Browser Wars 2010

Microsoft has been trying very hard to restore its status as king of browsers. So has it worked? Would I switch to using Internet Explorer 9?

Not at this moment. Even today I still suffer from what I call IE-itis. Whenever I create a webpage, I need to test it on four browsers.

  • Firefox (or Google Chrome or Apple's Safari or Opera)
  • Internet Explorer 8
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6

99% of the time, if my webpage renders correctly on Firefox, it also renders correctly on Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera. I can be sure that most of the time, it all works even without strenuous testing.

99% of the time, my webpage still DOES NOT render correctly on ANY version of Internet Explorer. Worse still, my webpage appears different on IE6, IE7 and IE8. I essentially have to treat each version of Internet Explorer as a different browser and test against every single version. It slows down my work.

Until Internet Explorer fixes all its rendering bugs and most of the world stops using IE6, IE7 and IE8, I won't ever trust IE enough to use it for my daily web surfing.