Why would someone use IE6???
Are you using a certain browser from a certain company in Redmond? IE6 or the likes?
Then you must be wondering about several things while surfing this site (and other sites as well...)
Problem #1:
Graphics with Shadow Effects and Transparency
Maybe you wonder why I would put a nice looking graphic on the navigator, but would
leave a square around it, with a different color than the rest of the background?
Well, no need to wonder anymore! I am not doing that, IE does. It's because IE is
not capable of rendering a
.PNG (a file like .JPG or .GIF) file correctly, that uses the
Alpha Channel.
IE can only display PNGs properly, that use 8bit-transparency (so we're restricted to the
same 'wealth' of colors as in a GIF), plus the 8-bit PNG doesn't support Alpha-Transparency.
The standard for png files is an official W3C standard (W3C being the official organ
that sets the standards for the Internet) since 1996, and it's asking a bit too much
of a company to make its browser use a '96 standard in the year 2005, right?
Well, why would someone use PNGs anyway, since GIF does everything just as well,
right? Wrong!
PNG and GIF both have a lot in common seen from the user-standpoint, but there are two
big differences. GIF can do animated pictures (which should be the only reason to use
GIFs) and PNG offers
24bit pictures (full color) with alpha transparency.
And THAT is neat!
What' s the practical point? Well, I could use a GIF with the background of the image
set to transparent, right? Wrong again, it would look like this:
doesn't look really nice, huh?
The edge is not smooth. That' s because I didn't tell the graphics program which
background color to use, to smooth the edges. Smooth edges means that the color of the
graphic is slowly changing from the color of the edge of the graphic ( copper) to the
color of the background (in this case the light greenish). How mean of me, I am
cheating, why don't I do that then? Well, to tell a graphic to do that (adjusting it's
color to the background it is on), that exactly is what Alpha Transparency is about!
People who use GIFs have a workaround: They just make the graphic HAVE the color of
the background already.
Like so:
"Hey! Now that's it! It looks perfect. Just like your stupid PNG! So you have no
reason to use your fancy PNG!" Right? Wrong! Imagine, webpages actually might
change the background! Like when you go to Lisas page. She loves COLORS. So?
Look at your neat GIF when it's used on Lisas page settings:
And that would be the other variant that a lot of people use: Insist on the shadow and
just keep a frame in the color of the background around the image
For your information: I am using the very same graphic (a copper picture with an alpha-
channeled shadow and transparency) in my graphics program to generate the different GIF
variants in all three boxes, I just changed the background color of the boxes. So you
see, that doesn't work. Again, it's the problem with GIFs, they cannot just store how to
change the edge of the graphic, they have to have the colors fixed, and one has to put
the planned background color already into the graphic to have nice shadow effects.
Transparency doesn't help, as soon as the background color (or a background graphic)
changes, it might look just horrible.
So, I guess you see now, that there is indeed a need for PNGs. Apart from the real
practical/technical reason why to use PNGs (only not for animated images as I said
before), there is a
second reason,
which has to do with a company holding a patent on the packing algorhytm that is used
for GIFs, and that company is abusing this to squeeze money out of website owners...
Oh, btw, there is a
workaround
for the Win/IE browser (Mac/IE can do it anyway, since
it has only the name in common with Win/IE), provided by the company that wrote this
browser. It's a typical thing. Complicated, big, and most of all not according to the
official standards. So why should I go to pains installing workarounds just to make a
program work properly that is not standard compliant? Go and get a
real browser!
This is how the different backgrounds work together with PNGs on a real (standard-
compliant) browser. I had to make a JPG out of screen copies to show, since it doesn't
work on your Win/IE. Darn.
Problem #2:
Wide gaping security holes (just listing a few neat ones, there are more)
Everyone knows about the terrible security holes that IE has (in conjunction with the mailprogram from the same company - Outbook or so).
I am not going to talk alot about those, I just provide some links, that everyone who is using IE should read.
Problem #3:
IE doesn't even know how to spell Shdandart
There are a lot of useful standards out there to help developing good web pages. One of the most important one is
CSS. IE does support it - somehow.
One important CSS2 command is "content", that let's me do among other things automated numbering. Go to my DVDs and look in wonder (if you use IE) how you can NOT see the numbering in the leftmost column.
I got another really BAD bug to put on this list
☺
A question for our friends from the wet islands, and to those guys across the big pond: Ever heard of those funny european
languages with Umlauts and all that stuff? You know, like
ü or
á or
ø? Well, since the 1st of May 2004
those Umlauts are finally allowed in URLs in Germany, and the other countries have them or will get them, too!
Oh well, you can't - if you are using IE. Won't work. But it does work in Opera and in Firefox (the Mozilla Browser). Sure it does!
☺
And here's
another neat bug for you: It's about using floating elements and what may come out when using links in them.
IE is terribly old. It's really amazing to me that people still use such an old piece of software and think everything has to measure up to it.
Which version of IE is the recent one? Ummm, version 6 I think. And which version was the latest one in, say, 2001? Oh? Also version 6?
Amazing. There was IE v5, IE v5.1, IE v5.5, updates, new features, the browser was evolving, just as the web itself was evolving, just
as the
web standards were evolving. And now people (still around 90% use IE, and most the 'latest' (ha-ha) version 6)
think it's okay to have the same browser for years. Here's an interesting article in the New York Times...
The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)
Bill Gates must have been reading this page here :-)
Why would someone use IE7???
The saga continues... With the announcement of IE7, hopes went high in the web developer world (and in the tiny little world of informed
web users), that MS would finally do something about IE and make it web standards compatible, up-to-date and open to the idea of internet
(access for all, users, O/S'es, browsers...). Alas, once more, IE seems to want to cook its own soup again, not even trying to catch up
with the present day web standards.
IE 7.0 Technical Changes Leave Web Developers, Users in the Lurch
Why would someone use IE8???
Deja-vu for free: The saga continues... With the announcement of IE8, hopes went high in the web developer world (and in the tiny little world of informed
web users), that MS would finally do something about IE and make it web standards compatible, up-to-date and open to the idea of internet
(access for all, users, O/S'es, browsers...). Alas, once more, IE seems to not get it right.
It can't even understand a
NOSCRIPT-Tag with CSS changing its looks.
To compensate that, I am forcing IE8 into IE7-mode (called compatibility mode).
