What’s Wrong with the web browser Internet Explorer (IE)?
Internet Explorer is the most widely-used web browser in the world. Most people use it simply because it’s the only web browser they have on their computer. They aren’t aware that they have other choices such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome and few more.
So when they want to check their e-mail, or get driving directions, or watch a video, or go on Facebook, what do they do? They fire up Internet Explorer and away they go. So what’s the problem?
Well, there are actually three major problems:
- Internet Explorer is insecure and unsafe.
- Internet Explorer is much slower than other web browsers.
- With Internet Explorer, things often don’t look the way they should.
Although the first two points in the above list are important, this article focuses on the third point. Being a webmaster and creating websites since years, I've seen so many simple pages looking wrong in Internet Explorer, but looking right in Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome:
Please note that there are plenty of problems with this web browser. The point of the page is to make it easy for the average person to see the problems. For a much more technical and exhaustive list of problems in Internet Explorer, feel free to visit few of the webmaster's forums online and do a research with the keywords "Internet Explorer" on their websites. You'll see that's not only a bunch of Anti Internet Explorer raising a conspiracy about Microsoft. On the professional side (Webmasters, Programers, Web Designers), the nightmare "Internet Explorer" is well know since always and you can even find websites using a nice processing to show to a webmaster how its creation is going to look on 5 or 6 different versions of the beast IE. No kidding, see here what I'm talking about.
Why is Internet Explorer so different from other web browsers?
For whatever reason, Microsoft (the maker of Internet Explorer) decided to program Internet Explorer in such a way that it breaks many important rules of the web set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
What is Microsoft doing to fix Internet Explorer?
Microsoft is still developing the next version of Internet Explorer, which aims to be more compliant with the rules of the web. The sad part of it is that any new version coming it’s still far from perfect. Even when all the tests are done and the final product finished, it still has many flaws.
What should I do?
You could cross your fingers and hope that maybe one of those days, Internet Explorer version 576,234,xxx ends up being a good web browser, but I highly doubt that will ever happen. I recommend immediately switching to Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Google Chrome. That way you can surf the web much more securely, much more quickly, and with the confidence that you’re seeing the websites the way that they were intended to be seen.
Be aware that there are still some websites that require Internet Explorer. If you happen to run into one of those specific websites, go ahead and use Internet Explorer for that website, but don’t use it for anything else.
Make a change now, see the web as it was built to show and enjoy lot of features and/or designs you are actually more than likely missing. You'll be glad you did ;-)
