Microsoft should consider this a forewarning — if the trend of the past three years continues, not one person who visits sitepoint.com will be using Internet Explorer by 2013.
With all of the buzz about new Firefox this and Opera that, I thought I’d reacquaint myself with the browser-of-choice for visitors to SitePoint.
So I went back three years, to 2005, and worked forward, comparing the browser that our readers used over the years. The results were startling, so I thought I’d share (click the image below for a bigger version):
The above graph shows the percentage of IE users against other browsers. Using a simple linear equation, we can deduce that each day about 0.2% less people are using IE on SitePoint.
If this trend continues, then looking forward 1,797 days (or 4.9 years), IE usage will be down to zero!
Now, we’re talking three years of history, and millions and millions of visitors — visitors whose lives revolve around web browsers. And yes, Microsoft have in recent times re-invigorated their focus on developing their web browser. The trend, however, suggests that it’s not working.
With web industry professionals bailing at this sort of rate, if I were Microsoft I’d be afraid … very afraid.
Hopefully, the trend will accelerate. I don’t think I can wait five years to stop developing for ie.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I certainly hope IE7 and older are extinct well before then. As for future versions, maybe they’ll actually start getting things right in IE8.. or 9.. maybe 12.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
The happiest day of my life will be in 1797 days. I think this world might just be a little better of a place when IE is gone.
Also, I have used the IE8 beta and it was nothing impressive. It was what you would expect from Microsoft. The development tools are sub par and all of the good old issues of IE are still there.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Ben I’m sure your not alone. It’s feels like all they are doing now is keeping pace with the other browsers rather than setting new benchmarks (and even overstating things). If they want to turn the tables, they’d want to pick up their act — and fast.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Hahaha..You for real???! Where did you get that graph from??? If your going to docter up some fake gragh at least have the inclinantion to make it look somewhat realistic! The internet explorer graph is an exact opposite of the Other Browsers graph!
June 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
eagerly waiting for the day when internet explorer dies and open source based browsers rule the world.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
For the previous poster: Don’t forget it’s a graph for the visitors of Sitepoint alone. This site revolves around webdesign, and anyone who considers himself serious about it (be it professional or enthusiast) does not use IE as his primary browser due to it’s many flaws.
The majority of users who still use IE are the ones who buy their windows PC’s for administration, email and the library functionality of the internet. How they view content does not matter, they just want content. In other words, the people who are unaware there are other browsers than IE.
I do expect their popularity to drop in the future as the alternative browsers spread even more, but there will always be that percentage of people who are stuck in Windows.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I’m not sure you can just extrapolate the data like that reliably… but it will be interesting to see if it does die out. I suspect that towards the lower end, its usage will drop a bit more sharply as more and more web developers stop catering for it and users find more and more sites not working in IE…
June 19th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
>> Internet Explorer Extinct By 2013?
That’s an inaccurate and false headline. Sitepoint.com’s visitors, with all due respect, would not represent the average internet user. Developers and early adopters frequent Sitepoint.com and this is a very small group in comparison to the average user group of the internet.
So the IE will be “extinct” claim and the correlation between Sitepoint’s visitors and the general web user doesn’t hold any good.
PS: I’m not pro Microsoft and I do want a competitive web browser market but you can’t sacrifice objectivity and logic, now can you?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
You can’t extrapolate data from the users of this web site – there not average users! Getting real data from site people use everyday would have been, more useful then this.
Also WTF are ‘Other Browsers’ – in 2005 very few mobile devices, games consoles etc connected to the web, now many more do.
I hate this kind of reportage…..its stupid and missleading and helps no one.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Sory guys but I have to agree with Srirangan. Your talking about SP visitors only, and thats mostly designers and developers. This is great news as more of them are turning to FF or Opera but to the average PC user they will continue to use IE unless they are shown other wise.
