoft’s next operating system. It won’t be available for several years and you’ll need to pay for Windows to get it.

Meanwhile, other web browsers have been innovating and are becoming more and more popular. Today, these browsers run faster and look better than Internet Explorer.

By using a better browser your experience will be better. Plus, you will help to foster a competitive environment in which browser technology can continue to innovate and make everyone’s web experience more pleasant and exciting.

So that’s that.

Get Firefox. Get Opera. Get Konqueror. Get a Mac and use Safari.

Just get away from IE.

iTunes: “Glory (Cajun Dub)” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Glory (1993, 5:31).