Unlike the early days of web development there are now standards practiced when building websites. The closer a web browser adheres to these standards the easier it is to develop, update and maintain a website. Browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome have all made great strides in becoming standards compliant. Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer (IE), unfortunately, has had a pretty bad track record when it comes to this topic. Ask any web developer which browser has given them the most headaches over the past several years and I bet the majority, if not all, answer IE version 6 (IE6) – released back in 2001.
Why anyone in today’s online world would still insist on using a web browser over 7 years old is beyond me. Let’s add a little perspective here. The average American will upgrade their vehicle every 5 to 8 years, so by this account if you are using IE6 you might have owned two cars since it’s inception. Pretty sad when you consider the cost to upgrade a browser is literally nothing compared to the amount you would spend on a new car.
What I am driving at here (no pun intended) is that some people do not take their online experience as seriously as they should. The web has changed dramatically in just the past two years, let alone the past seven. Would you expect your seven year old car to run as reliable or efficient as a new one? No, of course not. Then why would one expect a cutting-edge “Web 2.0” website (more on this topic later) to work in an outdated, non-standards compliant browser?
You can check if your browser is standards compliant by taking the Acid2 test (www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html) developed by the Web Standards Project (WaSP) back in 2005. If the version of your browser doesn’t smile at this test then it is imperative you either upgrade to a version that can, or change your browser altogether. The bad news for Microsoft is that their first release of IE to pass this test is version 8, which is still in beta! Users that insist on using IE should, at the very least, upgrade to version 7 until 8 becomes available.
Too much effort has been exhausted developing sites that will still work in non-compliant browsers. If we continue catering to the few percent of users who are too lazy or ignorant to upgrade to the latest strain of standard compliant browsers then we will be hindering the growth of the web. Websites can do a lot of cool and powerful things these days, so let’s focus our resources on the future and stop wasting time and money trying to make that old, gas-guzzling SUV run as smooth and efficient as a brand-new hybrid.
Jeff Jonjevic, Web Developer