IE will be around for a much longer period of time due to Windows, just hope Microsoft pull their finger out and realise they are loosing a winning battle and decide to follow suit with other browsers.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
@Stormrider – It is a pretty simple way to look at it (using a linear equation) natural variation will introduce some other factors. But complication aside, any way you slice it — the trend’s not looking good.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Srirangan and spence – I’m not that short sighted to think that SitePoint’s browser statistics mimic general browsing. But you’ve got to acknowledge that if the professionals who will play an important role in building the web of the future are choosing to use no IE browsers more and more, it’s surely a warning sign of things to come. If that’s not going to give Microsoft some incentive to pick up their game then I don’t know what is.
If they do I’ll be the first to tip my hat — I just hope the momentum the other browsers have gained, isn’t to big to stop.
As for the Title — well it will be extinct on SitePoint and that’s the only site I care about ;-)
June 19th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Right, like the average web browser surfs to SitePoint? Give me a break.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Some of you miss the point (or maybe its me ;)), although the title doesn’t help any confusion. I do believe it won’t be as soon as 2013, but if Microsoft continue like they did in the last few years it won’t be long after that date. Most probably they will eventually try to get to the front of the pack (whether they manage to is another point). I am convinced they will put a lot of effort into it at some stage.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
It’s a nice dream, but little more than that. As long as IE is the default browser with Windows, we will have IE.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
“But you’ve got to acknowledge that if the professionals who will play an important role in building the web of the future are choosing to use no IE browsers more and more, it’s surely a warning sign of things to come.”
I agree. But I still stand by my point. Your sample size is too small, too congested and hence irrelevant for it to be the basis for any serious estimation activity.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
The only reason MS give a shit about IE’s downfall is the lost advertising $$$ on that msn homepage that comes as default, every time a user opens their browser.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
ah, dare to dream.
I wish this was accurate, but unfortunately, as long as MS ships IE with their OS, it will always be around.
I’d be happy for the elimination of the scourge that is IE6.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Sitepoint = the whole Internet.
amazing!
June 20th, 2008 at 12:25 am
@chris ward,
Last time I checked this was a capitalist society. Boo hoo, lets blame a COMPANY that wants to make money. What a joke.
Most of you people DON’T get it. This whole game is about making money, NOT spending countless hours making web standard websites. Face it, the Table tag will NEVER die!
So, you can sit around acting all high-and-mighty with your elitest ways, while I use MS technologies and make 10 times more money then you!! I will run laps around you with .NET and VS.NET!
June 20th, 2008 at 12:38 am
From OMFG…you really are an idoit…of course its going to be opposite..if they are not using IE and using ff /opera instead then it will be going up for them and down for IE you idoit! Think twice before you post.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:08 am
KCChiefs, making web standard websites doesn’t mean you should make less money, it’s exactly opossite. For example if you have valid HTML there’s less chance your site breaks in any browser. On the other hand with 500 validating errors it’s hard to find out why site is displaying wrongly and you spend more time with debugging your site and solving users feedback.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Web standards are good, free market capitalist economy is good. These two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. I want a competitive and healthy browser market, I don’t want a Microsoft or Firefox monopoly. Same applies to search as well.
- Sri
June 20th, 2008 at 1:52 am
@OMFG
To put what enormousrodent said a bit differently…
The graph is based on percentages over time. Therefore, if 80% of SitePoint visitors are using “other” browsers (Firefox, Opera, etc…) then it follows that the other 20% are using Internet Explorer.
Plotting such a trend in a graph of this fashion will resulting in plots that are directly opposite each other because any change in one plot will show an equal change in the other, but in the opposite direction. If IE usage increases by 20% then the “other” plot will show a 20% decrease.
If the graph broke all browsers of consequence into their own plots it would look much less suspect as the non-IE changes would be reflected across a variety of different plots. For example, if IE dropped 20$ you might see Firefox increase by 15%, Safari by 3.5% and Opera by 1.5%. You might even see a decrease among a couple of browsers with a cumulative increase in one browser.
