INTERNET EXPLORER SUCKS BIG FUCKING BALLS

• (Last modified on: Dec. 9 at: 8:05 am. EST)
  Anyone who has ever done any moderate to advanced webpage design knows exactly what I’m talking about. There is no greater force holding back the progress of the internet than MSIE. By ’moderate’ to ’advanced,’ I am talking about those of you have finally graduated past <table>’s to make your layouts. Despite what the rest of you think, tables were never meant to do layout. They were meant to do tables. No shit.
• What you're really supposed to be using are DIV tags for block elements and SPAN tags for line elements. They are more versatile, require less coding, and make more sense. The point is, the content of you page should be considered separate from the attributes and properties of your page. Using TABLE tags as layout blurs and obfuscates the two.
• In order to define attributes and properties, web designers rely on 'Cascading Style Sheets,' or CSS. Feel free to look at the source code of this page. Notice how the content of this page is contained within a DIV block called "bodyText" and all the menu navigation and extra links are in a DIV block called "leftCol." Additionally, notice that the navigation code is all the way at the bottom of the page. The flow is just that much more logical without the use of TABLE tags.
• To make the progression possible, the "bodyText" block is told to 'float' to the right side of this page, and vice versa for the "lefCol" block. And to keep the scripting simplified, you can also write 'nested' CSS. That is, certain tags behave differently depending on where in the progression. That's why the LI tags inside the "lmenu" block (for the menu) behave differently than the LI tags in the "bodies" block (for the body content), even though you don't actually see anything in the source code. It keeps the page clean and easy to understand.
• However, the most evident benefit for CSS was that you had a single page that defined the styling for all your pages. There was a time when if you wanted to change the font for your website, you would have to go through all your pages and re-assign fonts for every single fucking paragraph, or <P> tag. So a lot of people (including myself) created even more hacks with <br> tags, and webpage design got even sloppier.

I am so awesome.

• Now, if I wanted to change the font for all 130+ pages on the applesanity.com domain, all I have to do is change one line on one page, and that's it. Awesome. Feel free to evaluate the source code of this page. It's cleaner than the space between your mom's legs. You can also click on the W3C XHTML 1.1 or W3C CSS links on the top left of this page. www.applesanity.com passes the strictest of internet standardization - the XHTML 1.1 Doctype, which is the cleanest, most logical, most error-free format.
• If you write computer code, and you forget to write one single semicolon or curly bracket, your program crashes. Why should webpage design be any different?
• Hence or otherwise, with CSS tools like floating positions and nested attributes, the learning curve does indeed jump considerably. The next problem is how to agree on what web browsers should be doing when reading advanced CSS.
• Back in the late 90's, there was no general concensus on how webpage scripting should work, even though websites were getting mroe flashy and more intensive in layout. With no real intuitive way to make layouts, designers cheated by using TABLE tags for layout. It became a terrible habit that led to nested tables, and illogical attribute assignments. Tables suddenly had fixed height elements that would go to shit if their was more content than space.
• Then, if people whated to have menu navigation, they would have to cheat by using FRAME or IFRAME tags, which would then create webpages that were actually multiple websites hacked together with much slop. Today, you can use <div style="position: fixed"> instead.
• Hence, the infamous "Netscape Wars." During this time, the people who got to decide how webpages should look were not webpage designers, but rather, the guys who made the web browsers. So, if you wanted to make a webpage, you basically had to make two webpages - one for Netscape, and one for Internet Explorer.
• To solve the TABLE layout problem, MSIE started promoting DIV and SPAN tags, coupled with CSS, while Netscape pushed for some crazy wack Javascript. It was obvious which solution was better. So Netscape tank. For a time, all was quiet. Then Mozilla happened. And Opera. And Lynx. And Safari. All three were leaps and bounds better than IE. The problem was, every brower still had their own way to interpret webpage design.

My head hurts.

• That is why we have the W3C. The World Wide Web Consortium is a body of a bunch of people, universities, and organizations dedicated to making webpage design better and more standardized. If webpage designers have a standard set of rules and guidlines to base their scripting, then they won't have to be so damn confused all the time.
• Too bad IE thought they were the shit when they beat Netscape. When W3C recommendations came along to develop and enhance DIV and SPAN tags, IE did nothing. When W3C proposed DOCTYPE declarations, IE did nothing. Internet Explorer has not advanced in nearly a decade. Not one bit. Unfortunately, they still command market share.
• Internet Explorer is Holding Back the Internet.
• Anytime I webpage, it take me 10 minutes to figure out the scripting for browsers like Opera and Safari, 20 minutes to work with Mozilla Firefox, and THREE FUCKING HOURS to make the same page for IE.
• The majority of webpage designers have just given up. Instead of using the proper tools to make webpages, they have to go back and use deprecated, shitty scripting from mid-90's to make sloppy pages that will look correct in IE. The assholes at Microsoft just assume that since all PC's come equipped with IE, most consumers will just think that their default browser is the best. No sense in downloading another brower when your computer already has one... right?
• Since IE is the default browser on all PC's, they naturally command the market. If Internet Explorer had a tiny market share, nobody would give a shit about them. But since most webpage designers are in the business of making a profit, they are forced to cater to to IE, if they want to reach a larger market share of consumers.
• Here's an object demonstration - a screenshot of the “GeoTrustTM Verified DomainTM logo on the about page for four web browsers.

Opera 9.02 & Safari 2.0.4

Mozilla Firefox 2.0

Internet Explorer 7.0.57

But wait, it gets worse.

• There exists a CSS pseudo class for mouse effects. The purpose is to enhance usability. The best to indicate to the user that he or she is about to click on a link is to have the styling of the link change. Let the font change color, or create a border, or have an underline. Notice how any link you hover on within the Apple Sanity domain changes to green, and then red when you click on it.
• Additionally, the links to directories on the home page (the five links under the lily pad pool) form boxes when you hover over them. While you've probably never given a second thought to these flourishes, they are indeed valuable. Mouse Effects are indispensible for differentiating links from text.
• To bad Internet Explorer doesn't understand mouse effects. That GeoTrustTM logo is meant to be clicked on. If you were using any browser besides IE, you'd notice that the the logo highlights grey if you point your mouse to it. But IE won't do that. Nor will change change the positioning of the image links on the left menu, even though Opera, Safari, and Firefox can.
• I won't even offer you a screenshot example. The reason is that I am encouraging you to download a browser that is not IE.
• But I will show a screenshot of something else... I've realized that my eyes hurt more when looking at websites with IE for some reason. When zooming in, I noticed this (zoomed in at 600%):

Opera 9.02, Safari 2.0.4, and Firefox 2.0

Internet Explorer 7.0.57

That's Right, Children: Internet Explorer Can't Render Text

• Contrast helps increase readablity. The guys at Microsoft, in some half-assed attempt at trying some anti-aliasing bullshit, have only made just one more serious fuck-up. Fuck you, Internet Explorer. You're a bunch of racists hell-bent on holding back progress for all of humankind.

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  0509692 views; candy flipping since 2006-01-25
• “Internet Explorer Sucks Balls”
  Exclusive property of the Apple Sanity Collective
  Written by Dinah Cheshire
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