Throwing IE Overboard

georgeodowd

I spend a lot of time (too much time) at my job trying to make things work in IE. It's frustrating, it's annoying, it makes me feel horribly unproductive. But according to our stats, about 95% of users have it (sort of like a highly-contagious plague).
Now that I'm finally getting around to building my personal website, I don't want to lower my standards just to make sure IE users aren't looking at a pile of overlapping, misshapen text. I don't expect my website will have much traffic - it's a fairly niche market - but I also don't want to alienate all my prospective visitors (aka friends and family).
Should I just bite the bullet and make an IE-friendly site? Should I strap everyone I know down and force them to download Firefox? Should I make a big ugly popup for IE users in an attempt to steer them away from the evil?

Your thoughts, advice, IE-love/hate stories, etc. welcome.

GB

It is definitely tempting to stop support for IE. I understand your frustrations. However, we can't avoid the simple fact that most people still use it. So I propose making your main site for Firefox, and then making a stripped down version for IE. You can have links to download Firefox from every page letting the user know that for the best experience, they should download Firefox.

But I would only do the above on a personal website.

Phil

I'm with GB.
Bottom line, the vast majority of web surfers do not/ have not/ will not ever use anything other than Explorer. Sad but true.
But even if you make it for Firefox only, you still have Safari and Opera and whatever else is out there.
The best advice I've heard is make it right, then dumb it down for Explorer.

furtasacra

This is something I've wondered about, myself. I wish there was just a way to force Microslop to make their stupid, crappy browser conform to W3C standards.

I've decided, since I have a tiny personal website, I just don't care. I'm in the process of designing myself a custom Wordpress theme, and if the site validates, and it looks like crap in IE, that's just too bad. I don't have time to tweak code for an inferior product. Although putting a "Best Viewed With Anything Besides Internet Explorer" button ain't a bad idea.

LostOverThere

I've given up on Internet Explorer 6, I can't get my site to work in it at all its terrible.

furtasacra

Bengt

Internet Explorer, the source of so much frustration.
It's really a pain in the ass, but as long as so many people are using it, it's kinda normal that you try and make things work.

But if i were King of the internet: IE was no more Laughing

keane

I agree with you! IE is REALLY a major cause of frustration and even stress! Lol... I'm working on a design right now and I'm so pissed off because it appears differently on IE. Hope I can find a solution to it... Whew!