d
June 20th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Unless you’re developing strictly for developers, I sadly don’t see IE going anywhere. It’s the default browser nearly all PCs purchased in a store. And for people – lots of people – who don’t know what a browser is, much less Firefox or Opera…IE will remain a staple. So if you’re developing for any site that aims at any remote sort of gregariousness, IE will be a grim reality for some time.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Thanks for all your comments, there is certainly some interesting opinions. I think enough’s been said about why the two graphs mirror each other, but for those interested, in the last few months the ‘other browsers’ group is made up of 85% Firefox, 9% Safari, 4% Opera and 2% everything else.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Ok, first off, i think the graph is a phony (i could make that in Flash), also to the ppl who are hot for sitepoint, your opinion doen’t matter. I however have stumbled upon this seemingly interesting article only to find out what a complete waste of time it was for me to read it and skim all ur comments. I consider myself an average user and i don’t like change, neither does the rest of the world (Obama vs. Clinton). In conclution i am not voting one way of the other, if the way we see the World Wide Web changes so be it.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Even though the graph is biased, I definitely hope it’ll be a trend across all user groups in the near future.
I absolutely refuse to cater to anyone who can’t update their browser to a more decent software. In the end the more time I spend fixing MSs’ mistakes the more time and money I waste. So I don’t care how much revenue I’m loosing I have given up. Hopefully more of us are going to reach this point – so users have no option but to upgrade to a better browser.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am
If you design a website for a company and their users are people who can’t update their browser and have problems with the site, who are they going to complain to? Right… to the company (YOUR customer)? Good luck explaining your customer that the problem is their clients, who should learn how to update their browser, or switch to another one.
Whether web designers like it or not, IE will stick around for a loooong time. EVEN IF someday IE wasn’t distributed anymore, there would still be a lot of people using it for years. Unless they create websites for a very specific target (let’s say, web developers), most web designers cannot afford the luxury to refuse to cater for those un-savvy web users without risking to alienate their customers.
That doesn’t mean a website should show as perfectly in IE as in Firefox or Opera, but at least good enough so that most users can’t notice there are problems.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“I absolutely refuse to cater to anyone who can’t update their browser to a more decent software.”
I sincerely hope you’re not taking any business decisions based on that feeling.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
@Srirangan,
BINGO!!
June 20th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
To clarify: Obviously it would be stupid not to care about most of your visitors. More than 92% of visitors to my sites have IE.
What I was merely getting at was the fact that I’m beyond wasting my time tweaking everything to perfection for the mighty IE. So as long as it looks kinda similar and functions somewhat like its suppose to – I’m OK.
That’s what I have been doing lately and to be honest so far I’m happy with the outcome. Mind you I do not have any one to answer to and perhaps the reason why I do what I want.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Web/IT professionals while not the typical web surfer have a very significant influence on the rest. Don’t underestimate that.
I may be one Firefox/Opera user but being the IT expert among friends & family, I’ve “converted” countless people to non-IE browsers.
Being a sysadmin at work, I’ve argued the business case and installed Firefox on hundreds of PCs.
If no IT professional uses IE, you can be sure that the vast majority of web surfers won’t, either.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
@KCChiefs
Also drug dealing is about making money
As far as your notion of capitalism go, there is no difference between drug dealing and webdesign.
In reality:
doing websites following standards = valuable, professional work that takes care of the customers
doing websites the way KCChiefs does = slapping together a few shit pages and running away with some pocket money
With regard to SitePoint, these guys are a very notable example of a great capitalistic entreprise. Fighting worldwide illiteracy and making money. Bringing benefit to themselves and the whole society. We should be all grateful and you should be grateful too KCChiefs, because if you keep reading and start doing your homework you might end up being a better pro.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“Linear Equation” made me laugh. Slow day at the office?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
LOL yeah.
PS: Shayne, estimation and prediction falls under the domain of regression analysis which is a far more complex process than simple linear equations. You should take my word for it as I’ve spent most of the last 12 months developing enterprise level socio-economic indicators based estimation and analytical software tools for the United Nations. ;-)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
This is how the concept of absolute zero temperature came to be as well (extending a graph), but it has never been achieved. Deep Space doesn’t get any colder than about 3º Kelvin, and scientists in labs with quantum magnets and lasers have managed to cool stuff down to about one tenth of a billionth of a degree Kelvin. Very close, but not zero.
So despite it’s audience SitePoint will probably never see zero IE users either :)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
why would anyone believe that Sitepoint.com will exist in 2012?
This is merely a religious discussion…not a professional take on browser ‘wars’.
