I agree with you to a point but there are a few striking differences between the webkit “lack of standard” standard and the IE6 fiasco. One is that we’re developing differently than we used to (those of us with any sense anyway) so if something needs to change in the code once the need becomes obvious enough for W3C to make a ruling on it, most developers can adapt the new standard pretty quickly.
Another is that a lot of the really radical stuff is in custom CSS features and, even in cases where it doesn’t fail gracefully, is far less likely to have a serious impact on usability. And it’s pretty damned easy to integrate one set of style sheet instructions for whatever cutting edge stuff you want on the fancy fly-by-the-seats-of-their-pants browsers with another set of instructions for more staid implementations.
Back in the day, we had to use horrible kludges to get the same script working for both Jscript and Javascript. For a lot of developers, it really wasn’t worth the effort. In fact, it wasn’t worth the effort for me either but I went the other route. If it didn’t work in Opera (the most standards compliant browser at the time), then I wasn’t going to do it.
Comodo Dragon is what I’m using now - which is Chromium without the tracking. There was a way to strip the Guid using a desktop app (you run it after installing Chrome) - however… You have to do it after every update (so, always…)
I hate the Backspace = Back Button in Internet Explorer (and some iterations of Firefox).
Then I looked up why…
Many of these things are mandated by ADA / Accessibility guidelines that you are required to include in your software if your software is going to be allowed to be sold in government and military contracts.
So, yeah… Hate that. But also, get it… I’d like to disable it. But when I had to review some software we were writing for possible certification, I found out just how particular these things are… And they enable things like “Voice Navigation” and “Blind Accessibility” directly from the OS… Which, Chrome and Firefox don’t do well.
Anyway, I found out sometimes there are surprising reasons for things…
Ignorant comment, CD. IE has come a LONGGGG. way since the bad ol’ days of IE6. It may not be a popular browser, but it is a solid brower. That’s why MS has considered changing its name. Personally, as customizable as browsers like FireFox (my browser of choice) and Chrome are (in ways that IE will never be, mostly because of its enterprise use and the support concerns that come with extensions and plugins), I don’t think the name of the product or the logo much matter as far as end user adoption and attitude. Regardkess, IE is not a turd and hasn’t been in years.
When IE 11 was announced, they also announced “IE for Intranet Mode” … which is… get this, IE 11 pretending to be IE 8 (for compatibility reasons with old IT apps).
It bites is when testing pages on new machines because the rendering of CSS is radically different in IE8 vs. IE11… and it’s unexplainable, until you locate the “compatibility” setting for intranet addresses… ugh…
This is what I used to do, but it got old on multiple machines… and I doubt it works anymore (thus my switch to Comodo… previously I used ChromePlus, but it got bought by a Chinese company, renamed, and abandoned).
There was a way to do this in early versions via some configuration settings…
If they called it RELEASE THE BEES people would click on it to see if bees really came out, then they might continue to use the software by accident.
Also Microsoft, if you’re reading this, please pay Matthew Perry to be the face and mascot of Bing search engine. I will use it if you do and so will at least two other people I know.
As someone said on Ars Technica. IE 11 can be fairly decent but I still will avoid anything Microsoft like the plague. They make such a pain in the ass being a web developer…
They should make a transition: first split the browser line in two things: IE and some newly renamed browser that would suck less. “Live Xplorer”, maybe, to keep with the Windows Live line of products and a nod to Xbox? Make people test the new kid on the playground and see that Internet Explorer this new browser is not. In time stop developing IE and force users to upgrade to the new service.
Sorry didn’t want to stop the fun with a serious discussion. blablabla lol Microsoft lol turd lol Bob Exploder etc
