Wow! Fantastic write up. I feel your pain!

And you're right about writing work-arounds for [bold]3[/bold] buggy browsers!

I can't believe how screwed up IE is STILL! I think you're ABSOLUTELY right. They need to build from the ground up, and that means starting with a GOOD rendering engine. FF is compliant in the 90% range... If IE could even get to around 85% I'd be happier. I'm glad I only program backends with PHP now. We hired someone to do CSS for me which helped to get rid of most of my head-aches, but Javascript is still a pain sometimes.

So let me get this right.... Neither IE6 hacks, or IE7 hacks, or standards compliant code will work as expected on IE8? Given the large number of people still using IE6 because the IE6 hacks break on IE7, adding another bastard stepchild to the family is going to make this even worse. Microsoft, you suck at the internet.

Love The Homer. :)

The only time I use Internet Explore is when downloading Firefox

This article is reminiscent of my ex, all ways whining and complaining about projects that aren’t even done yet. So I'll just say it again... be patient sweet heart, the mud is still wet on the drywall... Once it's dry and painted then it will look pretty.

... Dude ... IE8 already has pr0n-mode ... Ultra-win~

I work at a IT support company. Sometimes I install FireFox randomly on a clients PC, but don't set it as default browser. I just hope that the user notices an orange icon on the desktop and click on it, mess around inside and be converted. It also helps with tech support calls later to test why the "internet is broken".

IE is crappy, but it doesn't suck a tenth as much as AOL...

Where does Internet Explorer make money for MS? Outside of mozilla-style deals with google (which defeats Live Search), there's no revenue stream there.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to spin off IE into a separate company or non-profit foundation, have it compete with FF on those grounds? Nothing about that would require MS to open up the source code of IE as far as i can see.

Of course, this all depends on how tightly integrated IE is to Windows.

The headline seems incomplete without ", despite all that is said around." :-P

Bill Gates is on record as saying that new features are more important than bug fixes. I guess MS still follows that philosophy, even though Gates isn't involved in day-to-day operations any more...

MS won't let 3rd parties run rampant or have an open system like FF does. Thats just another way for spyware and virus writers to infiltrate the system.

"Click here to install the smiley add-on!"

so what browser should I use... Opera or firefox

The browser is considerably faster, and anyone could notice that. Some problems hamper it, but it already looks pretty good in that regard.

It's very reliable too, as far as bare stability goes. They've improved on that aspect a lot as well.

The only thing where you're right is standards compliance and bugs. Everyone will agree that it's buggy. I like Microsoft, but I'm not an idiot, I know this thing has more than a few bugs, some particularly annoying, too.
The developers work a bit slow, considering Microsoft's resources and all, but you can't deny that they've come a long way since the last beta (which was only meant to prepare developers for new features, and not for day-to-day (or even weekly) use at all).

I don't care if they fill it with fluff instead of finishing the engine first - I'll let them do it in whatever order they please, they can finish components and only then kill bugs for all I care, as long as the finished product looks like beta 2 sans the bugs. I like the look&feel a lot, y'see.

"What's worse, those features add a kind of visual noise that makes IE8 feel like an incoherent mashup of buttons, menu items, and icons."

I could almost swear you were talking about Vista there. So IE8 will fit right in ;-)

IE has been such a thorn in my side as a web designer, i can't even begin to describe it. All the workarounds that are necessary to get certain functionality to work has in many cases forced me to leave out cool features because i would break my budget having to code a site twice.

MSFT, please just drop the BS and put out a simple standards compliant browser . . . I'll be your best friend!

With FF3 working so well, I don't really feel I'm missing anything as far a browsers go.

IE bloated up long ago and they refuse to put it on a diet.

Beta or not, it blows hard. Don't bother unless you're a sadist.

Long since stopped caring what websites look like. FF lets me render the web as *I* want it to be rendered. Good enough for me. But yeah I sympathize with developers. My brother hates coding for IE as well.

Is that a render, or can you actually buy a die-cast model of that thing?

Microsoft is the reason why I'm glad that I don't have to do web programming anymore for now :)

Agree 100 % Cyril

I've spent most of today messing around with layouts that render fine in EVERY browser I can find EXCEPT IE variants, which further compound their crimes by having each different version mess up the pages in new and exciting ways.

IE8 manages to improve on this by providing three different levels of abject failure.

It is getting to the point where I am *dreading* IE8s release and the masses of problems it is going to cause across multiple sites because neither the IE6 mode, IE7 mode nor 'standards' mode will render correctly pages that work in every other browser + have IE6/IE7 workarounds.

The analogy of IE8 to the Homer had me laughing pretty hard. This had to be the last thing I expected on the front page of TR.

Errr, shouldn't this be a blog post and not a news post?