RC
June 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
Microsoft is really going downhill
June 21st, 2008 at 8:24 am
It could even be possible that some new technology will come around within the next 5 years to make all browsers extinct… I can’t wait for that…
June 21st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Let’s be realistic here. With ie8 being more standard-compliant that we dared hope for a year ago, there will soon really no point anymore in promoting firefox.
Honestly I’ve never really used firefox as a primary browser, its way to slow for me. Each time I try one firefox for serving sluggishness instantly ruins my mood.
Firefox 3 a a lot faster, not as fast as current 2 surfing browsers (Opera/Avant) but possibly usable enough to become my new main browser. (gotta love the plugins).
June 21st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I think the desktop browser will be nearly extinct by 2013.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 am
i’ll be the first to cheer if ie dies!
June 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 am
i will go with asmith1 on his prediction of the ‘demise’ of the browser as we know it.
it should be possible to layout a web page as easily as one could layout a publication doc, utilizing some tool like Adobe InDesign, for ex. I am NOT talking Dreamweaver or GoLive.
No coding required would be the ideal target environment. The concept of separation of Content from Structure using CSS is a marginal improvement over the table-based model for layouts, but the differences in browser rendering remain a time-consming and awkward situation for which to attend.
As you all know, browser incompatabilities disappear with the use of FLASH, FLASH Remoting to build robust web pages. Now there are APIs to provide real-time linkages within Flash to CFM, .NET back-ends. Still a lot of potential there for buggy interfaces.
Are we ever satisfied with the level of tech tools? I started to discover computers back in the late 1970’s by fooling with Z80 (8-bit) Assembler. I am astonished by the techno leaps of PC hardware, while dissapointed in the evolution of the SW.I think that the algorithms for building solid web pages exist, but the implementation is lacking.
END OF RANT
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Until monopoly prevails we can’t expect improvements. It is a great thing that free sources are coming up with improved tools. It is happening now to internet explorer. It will be good to end users, if every field has atleat 3 good competitors.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:17 am
First off, I am a FF user but….
You’re comparing IE to EVERYONE else. To get a real sense of what is trying to be said I think you would need a graph with the four main browsers Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari on it. And compare them side by side to see what type of market share IE is actually losing.
Again, I am not an IE lover, just would rather see a fair comparison. IMO, IE will never die. It comes standard on millions of PC’s and millions of users don’t know anything about browsers besides how to click on the “E” on their desktop.
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:54 am
Funny! 99% of all my clients have never heard of Mozilla or Opera and the ones that do use Moz. or Opera consistently, own a Mac. I don’t forsee IE going away anytime soon unless Microsoft completely abandons it for something else.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am
I would much rather see a graph of the number of IE browsers in use. I suspect even with the % going down, the number of IE browsers would be stable at worst.
Most people would use whatever browser their computer comes with, IE won’t ever die out.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
@ Dave Lens…
Speak for yourself. I’ve been a professional web designer/developer for over a decade and IE 6 (and now IE7) is my primary choice of browser.
I use it because I like it, it loads really fast, it has almost all the features I need, etc.
If I need to debug javascript, then I drop into Firefox to use Firebug. If I need to check my work for HTML/JS AIR apps, then I open Safari.
But I choose IE because it’s got what I need.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Oh my God! That is too far away :)
June 24th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The sooner IE dies out completely, the better.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
At our shop we find that most of our high profile clients still use IE-6, not the progressive developers, end users, etc., but the higher ups who hold the purse strings. Those are the people who resist change, don’t want new computers, and don’t let IT mess with their browsers. In our company the top level copywriters also use IE-6. Our end users as measured by our metrics department has a far different profile than most web statistics sites like W3C (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp) that shows FireFox in the majority. I’m just happy we dropped Flash 7 support, I was hoping to drop IE-6 at the end of the year but now it looks like we’ll be testing IE-6 for some time.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:03 am
your stats are inaccurate because this site is tech related. If you look at the stats for say cooking.com im sure a lot more people would be using IE.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am
@Srirangan, Ade, spence_noodle, KCChiefs, Chris, ljastangs21
{
The article did not claim that Sitepoint’s visitors represent the internet as a whole.
