I just read an interesting article on the new browser war which contains a chilling prediction: “Make no mistake: Microsoft really hates the web… One of the purposes of Longhorn is to destroy the web as we know it”.

There’s a lot of talk around the web at the moment prompted by the news that Microsoft will no longer produce updates to their ubiquitous Internet Explorer (IE) web browser. At face value one could be forgiven for thinking that this is good news for the web and for anyone interested in seeing standards compliant browsers gain market share, there is however a more sinister story to be told. Microsoft’s decision to wait until the release of Longhorn (the next version of the Windows operating system) before updating IE could in fact be a terrible blow to the cause and to the freedom of the web.

If you don’t already know what’s so bad about IE, read on…

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in it’s various different flavors accounts for the vast majority of web browsers currently in use. The figures vary depending on who you’re talking to, but for an online shop I develop for, Internet Explorer accounted 88.8% of all visits this month. The rest of the traffic is made up primarily of Mozilla and it’s cousins (Firefox, Netscape, Camino, etc.) and Apple’s Safari web browser. So what does that mean for me? Well it makes things a bit trick that’s what it means. You see each of the browsers I’ve mentioned so far all have what can only be described as unique ‘personalities’. No two different browsers behave in exactly the same way, each have their own quirks and peculiarities, these differences make writing web pages that will work in the same way on all browsers nearly impossible, or at the least much more time consuming. What a pain. That said, all of these browsers attempt to conform to a set of standards, rules if you like, as to how they should behave, and how they should display the pages they read. As time goes by and the developers improve and revise their browsers these standards are becoming more reliable, and increasingly a web developer can write their pages to the rules of a given standard and know that the page will work in all the major web browsers out there, with one exception that is, Microsoft Internet Explorer.

IE has far more oddities and eccentricities than any other major web browser out there. It is without doubt less compliant with the W3C standards than any other browser. It is also, as a direct result of being included with every install of Microsoft Windows, the most popular browser by far, and this creates a massive problem. As a designer and developer I have to spend extra time making sure that my pages work on all browsers which means testing every page on both Internet Explorer and a clutch of more compliant browsers. Certain code that runs perfectly on all compliant browsers has to be rewritten in an entirely different way for Internet Explorer, and some functionality simple doesn’t exist within IE. The result of all this are buggy pages, less features, less content, and more confusion. Everybody loses, perhaps most of all the end user.

Aside from lacking certain basic page features such as semi-transparent PNG graphics, IE also lacks many useful ‘user’ features, such as tabbed browsing, pop-up window blocking, enhanced security and much more. Developers and users alike have long petitioned Microsoft to include some of these features in IE as well as improving support for web standards. The response from Microsoft has not been encouraging, and now we discover that they will never release another version of IE for Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, or XP. XP users may get some security ‘enhancements’ as part of a XP security upgrade in the next year, but that’s your lot. To experience the next version of Microsoft’s web browser you’ll have to pay for Longhorn, and for Longhorn you’ll almost certainly have to buy a new computer. Of course that won’t be for a while, but when it does happen existing IE users better be prepared to become second class citizens as Microsoft continue to create their own ’standards’, or cough up for an entirely new system.

So what can you do? It’s not like you have a choice right? Wrong! You can save yourself today by making the switch to a different browser, it’s easier than you think. There are several web browser already out there that are better than IE, and what’s more, they’re FREE. You can experience tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, better security, customisable interfaces and more. By installing a different browser on your machine you have a choice, it won’t remove IE and you can still use IE whenever you want to, just as you normally would, but you’ll also have the option of using another browser, a better browser.

If you’re a Windows user you have several very good options, but the one I’d recommend would be Firefox from Mozilla. It’s fast, it’s more secure, it has pop-up blocking, a huge array of plug-ins and it is highly customisable. Firefox is also available for every other major OS including Linux and Mac OS X. Apple users will probably want to choose the excellent Safari as their main browser, but keeping a copy of Firefox, Mozilla, or Camino on your machine is also not a bad idea.

Whichever browser you choose just remember this quote from the article mentioned at the beginning of this entry “Microsoft really hates the web”, and you’re a web user aren’t you?

MORE READING: dog or higher: Plus ca change

Posted in Ramblings