Sitepoint knows this site caters to a tech audience. This is not a new insight, it’s frekin’ obvious!
The first sentance of the post (in bold) makes it clear that visitors to sitepoint.com are the subject of the statement.
Shayne did not make any statement about IE usage on the rest of the internet.
}
June 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
@cranial-bore – yep that’s right, this is all about sitepoint.com – a early opting tech related site. You can take from this post what you like, I take it as an early warning of things to come – This and the fact that so many of my anti-technology friends are asking me if I use Firefox (mainstream here we come).
Just a note on the statistical approach — yes using a straight line very simple way to look at it. But not having hours and hours to pour over the stats, this quick and dirty method gave an interesting outcome that I felt worth sharing. I had no idea would prompt this sort of response.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
OK. Read the headline. Then read my original comment. My only complaint was the misleading headline of this post.
I won’t even come to the “linear equation – estimate graph” portion. That’s just a straight line drawn (probably in MSPaint) which holds no meaning whatsoever.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
it’s not a MSPaint drawn straight line – it uses best-fit ‘y = mx + c’ equation using daily data for the entire period.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:22 am
>> best-fit ‘y = mx + c’ equation
That is a single variate equation for a straight line. You just proved my point. Your estimation graph is flawed, you have just drawn a straight line – extending the median slope. Predictions are never straight lines, they are usually regression curves based on the weighted analysis models.
With a single source and by only extending its slope, I don’t think you should be making vast generalizations about “extinction by 2013″ or whatever, that is if you want to be taken seriously of course.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Your graphs do not surprise me. I believe a turning point was reached with the release of IE7 when we all finally realized that, despite all the hype, Microsoft just was not at all serious about web standards. Instead of looking to the future, they wallow in the past, afraid to break compatibility. I guess they don’t comprehend that any website designed for all browsers would be designed first for compatibility with standards, and then tweaked to make it work in IE. If they simply make IE standards compliant, all standards compliant websites will work in it.
They may have one last chance with IE8. We shall see.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
This is a trend that I have not needed any graph to spot. Not only are a lot of my clients abandoning IE but Microsoft themselves. Yes, MS has every right to make money in a capitalistic society. They even have every right to try for a monopoly (actually, as Robin Williams said, “Monopoly’s just a game, we’re trying to take over the world!”) but it’s up to us as consumers to “vote with our wallets” and this is the language that MS understands. I don’t believe for a second that IE will die out. I don’t know that it will ever have less than 50% saturation for all the reasons mentioned above. But for all the bad things people say about the company they are and always have been one thing… Smart enough. That’s not a great compliment but it is a fact. In my humble opinion, they will spot this ever growing trend and begin to develop more standards compliant web browsers. Once they do this the likes of Firefox and Opera will probably begin to lose ground. The important thing though is that their purpose will have been served.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
KCChief – are you a complete idiot or do you like to pretend to be so horribly uneducated? Please do continue your decent into the bowels of Microsoft web technologies. This will allow the rest of us to have all the sites that actually generate real traffic and cashflow. I mean so what if all those MS technologies ONLY run in MSIE (well, at least attempt to most of the time). I mean if the majority are using something other than MSIE and can’t view all those pretty little bells and whistles MS technology web sites so what right? So you go right ahead and dive blindly into the MS wagon while I stick with my development for the rest of the world…
PS – Anyone here even remotely involved with an IT department in a large corporation kn9ows first hand most companies are only using MS technologies now because of ease of use and paid support. This too is changing, people are sick of spending $$$$$$$$ for their business when they can find something that works faster, harder, and better in opensource or not even open source just anything other than MS technology…
June 25th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I think the one thing that will reduce IE’s hold on the general population, is when they become more educated to the lack of CSS support from IE and people try to find out why their favourite site doesn’t render correctly in IE.
I regularly try to educate my clients into the benefits of Opera, Safari and Firefox mainly because sites work properly and you don’t have to add hacks or tweak your site so that it fits the clients IE system.
I had a discussion about an issue with a contact form I designed for a new site – looked great in everything but IE, I explained that the issue was with IE not my design. But to keep my client happy I had to alter the spacing so that it looked correct, this sort of thing drives me mad. Why can’t Microsoft stop being so darn anal about how great IE is and accept that it SUCKS big time and it isn’t CSS friendly.
I would agree that to loose IE totally isn’t good for the market, but I can see the strangle hold they have on the market being reduced as the non-techi public begin to see the benefits of the css compliant browsers. Heres to 2012!!
June 26th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Yes because the average person cares ever so dearly about the correct rendering of CSS on web browsers as per W3C standards.. indeed! /sarc
June 29th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Thank you for your writings….
I have translated it into Chinese and post in my blog..
Click here:http://www.copicosoft.cn/read.php/2.htm
IE would be the next NETSCAPE if the Microsoft has nothing done to solve the problem。。。
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
yes, IE will lose more users, but not extinct.
July 5th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
After vacillating between TABLE layouts and CSS style formatting i am still not comfortable with a purely either/or approach. So i utilize both-where appropriate.
Several interesting CSS instructional books on the market advise building complete web pages without resorting to the use of tables. They even encourage leaping ahead into CSS-3 syntax. This is fantasyland, because IE has a long way to go to become compliant with even CSS2.1; and it is still the dominant browser out there.
What to do?
I recommend using a good reference book-such as one that O’Reilly publishes-that lists every CSS element, selector, etc. along with the compatibility of each element in all the major browsers.
For simple 2 or even 3 column page layouts i will use CSS only-but the lack of IE compliance can ruin your day if you don’t have a handle on the support details.
RC
July 6th, 2008 at 5:07 am
In China, the most popular browser is Maxthon ,base on IE…
For Firefox,google pay the website owner for visitor downloading the FF,so it’s just like a virus flooding ,so google would cancel the plan in the next month…
For Opera,it offer a faster way to visit the web,may be it would instead of FF.Till now ,we use opera on the mobile
phone more than on pc….
July 6th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
You guys all need to get a life. You got into the web design business knowing the issues with IE – whichever version it is – so just do your job and shut the *@#! up. Or find another source of income. And I wish you would (most of you) learn how to spell and proofread!
August 18th, 2008 at 5:24 am
“OMFG” makes a point I don’t understand. Why point out that other browsers become more popular at an equal rate to that at which IE becomes less popular? Duh….. It would have to by definition, wouldn’t it?
“Rose” actually makes a pro-designing-for-IE argument that makes sense! If Internet Explorer is so bad, we should just stop writing code for it.
So, I have stopped writing code for it. Almost a year ago, in fact. Internet Explorer is ALREADY dead. Sites which NEED visitors, I make sure to send as text/html. For personal or noncommercial sites, I write code MY way, not the MS way. I like to write valid, well formed XML and serve it under an XML mime type.
I write one copy of each page, and give it one stylesheet. No hacks, no workarounds, nothing. IE may choke and fail, but all the other browsers get it right and that’s all that matters to me.
When I’m providing a service to everyone, I will at least explain to people that they need to upgrade their browser to view the content. It’s not a case of “You must be using browser X”, more a case of “You must not be using browser Y”.
Is web design about money? For some, yeah. Do you hate your job? If so, QUIT.
Web design is NOT about money. Web design is about the joy of creating something excellent.
Internet Explorer is a great handicap to this excellence and creativity. I celebrated its demise long ago.
October 30th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I am writing code for ie and firefox at the same time.
Firefox 3.0 erase some improvements of 2.x.
Ex: text-aling to center a page with div does nothing in ff 3, but is working in 2.x.
All my customers are using windows/ie, and i have not see any chanches. Windows + ie is more easy to learn and install for end users. My customers emploees know who to install xp, but does not now how to download linux, and less how to install it.
96% os people that i now, are xp users, and others are vista users.
Linux is my produtction environement. But not for development.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Hey,
The only reason MS give a crap about IE’s downfall is the lost advertising $$$ on that msn homepage that comes as default, every time a user opens their browser.
:)
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:15 am
IE should not be extinct in 2013 its not fair!!! Why do we have the IE to be Extinct??
April 24th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Come on ppl reply my comment plz! thxx
May 1st, 2009 at 11:39 pm